Summary

Original source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/23/AR2005082300855.html

Details

• The scene is repeated throughout Chicago, where fast-food restaurants are clustered within easy walking distance of elementary and high schools, according to a study by Harvard's School of Public Health.
• A Burger King restaurant is seen across the street from the Orr High School campus in Chicago on Friday, Aug. 19, 2005.
• Researchers in a study by Harvard's School of Public Health, say the pattern of fast food restaurants clustered within walking distance to schools is likely present in urban areas across the country and is likely contributing the nation's obesity epidemic.
• "It can be very hard for children and teens to eat in healthy ways when they're inundated with this," said lead author Bryn Austin, a researcher at Harvard and Children's Hospital Boston.
• Statistical mapping techniques showed there were at least three times more fast-food restaurants located less than a mile from schools than would be expected if the restaurants had been more randomly distributed, the researchers said.
• Previous studies have shown that on a typical day, almost one-third of U.S. youngsters eat fast food, and that when they do, they consume more calories, fats and sugars and fewer fruits and vegetables than on days when they don't eat fast food, the researchers said.
• The findings beg the question of whether fast-food companies intentionally locate their restaurants near schools to make them easily accessible to young people, some of their key customers, Austin said.
• He called the study assumptions speculative since the researchers didn't assess whether proximity of fast food affected students' eating habits.
• If students were to take advantage of the Whopper special outside the Chicago campus, it would lead to a sizable calorie and fat intake.
• Two "Original" Whoppers have 1,400 calories _ over half of them from fat, according to Burger King's Web site.

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