Abstract

Environmental Influences on Adolescent Physical Activity and Body Mass Index
Track: Health and Human Services
Author(s): Dan Graham

Obesity is a growing threat to public health and American youth are becoming obese at an alarming rate. The physical environment impacts obesity by facilitating or restricting access to opportunities for physical activity (PA) and access to healthy or unhealthy food choices. This research examines the relationships between access-related features of the built environment (both PA-access: including nearness to parks, bike trails, recreation facilities at schools, public pools, etc. and food-access: nearness to fast food restaurants, grocery stores, farmers' markets, etc.) and obesity-related outcomes - including PA behavior (both self-reported and objectively measured via tri-axial accelerometer) and obesity (objectively measured via body mass index) in a population of 400 adolescents living in Southern California.

Dan Graham
University of California, Irvine
4208 Palo Verde Road
Irvine , California 92617
United States
Phone: 315-569-9041
E-mail: dgraham@uci.edu