Your ZIP Code Predicts Obesity Risk!

Robert W. Griffith, MD

I recently reported on the fact that your best friend can determine if you'll be obese or not. Now there's a new, or rather two new indicators: your ZIP code and the cost of your house. An article in the journal Social Science & Medicine examined the frequency of obesity in King County , Washington State, and comparing different areas (using ZIP codes) and property values.

Using the ZIP codes, there was a 6-fold difference between the most socio-economically deprived and the most affluent areas. This difference was greater than that due to ethnicity or income. But within a given ZIP code, each $100,000 increase in average home value was associated with a 2% reduction in the prevalence of obesity, which ranged, depending on area, from 5% to 30%.

What's to be done with this sort of information? It's hard to say. Assuming that 'money' is chiefly involved, one might speculate that having more money allows one to be better educated about diet, exercise, and obesity, to follow appropriate eating habits, and to buy less fattening food. But that's overly simplistic. Further studies will doubtless clarify the cause and effect (or can it be that living in a fancy house in an affluent area prevents obesity?).

Source
HealthandAge Blog