Planning policies to restrict fast food and inequalities in child weight in England: A quasi-experimental analysis

Objectives:
England has one of the highest childhood obesity rates in Europe. To promote a healthier food environment in 2015, Gateshead Council in the North-East of England introduced planning guidelines effectively banning any new fast-food outlets. Our aim was to investigate if this policy led to any reductions in childhood overweight and obesity prevalence and inequalities in these outcomes.

Methods: We used data from National Child Measurement Programme, Food Standard Agency Food Hygiene Rating Data, and Office of National Statistics between 2012-2020. We estimated a difference in difference model employing propensity score matching to identify a control group.

Results:
We found no significant change in population level childhood overweight and obesity in Gateshead compared to control areas. In sub-group analysis by area level deprivation, we found that the quintile of deprivation with the highest proportion of fast-food outlets had a statistically significant reduction of 4.80% in the prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity compared to control areas.

Conclusion:
Restricting fast food outlets in areas with a high concentration of these outlets as part of a package of policies to reduce childhood obesity may help to reduce prevalence and inequalities in childhood overweight and obesity.