Volpe Richard, Cai Xiaowei, Tseng Marilyn, Sinclair Wilson
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, United States.
Economic Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Washington, DC, United States.
Front Nutr. 2024 Apr 18;11:1369240. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2024.1369240. eCollection 2024.
The average American household's diet and food purchasing patterns are out of sync with federal recommendations. Researchers have connected this with the large and growing rates of obesity, diabetes, and other diet-related ailments in the U.S. Restaurant food has been discussed a potential contributor to unhealthful diets, as it is often calorically dense. We investigate the association between household access to restaurants and diet quality using USDA FoodAPS data and NPD ReCount data.
We define radii around households to measure restaurant outlet counts and apply a regression analysis incorporating household characteristics.
We find that neither restaurant counts nor openings share many statistically or economically significant associations with average dietary quality. Household characteristics and demographics are far more powerful in explaining variation in diet quality.
Our findings align with the large and growing body of empirical research that suggests that personal preferences and other household characteristics are more important than the food environment in explaining food choices and diet quality. Given the extant research on the importance of access to large supermarkets, our results suggest that access to food retailers is more important in explaining diet quality than access to restaurants.
美国家庭的平均饮食和食品购买模式与联邦建议不符。研究人员将此与美国肥胖、糖尿病及其他与饮食相关疾病的高且不断增长的发病率联系起来。餐厅食物常被认为是不健康饮食的一个潜在因素，因为其热量通常很高。我们使用美国农业部食品APS数据和NPD ReCount数据，研究家庭附近餐厅数量与饮食质量之间的关联。
我们定义家庭周围的半径来衡量餐厅门店数量，并进行包含家庭特征的回归分析。
我们发现，餐厅数量和新开业餐厅数量与平均饮食质量在统计上或经济上均无显著关联。家庭特征和人口统计学在解释饮食质量差异方面的作用要大得多。
我们的研究结果与大量且不断增加的实证研究一致，这些研究表明，在解释食物选择和饮食质量方面，个人偏好和其他家庭特征比食物环境更为重要。鉴于现有关于获得大型超市便利性重要性的研究，我们的结果表明，在解释饮食质量方面，获得食品零售商的便利性比获得餐厅的便利性更为重要。
