{"id":4555,"date":"2018-01-25T11:05:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-25T19:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/where-you-live-may-influence-whether-you-are-overweight-study-finds\/"},"modified":"2025-03-08T21:16:02","modified_gmt":"2025-03-09T05:16:02","slug":"where-you-live-may-influence-whether-you-are-overweight-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/where-you-live-may-influence-whether-you-are-overweight-study-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Where you live may influence whether you are overweight, study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n    \n                                \n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--article-hero \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--article-hero\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n<div class=\"inner-wrapper\">\n          \n<div class=\"f--field f--image\">\n\n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n              \n      <img\n                            data-src=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/04\/story-2741-768x432.jpg\"\n          data-srcset=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/04\/story-2741-768x432.jpg 768w\"          data-sizes=\"(min-width:1200px) 75vw, (min-width:768px) 83vw, 100vw\"          class=\"lazyload\"\n        \n                  alt=\"Where you live may influence whether you are overweight, study finds\"\n        \n        \n                                      \/>\n\n    \n    \n  \n  \n\n<\/div>\n  \n      <div class=\"image-caption\">\n          \n<div class=\"f--field f--description\">\n\n    \n  Families who move to counties with a high obesity rate are more likely to be overweight themselves, according to a USC study done on military families.\n\n\n<\/div>\n    <\/div>\n  \n  <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n          <nav aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\" class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n        <ul>\n                      <li><a href=\"\/news\/stories\/\">News<\/a><\/li>\n                      <li><a href=\"\/news\/stories\/\/?category=health\">Health<\/a><\/li>\n                  <\/ul>\n      <\/nav>\n    \n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--page-title\">\n\n    \n  <h1>Where you live may influence whether you are overweight, study finds<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n    \n          <div class=\"subtitle\">\n            \n<div class=\"f--field f--description\">\n\n    \n  People who move to an area with a high obesity rate are likely to become overweight or obese themselves.\n\n\n<\/div>\n      <\/div>\n    \n           <strong class=\"author-field\"><span >By<\/span><a href=\"mailto:communication@dornsife.usc.edu\">Emily Gersema<\/a><\/strong>\n    \n          <span class=\"post-date-field\">January 25, 2018<\/span>\n      <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--social-share \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div 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6.87-1.113 7.823-4.308c.953 3.195 2.05 9.271 7.733 4.308c4.267-4.308 1.172-6.498-2.74-7.078a8.741 8.741 0 0 1-.415-.056c.14.017.279.036.415.056c2.67.297 5.568-.628 6.383-3.364c.246-.828.624-5.79.624-6.478c0-.69-.139-1.861-.902-2.206c-.659-.298-1.664-.62-4.3 1.24C16.046 4.748 13.087 8.687 12 10.8\"  fill-rule=\"evenodd\" \/>\n              <\/svg>\n            <\/span>\n            <span class=\"a2a_label visually-hidden\">Bluesky<\/span>\n          <\/a>\n                                <a class=\"a2a_button_email\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/#email\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"E-mail\">\n            <span class=\"a2a_svg a2a_s__default a2a_s_print\">\n              <svg height=\"12\" viewBox=\"0 0 18 12\" width=\"18\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\"><path d=\"m8.14285714 9.42857143c-.17142857 0-.34285714 0-.51428571.08571428l7.28571427 6.34285719c.3428572.2571428.6857143.2571428.9428572 0l7.2857142-6.34285719c-.0857142-.08571428-.2571428-.08571428-.4285714-.08571428zm-1.28571428 1.11428567v.1714286 8.5714286c0 .6857143.6 1.2857143 1.28571428 1.2857143h14.57142856c.6857143 0 1.2857143-.6 1.2857143-1.2857143v-8.5714286c0-.0857143 0-.0857143 0-.1714286l-7.2 6.3428572c-.7714286.6857143-1.8857143.6857143-2.6571429 0z\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\" transform=\"translate(-6 -9)\"\/><\/svg>\n            <\/span>\n            <span class=\"a2a_label visually-hidden\">Email<\/span>\n          <\/a>\n                  <\/span>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n \n\n\n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--rich-text \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--rich-text\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n      \n<div class=\"f--field f--wysiwyg\">\n\n    \n  <p>The old real estate adage of \u201clocation, location, location\u201d may also apply to obesity.<\/p>\n<p>A new study by USC Dornsife and the RAND Corp. suggests that people who move to an area with a high obesity rate are likely to become overweight or obese themselves. The researchers say this may be due, in part, to social contagion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSocial contagion in obesity means that if more people around you are obese, then that may increase your own chances of becoming obese,\u201d said <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/cf\/faculty-and-staff\/staff.cfm?pid=1048379\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ashlesha Datar<\/a>, a senior economist at the <a href=\"https:\/\/cesr.usc.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Center for Economic and Social Research<\/a> at USC Dornsife. \u201cIn other words, living in a community where obesity is more common can make sedentary lifestyles, unhealthy eating and overweight or obesity more socially acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The study was published today in the journal<i> <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jamapediatrics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>JAMA Pediatrics<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Obesity is linked to many factors, including eating and exercise habits, genetics and the environment. Research shows that living in certain communities carries a higher risk of obesity than living in other communities, but this association has been challenging for scientists to explain.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers have proposed and investigated several potential explanations for the concentration of obesity in some communities. One possibility may be simply that people with similar interests and backgrounds tend to locate in similar areas. Another explanation may be that people living in the same community are all influenced by the shared environment, such as opportunities for exercising and healthy eating.