Does Income Influence the Prevalence of Obesity?
Obesity has become an increasing epidemic in the United States in recent years. About 60 million adults, or 30% of the adult population, are now obese. And since 1980, overweight rates have doubled among children and tripled among adolescents –increasing the number of years they are exposed to the health risks of obesity. In fact, in Los Angeles alone, 14% of students were obese. Also, based on a large national study, body mass index (or BMI, an indicator of excess body fat) was higher every year between 1986 and 2002 among adults in the lowest income group and the lowest education group. So for our project, we decided to explore the correlation between low income household distribution and obesity in Los Angeles with 3 maps:
1) a map showing distribution of income/household
2) a map showing distribution of fast food restaurants
3) a map showing the prevalence of obesity
We will be collecting data using TIGER and LA County GIS
1. TIGER: http://www.census.gov/geo/www/
2. LA County GIS: http://egis3.lacounty.gov/
We also found a map with the prevalence of overweight children on this pdf file so we will try to extract/find this information.
http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/ha/reports/habriefs/lahealth073003_obes.pdf
Lastly, we are beginning to collect the addresses of multiple fast food restaurants including McDonalds, Burger King, Carls Jr, Taco Bell, and KFC in Los Angeles County.
Group members- Ellyse Briones (me), Eric Ching
Eric Ching's blog- http://ericchingsgeog7lab.blogspot.com/
References-
Obesity facts
http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/yrbs/pdf/obesity/losangeles_obesity_combo.pdf
http://frac.org/initiatives/hunger-and-obesity/are-low-income-people-at-greater-risk-for-overweight-or-obesity/
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