Availability and price of healthier food choices and association with obesity prevalence in New Zealand Maori
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Rush, Elaine
Crook, Nic
Simmons, David
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Abstract
Background and Objectives: Examine availability and price of healthier foods-vs-regular counterparts and their association with obesity. Methods and Study Design: A cross-sectional survey of weight and height among Māori in 2 urban and 96 rural areas in the Waikato/Lakes Districts-NZ (year 2004-06) was undertaken. Concurrently, availability of 11 'healthier' food in fast-food-outlets was examined by location (urban vs rural) and median income (high-low). In supermarkets, five-specific 'regular' foods were scored against 'healthier' counterparts (white-vs-wholemeal bread, with-skin-vs-skinless chicken, regular-vs-trim meat, standard-vs-trim milk, sugarsweetened- beverages vs-water) for in-store availability and price according to the Nutrition Environment Measures Survey. Results: Overall, 3,817 Māori (BMI: women: 32.9±7.8 kg/m 2 ; men: 33.1±6.7 kg/m 2 ) were included with 451 food-outlets in two urban-clusters and 698 food-outlets in 96 rural-clusters. Fast-foods: The availability of healthier food choices was higher for 8/11 items in rural and low-income areas than urban and high-income areas. Multivariate analysis considered location and income as cofactors. No association between number of fast-food-outlets/cluster and healthier foods/cluster with obesity prevalence (General/Māori BMI cutoffs) was observed. Supermarkets: Water was cheaper than sugar-sweetened-beverages and negatively associated with obesity prevalence (General r=-0.53, p=0.03; Māori r=-0.53, p=0.03); high availability scores for trim milk compared to standard milk correlated with higher obesity prevalence (General r=0.49, p=0.04; Māori r=0.57, p=0.01). Conclusions: Bottled water vs sugar-sweetened-beverages prices were inversely associated with obesity. This supports the argument to regulate the availability and price of sugar-sweetened-beverages in NZ. The positive association of the availability of trim milk with the prevalence of obesity warrants investigation into individual's dietary and food-purchase behaviour.
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Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition
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27
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6
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© 2018 HEC Press. The attached file is reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Please refer to the journal's website for access to the definitive, published version.
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Nutrition and dietetics
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Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Nutrition & Dietetics
fast-foods
supermarkets obesity
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Jani, R; Rush, E; Crook, N; Simmons, D, Availability and price of healthier food choices and association with obesity prevalence in New Zealand Maori, Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2018, 27 (6), pp. 1357-1365