Research

Mixed

Higher neighborhood-level availability of calories, carbohydrates, total fat, and saturated fat is positively associated with increased odds of being overweight in adults.

Your local food environment significantly impacts your weight risk. If you live in an area with high-calorie, high-fat food options, your odds of being overweight increase. To mitigate this, prioritize living in or visiting areas with more green space and lower saturated fat contributions, and be aware that 'healthy' labels on outlets may not reflect actual macronutrient content.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Neighborhood environments with higher availability of calories, carbohydrates, total fat, and saturated fat were positively associated with being overweight. Specifically, a one-unit increase in scores for calories, carbohydrates, total fat, and saturated fat corresponded to 6% (95% CI: 1%–12%), 5% (0.01%–11%), 5% (0.3%–9%), and 5% (0.02%–9%) increased odds of being overweight, respectively.
Pei Ma et al. · medRxiv · 2025

Why this rating

Large sample size (n=15,614) and robust geospatial modeling, but it is a cross-sectional observational study, not an RCT.

Source

Planning healthier cities by reframing the urban food landscape: measuring localised macronutrient exposure in Singapore

Pei Ma et al. · medRxiv · 2025

DOI 10.1101/2025.04.10.25325565

preprint · n=15614
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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