Junk Food Accessibility After 10 Years of a Restrictive Food Environment Zoning Policy Around Schools

Zoning has been proposed as a way of reducing unhealthy food access for youth, but little research has evaluated outcomes of proposed or existing junk food bans, and even less research has considered equity implications of such zoning policies. In this simulation study, set in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario (Canada), we examined how secondary student access to fast food restaurants and convenience stores would change under such a policy over 10 years in a mid-sized Canadian municipality. Outcomes are presented by school-level advantage (derived from the proportion of students in equity-deserving subgroups: low income, students who speak English as an additional language, and students not born in Canada). Current fast food restaurant and convenience store access was higher around schools with a higher proportion of equity-deserving students, and access remained higher around these schools even after 10 years under each policy scenario. After 10 years, the mean number of fast food restaurants and convenience stores within a 1-km network distance still exceeded five unhealthy outlets for both disadvantaged and advantaged schools, which was above the threshold associated with lower junk food consumption among youth. These findings bring into question the potential effectiveness and equity implications of restrictive zoning policies aimed at protecting youth from poor-quality food environments

Development of a teen-informed coding tool to measure the power of food advertisements

The food-related information environment, comprised of food and beverage advertising within one’s surroundings, is a growing concern for adolescent health given that food marketing disproportionately targets adolescents. Despite strong public interest concerning the effects of food marketing on child health, there is limited evidence focused on outdoor food advertising in relation to teenage diets, food purchasing, and perceptions. Further, limited research has considered both the exposure to and influence of such advertisements. This study used a novel multi-method approach to identify and quantify the features of outdoor food and beverage advertisements that are most effective at drawing teenagers into retail food establishments. An environmental audit of outdoor advertisements and consultations with youth were used to: (1) identify teen-directed food marketing techniques; (2) validate and weigh the power of individual advertising elements; and, (3) develop a teen-informed coding tool to measure the power of food-related advertisements. Results indicate that marketing power is a function of the presence and size of teen-directed advertisement features, and the relative nature of each feature is an important consideration. This study offers a quantitative measurement tool for food environment research and urges policymakers to consider teen-directed marketing when creating healthy communities

Comparing Household and Individual Measures of Access through a Food Environment Lens: What Household Food Opportunities Are Missed When Measuring Access to Food Retail at the Individual Level?

Geographers and public health researchers have long been interested in social, spatial, and economic factors that drive access and exposure to food retail. A growing body of evidence draws on mobility data to capture locations accessed by individuals beyond the home address. Given that food-related activities are shared by household members and often gendered, taking an individual-level approach might limit researchers’ ability to accurately describe access to food retail. Using data that includes Global Positioning System trajectories of forty-six adults from twenty-one households in Toronto, this study compares access to food retailers at the individual and household levels and evaluates measurement issues that arise when relying on one household member. Spatial and spatiotemporal measures of access were derived from individual and total household activity spaces. Differences in access were tested for men and women and moderating effects of neighborhood, shopping responsibility, car access, and employment status were investigated. Supermarket density was greater for women when compared with men in the household, as well as their total household measure. Additionally, within-household differences in counts of supermarkets were moderated by neighborhood. Future research should consider the role of place and the contributions of household members when measuring access to food at the individual level

Intentional tanning among adolescents in seven Canadian provinces: Provincial comparisons (CRAYS 2015)

The final publication is available at Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2018.03.004 © 2018. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This report explores intentional tanning behaviors among Canadian high school students in light of provincial restrictions on UV tanning device use among youth. Data are from the Cancer Risk Assessment in Youth Survey (CRAYS), collected from January to December 2015, at randomly selected high schools in 7 provinces. Relevant variables were: tanning methods ever used, demographics, and location and refusal of UV tanning device (beds, lamps) use in the past 12 months. Data were weighted so total survey weights by male/female, grade and province equal actual enrolments in these groups. Analyses were conducted in SAS, mostly for grades 10 and 11. Rao-Scott chi squared tests and p-values were calculated. Among 6803 grade 10 and 11 participants, 82% tanned intentionally, mostly by being/playing outside, or laying in the sun. Spray/self-tanners were used by 15% of participants. UV tanning device use was uncommon (4.4%), lowest in Ontario (2.7%) and British Columbia (3.8%), which have legislation against use among youth. Of 202 who used UV tanning devices in the past 12 months, most did at salons/studios (85%), 35% at home and 30% at a gym. Two hundred and forty-nine participants (3.4%) were refused use of UV tanning devices in the past 12 months. While legislation appears to deter UV tanning device use, it appears to have no impact on UV exposure among high school students overall. Greater prevention efforts are required to deter intentional tanning among high school students.Prevention Research Grant of the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute (grant #703073)Canadian Institutes of Health Research - Institute of Cancer Research (grant #137732

A Nationally Representative Analysis of Trends in Socioeconomic Inequities in Diet Quality Between 2004 and 2015 Among Adults Living in Canada