<\/p>\n<p>A third explanation may be that obesity is transmitted through social influence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAssessing the relative importance of these explanations has been a challenging task and yet is important for designing effective policies to address obesity,\u201d Datar said. \u201cOur study sought to take on that challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/migration-uploads\/Overweight2-2741.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of Ashlesha Datar\" width=\"225\" height=\"350\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ashlesha Datar, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Social Research.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Assessing social contagion<\/h2>\n<p>Datar and co-author Nancy Nicosia, a senior economist at RAND, studied military families to assess whether living in communities with greater obesity increased their own risk of being overweight or obese. Military families, they reasoned, cannot choose where they live \u2014 rather, they are assigned to installations. Some of those installations are in counties with higher rates of obesity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe found that the families assigned to installations in counties with higher obesity rates were more likely to be overweight or obese than those assigned to installations in counties with lower rates of obesity,\u201d Datar said.<\/p>\n<p>Datar and Nicosia used data from the Military Teenagers Environments, Exercise and Nutrition Study (M-TEENS) and from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation County Health Rankings. Obesity rates among the counties in the study ranged from 21 percent to 38 percent.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers recruited families of U.S. Army personnel at 38 military installations in the country to participate in surveys and measurements. Three-fourths of the parents and about one-fourth of the children were overweight or obese \u2014 reflective of the national rates.<\/p>\n<h2>Location increases or lowers risk<\/h2>\n<p>One in three adults in a typical U.S. county is obese. A family\u2019s risk of obesity may increase or decrease, depending on the county obesity rate where they live.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you move a family from a typical county to one with a higher rate of obesity, such as Vernon County in Louisiana where 38 percent of adults are obese, that would increase the parent\u2019s chances of being obese by 25 percent,\u201d Datar said. \u201cIt would also increase the chances of the child being overweight or obese by 19 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The opposite is also true: Moving to a county with a lower rate decreases the family\u2019s chances of becoming overweight or obese.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf a family moves to a county with a low obesity rate, such as El Paso County in Colorado where about 21 percent of adults are obese, the parent\u2019s chances of being obese would decrease by 29 percent,\u201d Datar said. \u201cThe child\u2019s chances of being overweight or obese also would decrease by 23 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To assess whether shared environments could explain these results, the study accounted for extensive data on the food and activity opportunities in the county and neighborhood, such as gyms and grocery stores.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe cannot say for sure that we accounted for everything that might influence eating and exercise behaviors,\u201d Datar said. \u201cBut we did account for things that researchers in this field typically measure and found that shared environments did not play a critical role in explaining our results.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nicosia concurred. \u201cAlthough we could not measure social contagion directly,\u201d she said, \u201cour findings support a role for social contagion in obesity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The scientists also found that the link between the county\u2019s obesity rate and overweight or obesity in military families was concentrated among families living off base and those who had lived there longer \u201cThis finding suggests that families with greater exposure to obese communities face increased risk,\u201d Datar said.<\/p>\n<p>The study was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (grant R01HD067536).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n  \n        \n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--article-related-stories \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--article-related-stories\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n  <div class=\"inner-wrapper\">\n    \n                  <article>\n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--cta-title\">\n\n    \n  <h3>\n          <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/obesity-brain-protein-receptor-mc4r-structure\/\" \n                        class=\"\" \n      >Better obesity treatments may lie ahead after discovery of key protein structure<\/a>\n      <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n        <\/article>\n              <article>\n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--cta-title\">\n\n    \n  <h3>\n          <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/impulse-control-obesity-drug-abuse\/\" \n                        class=\"\" \n      >Can\u2019t stop putting your hand in the candy dish? Scientists may have found why<\/a>\n      <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n        <\/article>\n              <article>\n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--cta-title\">\n\n    \n  <h3>\n          <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/risk-of-obesity-declines-with-more-high-school\/\" \n                        class=\"\" \n      >One more year of high school may shape waistlines later in life<\/a>\n      <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n        <\/article>\n            <\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People who move to an area with a high obesity rate are likely to become overweight or obese themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":4558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[789,95],"class_list":["post-4555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-center-for-social-and-economic-research","tag-social-sciences"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Where you live may influence whether you are overweight, study finds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"People who move to an area with a high obesity rate are likely to become overweight or obese themselves.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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