ArticleNutrition journal2013
Association of supermarket characteristics with the body mass index of their shoppers.
Article in Nutrition journal, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 37 citations in OpenAlex.
- Assessing the Cost of Healthy and Unhealthy Diets: A Systematic Review of Methods.Current nutrition reports · 2022Pooled it
- Beyond Food Safety: Taxonomization of Private Initiatives to Design of Healthier Supermarket Environments.Current nutrition reports · 2025Review
- Disparities in Access and Quality of Obesity Care.Gastroenterology clinics of North America · 2023Review
- Associations of the consumer food environment with eating behaviours and BMI.Public health nutrition · 2020Article
- The Local Food Environment and Obesity: Evidence from Three Cities.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2020Article
- Food environment, social deprivation and obesity among students from Brazilian public schools.Public health nutrition · 2019Article
- Impact of multiple food environments on body mass index.PloS one · 2019Article
- Food Acquisition and Shopping Patterns among Residents of Low-Income and Low-Access Communities in South Carolina.Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics · 2018Article
- Neighborhood characteristics, food deserts, rurality, and type 2 diabetes in youth: Findings from a case-control study.Health & place · 2018Article
- Influence of Being Embodied in an Obese Virtual Body on Shopping Behavior and Products Perception in VR.Frontiers in robotics and AI · 2018Article
- Food Shopping and Acquisition Behaviors in Relation to BMI among Residents of Low-Income Communities in South Carolina.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2017Article
- Indicators of the relative availability of healthy versus unhealthy foods in supermarkets: a validation study.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2017Article
- Socioeconomic inequalities in the healthiness of food choices: Exploring the contributions of food expenditures.Preventive medicine · 2016Article
- The Built Food Environment and Dietary Intake among African-American Adults.American journal of health behavior · 2016Article
- Supermarket Choice, Shopping Behavior, Socioeconomic Status, and Food Purchases.American journal of preventive medicine · 2015Article
- Do supermarkets contribute to the obesity pandemic in developing countries?Public health nutrition · 2015Observational
- Distance to store, food prices, and obesity in urban food deserts.American journal of preventive medicine · 2014Article
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundResearch on the built food environment and weight status has mostly focused on the presence/absence of food outlets while ignoring their internal features or where residents actually shop. We explored associations of distance travelled to supermarkets and supermarket characteristics with shoppers' body mass index (BMI).
methodsShoppers (n=555) of five supermarkets situated in different income areas in the city were surveyed for food shopping habits, demographics, home postal code, height and weight. Associations of minimum distance to a supermarket (along road network, objectively measured using ArcGIS), its size, food variety and food basket price with shoppers' BMI were investigated. The 'food basket' was defined as the mixture of several food items commonly consumed by residents and available in all supermarkets.
resultsSupermarkets ranged in total floor space (7500-135,000 square feet) and had similar varieties of fruits, vegetables and cereals. The majority of participants shopped at the surveyed supermarket more than once per week (mean range 1.2 ± 0.8 to 2.3 ± 2.1 times per week across the five supermarkets, p < 0.001), and identified it as their primary store for food (52% overall). Mean participant BMI of the five supermarkets ranged from 23.7 ± 4.3 kg/m² to 27.1 ± 4.3 kg/m² (p < 0.001). Median minimum distance from the shoppers' residence to the supermarket they shopped at ranged from 0.96 (0.57, 2.31) km to 4.30 (2.83, 5.75) km (p < 0.001). A negative association was found between food basket price and BMI. There were no associations between BMI and minimum distance to the supermarket, or other supermarket characteristics. After adjusting for age, sex, dissemination area median individual income and car ownership, BMI of individuals who shopped at Store 1 and Store 2, the supermarkets with lowest price of the 'food basket', was 3.66 kg/m² and 3.73 kg/m² higher compared to their counterparts who shopped at the supermarket where the 'food basket' price was highest (p < 0.001).
conclusionsThe food basket price in supermarkets was inversely associated with BMI of their shoppers. Our results suggest that careful manipulation of food prices may be used as an intervention for decreasing BMI.
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