TY - JOUR
T1 - Obesity under full fresh fruit and vegetable access conditions
AU - Silva, Andres
AU - Jano, Pilar
AU - Hausen, Nicolás Von
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright: © 2021 Silva et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2021/4
Y1 - 2021/4
N2 - There is no agreement regarding the role of fresh fruit and vegetables’ affordability, accessibility and availability, or access in general, on obesity rates. In this article we investigated whether access to fresh fruit and vegetables is related to better biometric indicators such as weight and body mass index. Using mediation and matching methods and assuming that farmers and traditional market sellers have easy access to fruit and vegetables, we found that having better access is not associated to a reduction in weight or body mass index. Potential explanations for this result are that better access was not associated with fresh fruit and vegetables’ consumption and fruit and vegetables’ consumption was not associated with weight and body mass index. Also, fresh fruit and vegetables’ sellers had a higher weight and body mass index compared to the rest of the population but, a similar weight and body mass index compared to people with their same educational level. Therefore, variations on weight and body mass index were more associated with educational level rather than with access. Access may not be the single story to explain fruit and vegetable consumption.
AB - There is no agreement regarding the role of fresh fruit and vegetables’ affordability, accessibility and availability, or access in general, on obesity rates. In this article we investigated whether access to fresh fruit and vegetables is related to better biometric indicators such as weight and body mass index. Using mediation and matching methods and assuming that farmers and traditional market sellers have easy access to fruit and vegetables, we found that having better access is not associated to a reduction in weight or body mass index. Potential explanations for this result are that better access was not associated with fresh fruit and vegetables’ consumption and fruit and vegetables’ consumption was not associated with weight and body mass index. Also, fresh fruit and vegetables’ sellers had a higher weight and body mass index compared to the rest of the population but, a similar weight and body mass index compared to people with their same educational level. Therefore, variations on weight and body mass index were more associated with educational level rather than with access. Access may not be the single story to explain fruit and vegetable consumption.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85104563230&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0249333
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0249333
M3 - Article
C2 - 33882061
AN - SCOPUS:85104563230
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 16
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 4 April
M1 - e0249333
ER -