Is Food Outlet Accessibility a Significant Factor of Fruit and Vegetable Intake? Evidence from a Cross-Sectional Province-Wide Study in Quebec, Canada
Unhealthy eating habits can compromise one’s health and generate significant individual, social, and health services costs. The adoption of healthy eating habits depends on individual and environmental determinants related to the characteristics of the physical, economic, political, and socio-cultur...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2022-01-01
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| Series: | Obesities |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4168/2/1/4 |
| _version_ | 1797443892482670592 |
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| author | Alex-Ane Mathieu Éric Robitaille Marie-Claude Paquette |
| author_facet | Alex-Ane Mathieu Éric Robitaille Marie-Claude Paquette |
| author_sort | Alex-Ane Mathieu |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Unhealthy eating habits can compromise one’s health and generate significant individual, social, and health services costs. The adoption of healthy eating habits depends on individual and environmental determinants related to the characteristics of the physical, economic, political, and socio-cultural environments. The objective of this cross-sectional study was to assess the effect of the physical environment, more precisely the effect of food outlet accessibility, on diet. A subsample of the CARTaGENE survey, composed of 7783 adults aged 40 to 70 years old residing in four cities in Quebec (Canada), was used. Measures of proximity as well as absolute and relative measures of the density of retail food outlets, fast-food outlets, and convenience stores near participants’ residences were used to analyze fruit and vegetable (F&V) intake. Univariate logistic regression showed that the minimal recommended portions of F&V intake (5 or more portions) were significantly associated with all seven measures of the retail food environment (OR between 0.76 and 1.27). However, these relations were mostly non-significant when confounding variables were considered in the analysis except and counterintuitively for proximity to the nearest convenience store and density of convenience stores. Variables most significantly correlated to F&V intake were individual-level confounding variables of sex, income, and education. These results show that more research is needed to understand factors explaining F&V intake in this population. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T13:03:40Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4fdbb1662dda4b57833960994a0e9850 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2673-4168 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T13:03:40Z |
| publishDate | 2022-01-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Obesities |
| spelling | doaj.art-4fdbb1662dda4b57833960994a0e98502023-11-30T21:51:08ZengMDPI AGObesities2673-41682022-01-0121355010.3390/obesities2010004Is Food Outlet Accessibility a Significant Factor of Fruit and Vegetable Intake? Evidence from a Cross-Sectional Province-Wide Study in Quebec, CanadaAlex-Ane Mathieu0Éric Robitaille1Marie-Claude Paquette2Faculté de Médecine, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC H3C 3J7, CanadaInstitut National de Santé Publique du Québec, Montréal, QC H2P 1E2, CanadaInstitut National de Santé Publique du Québec, Montréal, QC H2P 1E2, CanadaUnhealthy eating habits can compromise one’s health and generate significant individual, social, and health services costs. The adoption of healthy eating habits depends on individual and environmental determinants related to the characteristics of the physical, economic, political, and socio-cultural environments. The objective of this cross-sectional study was to assess the effect of the physical environment, more precisely the effect of food outlet accessibility, on diet. A subsample of the CARTaGENE survey, composed of 7783 adults aged 40 to 70 years old residing in four cities in Quebec (Canada), was used. Measures of proximity as well as absolute and relative measures of the density of retail food outlets, fast-food outlets, and convenience stores near participants’ residences were used to analyze fruit and vegetable (F&V) intake. Univariate logistic regression showed that the minimal recommended portions of F&V intake (5 or more portions) were significantly associated with all seven measures of the retail food environment (OR between 0.76 and 1.27). However, these relations were mostly non-significant when confounding variables were considered in the analysis except and counterintuitively for proximity to the nearest convenience store and density of convenience stores. Variables most significantly correlated to F&V intake were individual-level confounding variables of sex, income, and education. These results show that more research is needed to understand factors explaining F&V intake in this population.https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4168/2/1/4food environmentrelative measureabsolute measurefruit and vegetabledietCanadian adults |
| spellingShingle | Alex-Ane Mathieu Éric Robitaille Marie-Claude Paquette Is Food Outlet Accessibility a Significant Factor of Fruit and Vegetable Intake? Evidence from a Cross-Sectional Province-Wide Study in Quebec, Canada Obesities food environment relative measure absolute measure fruit and vegetable diet Canadian adults |
| title | Is Food Outlet Accessibility a Significant Factor of Fruit and Vegetable Intake? Evidence from a Cross-Sectional Province-Wide Study in Quebec, Canada |
| title_full | Is Food Outlet Accessibility a Significant Factor of Fruit and Vegetable Intake? Evidence from a Cross-Sectional Province-Wide Study in Quebec, Canada |
| title_fullStr | Is Food Outlet Accessibility a Significant Factor of Fruit and Vegetable Intake? Evidence from a Cross-Sectional Province-Wide Study in Quebec, Canada |
| title_full_unstemmed | Is Food Outlet Accessibility a Significant Factor of Fruit and Vegetable Intake? Evidence from a Cross-Sectional Province-Wide Study in Quebec, Canada |
| title_short | Is Food Outlet Accessibility a Significant Factor of Fruit and Vegetable Intake? Evidence from a Cross-Sectional Province-Wide Study in Quebec, Canada |
| title_sort | is food outlet accessibility a significant factor of fruit and vegetable intake evidence from a cross sectional province wide study in quebec canada |
| topic | food environment relative measure absolute measure fruit and vegetable diet Canadian adults |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4168/2/1/4 |
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