2. FOOD ENVIRONMENTANDOBESITY 2
Food Environment and Obesity
The article I have selected to analyze for my final project is "Food Environments and Obesity:
Household Diet Expenditure Versus Food Deserts," written by Danhong Chen, Ph.D., Edward C.
Jaenicke, Ph.D., and Richard J. Volpe, Ph.D.
This article aims to examine the relationship between obesity and other food environments
aspects both at home and in the neighborhood (Volpe et al., 2016). This study focuses on how
the individual's health is influenced by familial and social relationships, social and economic
trends, and environmental contingencies, not only genetic and biological functions and
predisposing factors (Al Amin & Makarem, 2016). In this research, therefore, the investigation
focus on how obesity and overweight are influenced by the following factors: Individual factors
such as age, individual behavior responses and gender, factors at the individual-level including
ethnicity, race, education, home food environment measures, and income, and factors at
neighborhood level including food store densities at county-level, rates of poverty, metro status,
and a census track-level specific for food desert status indicator as it is defined by the US
Department of Agriculture's (USDA).
The research questions in this study were focused on individual-level variables. Household-level
variables were directly accessed from the consumer panel. The research questions were based on
diet features and were constructed from 7 Med Profiler questions (White & Glazier, 2011). The
dietary features' responses were coded to either yes (as 1) or no (0).
This study was designed to examine how individual behaviors, households, and neighborhood-
level were linked to individuals' obesity status. By controlling the confounder numbers at the
household, neighborhood, and individual levels, USDAScore was linked negatively to obesity.
4. FOOD ENVIRONMENTANDOBESITY 4
Al-Amin, M., & Makarem, S. C. (2016). The effects of hospital-level factors on patients' ratings
of physician communication. Journal of Healthcare Management, 61(1), 28-41.
Chen, D., Jaenicke, E. C., & Volpe, R. J. (2016). Food environments and obesity: household diet
expenditure versus food deserts. American journal of public health, 106(5), 881-888.
White, H. L., & Glazier, R. H. (2011). Do hospitalist physicians improve the quality of inpatient
care delivery? A systematic review of the process, efficiency, and outcome measures.
BMC medicine, 9(1), 58.
