within an 800m buffer zone the likelihood of obesity was almost 30 percent

A study done by researchers at the University of Alberta in Canada clearly shows that houses that are closer to fast food restaurants and further from grocery stores and fruit and vegetable sellers are more likely to have obese people living in them.

By collecting the weight and measurement data of 2,300 men and women in Alberta they were able to create something they called the retail food environment index or RFEI which computed the ratio of fast food restaurants to grocery stores.

The researchers said that it was clear that when the RFEI increased, so did the likelihood of individuals suffering from obesity. Just over sixteen percent of individuals who lived within a smaller radius of fast food restaurants were classified as obese, whereas just over 12.5 percent of those individuals living within a larger radius of the fast food restaurants and thus having a lower RFEI were classified as obese.

This type of research in a sense is sort of obvious but it is important that people fully understand the consequences of using fast food restaurants as opposed to grocery stores with healthier food. Only when people are presented with clear statistical unbiased evidence that fast food restaurants and lack of grocery stores have a direct correlation to obesity will they sit up and take note. 

There are also arguments that it is not the fast food restaurants that make people obese but just that they tend to set up in areas where there is already an obesity problem and also that obese individuals tend to live in areas where there are more fast food restaurants.

Professor John C. Spence who led the research explained that within an 800m buffer zone the likelihood of obesity was almost 30 percent. The research was announced in the medical journal BMC Public Health.