How living in a safe area could help you lose weight

By Alice Clifford via SWNS

Living in a safe area has a bigger impact on weight than living near a gym or grocery shop, a new study finds.

Factors such as bad street lighting, loitering youths and heavy traffic were all linked to the inability of residents to lose weight.

While lifestyle interventions, such as diet and exercise programs, can play an important role in addressing obesity, little is known about the effect of a neighborhood on weight loss.

To find out more a new study investigated 122 people living with obesity. Of these, 74.6 percent were women who had an average BMI of 39.

Each person took part in a lifestyle intervention where they took on dietary advice and had exercise and cognitive behavioral therapy.

The team looked at the link between neighborhood characteristics and changes in waist circumference and weight over a one-and-a-half-year period.

Before they started the program, the participants completed a questionnaire that assessed their neighborhood’s characteristics. They focused on five key factors and scored each one.

The first was neighborhood safety. This looked at how afraid people were of crime or harassment while walking in their area and how safe they felt while walking or cycling due to heavy traffic.

The category also indicated whether there was sufficient street lighting during the evening and at night and took into consideration loitering youths.

Next, they looked at neighborhood attractiveness. Here they noted the presence of trees and parks and whether the area was clean and tidy.

They also focused on social cohesion. This category studied the feeling of loneliness while in the neighborhood, how people interacted together and whether people in the area were willing to help each other.

Finally, the last two factors were access to a grocery store and to sports facilities.

Height and waist circumference were measured before the start of the program, after 10 weeks and a year and a half later.

They found that people in safer neighborhoods lost the most weight and their waist circumference got smaller after 10 weeks and by the end of the program.

A one-point increase in the neighborhood safety score was linked with 1.3 percent greater initial weight loss after the first 10 weeks.

While a one-point increase over the long term for neighborhood safety was associated with an average decrease of 3.2 percent in weight and an average drop of 2.6 percent in waist circumference.

Boëlle Brouwer, from the University Medical Center Rotterdam in the Netherlands, said: “Remarkably, these findings were independent of sex, age and educational level.

“There are several possible reasons why neighborhood safety is important.

“People may be less willing to go outside if they feel unsafe, resulting in them having less physical activity.

“Another explanation could be that feelings of insecurity increase levels of stress which can contribute to unhealthy eating behavior and weight gain.

“We also cannot rule out that neighborhood safety is associated with other factors, e.g. poverty, which may be important for the association we found.”

The study also revealed that a one-point increase in social cohesion tended to give an average decrease of 1.3 percent in waist circumference during the initial 10 weeks.

Ms. Brouwer said: “In general, it is known that social cohesion can provide social support and motivation to participants.

“Feeling connected to and supported by people in your surroundings can increase adherence to healthy behaviors and improve overall outcomes of lifestyle interventions.”

No other significant associations were found between social cohesion and weight and waist circumference.

However, there was a potential link between neighborhood attractiveness and long-term weight loss and waist circumference changes.

Ms. Brouwer said: “Our results indicate that if you feel unsafe where you live, it may reduce your chances of successful weight loss in response to combined lifestyle interventions.

“We need more research to determine how neighborhood safety may affect weight and waist circumference and if feelings of safety are linked to other factors such as housing, stress or poverty.”

Study co-author, Professor Elisabeth van Rossum, who is also from the University Medical Center Rotterdam, added: “We often focus on individuals in the context of a lifestyle intervention for persons with obesity.

“In this study, we found indications that the social and physical environment they live in may play a role in the success of the intervention, although we need more research to see whether this is causally related.

“If it turns out that these environmental and social factors indeed are drivers of the success of a guided lifestyle intervention, then we need to study to what extent this also applies to individuals who try to lose weight by themselves.”

The study was presented at the European Congress on Obesity which runs between 17-20 May in Dublin, Ireland.