Neighbourhood socio-economic status and the prevalence of overweight Canadian children and youth

Background: The purposes of this study are to determine (i) if neighbourhood socio-economic status (SES) is systematically related to the prevalence of overweight children and youth in Canada, (ii) if the factors accounting for the apparent relationship have face validity, and (iii) if neighbourhood SES has an independent influence on this distribution. Methods: Cross-sectional data from Cycle 4 (2000/2001) of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth were used. Children and youth aged 5 to 17 were included. Overweight was established using age and sex cut-off points. Neighbourhood socio-economic data were obtained from the Statistics Canada 2001 Dissemination Area databases and SES quartiles constructed using a composite of socio-economic variables. Hierarchical non-linear modelling was used to test for independent neighbourhood effects. Results: A gradient of increasing overweight prevalence by decreasing neighbourhood SE