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Current Developments in Nutrition following peer review. The version of record [Olstad, D., Nejatinamini, S., Victorino, C., Kirkpatrick, S., Minaker, L., & McLaren, L. (2021). A Nationally Representative Analysis of Trends in Socioeconomic Inequities in Diet Quality Between 2004 and 2015 Among Adults Living in Canada. Current Developments in Nutrition, 5(Supplement_2), 1074. https://doi.org/10.1093/cdn/nzab053_067 ] is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/cdn/nzab053_067Diet quality is a key determinant of chronic disease and shares a similar socioeconomic patterning. Inequities in diet quality are stable or widening in the US, however these trends have not been examined in other nations. Moreover, prior US studies only examined differences in diet quality between the most and least disadvantaged groups in absolute terms. Quantifying trends in relative terms and along the full socioeconomic gradient according to multiple indicators of socioeconomic position (SEP) can provide a more comprehensive perspective to inform optimal points of intervention. The purpose of this study was to quantify nationally representative trends in absolute and relative gaps and gradients in diet quality between 2004 and 2015 according to three indicators of SEP among adults living in Canada

Who’s cooking tonight? A time-use study of coupled adults in Toronto, Canada

Understanding how coupled adults arrange food-related labor in relation to their daily time allocation is of great importance because different arrangements may have implications for diet-related health and gender equity. Studies from the time-use perspective argue that daily activities such as work, caregiving, and non-food-related housework can potentially compete for time with foodwork. However, studies in this regard are mostly centered on individual-level analyses. They fail to consider cohabiting partners’ time spent on foodwork and non-food-related activities, a factor that could be helpful in explaining how coupled partners decide to allocate time to food activities. Using 108 daily time-use logs from seventeen opposite-gender couples living in Toronto, Canada, this paper examines how male and female partners’ time spent on non-food-related activities impact the total amount of time spent on foodwork by coupled adults and the difference in time spent on foodwork between coupled women and men. Results show that both male and female partners took a higher portion of foodwork when their partner worked longer. When men worked for additional time, the couple-level duration of foodwork decreased. Without a significant impact on the gender difference in foodwork duration, women’s increased caregiving duration was associated with a reduction of total time spent on foodwork by couples. An increase in caregiving and non-food-related chores by men was associated with an increased difference in duration of foodwork between women and men, which helped secure a constant total amount of foodwork at the couple level. These behavioral variations between men and women demonstrate the gender differences in one’s responsiveness to the change of partners’ non-food-related tasks. The associations found among non-food-related activities and foodwork are suggestive of a need to account for partners’ time allocation when studying the time-use dynamics of foodwork and other daily activities

A pan-Canadian dataset of neighbourhood retail food environment measures using Statistics Canada's Business Register.

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to create the Canadian Food Environment Dataset (Can-FED) and to demonstrate its validity. DATA AND METHODS: Food outlet data were extracted from Statistics Canada's Business Register (BR) in 2018. Retail food environment access measures (both absolute and relative measures) were calculated using network buffers around the centroid of 56,589 dissemination areas in Canada. A k-medians clustering approach was used to create categorical food environment variables that were easy to use and amenable to dissemination. Validity of the measures was assessed by comparing the food environment measures from Can-FED with measures created using Enhanced Points of Interest data by DMTI Spatial Inc. and data from a municipal health inspection list. Validity was also assessed by calculating the geographic variability in food environments across census metropolitan areas (CMAs) and assessing associations between CMA-level food environments and CMA-level health indicators. RESULTS: Two versions of Can-FED were created: a researcher file that must be accessed within a secure Statistics Canada environment and a general-use file available online. Agreement between Can-FED food environment measures and those derived from a proprietary dataset and a municipal health inspection list ranged from rs=0.28 for convenience store density and rs=0.53 for restaurant density. At the CMA level, there is wide geographic variation in the food environment with evidence of patterning by health indicators. INTERPRETATION: Can-FED is a valid and accessible dataset of pan-Canadian food environment measures that was created from the BR, a data source that has not been explored fully for health research

Correction: Faught et al. “Socioeconomic Disadvantage across the Life Course is associated with Diet Quality in Young Adulthood” Nutrients, 2019, 11(2), 242

We noticed an error in the text that requires correcting as it may contribute to an incorrect understanding of our study’s scientific conclusions. In the text accompanying Table 4 (Section 3.3: Mediation Analysis (Pathways Hypothesis), page 11), the third sentence in the paragraph reads: “Adult SEP at the level of university education mediated associations between childhood SEP and mean adult HEI-2015 score (p < 0.001).” This should in fact read: “Adult SEP at the level of high school or less mediated associations between childhood SEP and mean adult HEI-2015 score (p < 0.001).” This correction is consistent with the results presented in Table 4, and in line with the scientific conclusions discussed in the article that a low socioeconomic position (SEP) in adulthood mediates associations between childhood SEP and adult diet quality. SEP at the level of university education was the reference group in this analysis