Effect of mobile food environments on fast food visits

Bernardo García Bulle Bueno, Abigail L. Horn, Brooke M. Bell, Mohsen Bahrami, Burçin Bozkaya, Alex Pentland, Kayla Haye and Esteban Moro ()
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Bernardo García Bulle Bueno: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abigail L. Horn: University of Southern California
Brooke M. Bell: University of Southern California
Mohsen Bahrami: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Burçin Bozkaya: Sabanci University
Alex Pentland: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Kayla Haye: University of Southern California
Esteban Moro: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Poor diets are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Exposure to low-quality food environments saturated with fast food outlets is hypothesized to negatively impact diet. However, food environment research has predominantly focused on static food environments around home neighborhoods and generated mixed findings. In this work, we leverage population-scale mobility data in the U.S. to examine 62M people’s visits to food outlets and evaluate how food choice is influenced by the food environments people are exposed to as they move through their daily routines. We find that a 10% increase in exposure to fast food outlets in mobile environments increases individuals’ odds of visitation by 20%. Using our results, we simulate multiple policy strategies for intervening on food environments to reduce fast-food outlet visits. This analysis suggests that optimal interventions are informed by spatial, temporal, and behavioral features and could have 2x to 4x larger effect than traditional interventions focused on home food environments.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46425-2

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