University mapmakers study child obesity

Broadening the scope of an already-popular cause, University mapmakers are joining the fight against childhood obesity through their involvement in a current study.

Penn's Cartographic Modeling Laboratory has been working for the past year to create maps showing corner stores, pizza shops and other food vendors along the routes children walk to and from school.

"No one has really looked at the specific ways children walk to school and how that can affect their food opportunities," research associate and second-year graduate student at the Fels Institute of Government Greg Maughan said.

The mapmakers' research is one portion of a larger project called Schools, Nutrition and Kids -- SNAKS -- funded by a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The project is a partnership with CML, the Medical School's Weight and Eating Disorders Program and the Food Trust, a non-profit organization whose goal is to increase the accessibility of nutritious foods.

"It wasn't the most critical part of the grant, but it was probably the most innovative," CML Research Director Amy Hillier said of her laboratory's work.

"What was intended as a pretty small piece has ended up being the centerpiece of attention," she added.

The bulk of CML's research was done at Southwark Elementary School in South Philadelphia.

Researchers interviewed 30 children, asking them to trace the route they walk to school on a digital map using software created by Maughan.

The maps highlighted food vendors, and the children told researchers which stores they stopped at on the way to and from school and what they bought.

Karen Grundy, research coordinator at the Weight and Eating Disorders Program, said that a larger survey of 600 students showed that 50 percent of children buy food or drink on the way to school, spending an average of $2. The pattern repeats on the way home from school.

The Food Trust will use the data gathered by the University to target the most-frequented vendors for intervention.

Workers with the Food Trust's Corner Store Campaign ? a project receiving funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ? have been approaching corner-store owners, asking them to create displays of healthy food at the front of their stores to attract kids.

Before this campaign, programs to combat childhood obesity focused on school-based intervention programs only.

Hannah Burton, a senior associate at the Food Trust, noted that training teachers to educate their students about proper nutrition is a somewhat futile pursuit when there are stores stocked with candy and chips just across the street.

"It was really undermining their efforts," Burton said.

Currently, the CML is analyzing data collected this spring.

The CML is expecting a grant from the National Institutes for Health to conduct a similar study regarding children and shootings.

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