Neighborhood Greenness and 2-Year… | Healthy Trees, Healthy Lives

Neighborhood Greenness and 2-Year Changes in Body Mass Index of Children and youth

Greenness may present a target for environmental approaches to preventing child obesity. Children and youth living in greener neighborhoods had lower BMI z-scores at Time 2, presumably due to increased physical activity or time spent outdoors. Conceptualizations of walkability from adult studies, based solely on residential density, may not be relevant to children and youth in urban environments.

Bell, Wilson and Liu

American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 35(6), Dec. 2008, pp. 547–553

Higher greenness was significantly associated with lower BMI z-scores at Time 2 regardless of residential density characteristics. Higher residential density was not associated with Time 2 BMI z-scores in models regardless of greenness. Higher greenness was also associated with lower odds of children’s and youth’s increasing their BMI z-scores over 2 years (OR0.87; 95% CI0.79, 0.97).