Neighborhood safety linked to childhood obesity

Researchers in this month's issue of American Journal of Epidemiology examined the relationship between parent-perceived neighborhood safety and children's physical activity, sedentary behavior, body mass, and obesity status using 9 years of longitudinal data (1999–2007) on a cohort of approximately 19,000 US kindergartners from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study. 

Children's height and weight measurements and parent perceptions of neighborhood safety were available in kindergarten and in the first, third, fifth, and eighth grades. Dependent variables included age- and gender-specific body mass index percentile, obesity status, and parent- or child-reported weekly physical activity and television-watching. 

The data indicated that children whose parents perceived their neighborhoods as unsafe watched more television and participated in less physical activity.