Spatial characterization of food environment in Mexico City

Keywords: food environment, obesity, Mexico, food retail
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 12

Abstract

The public health burden of obesity and non-communicable diseases in Mexico is high and not yet controlled. Among the causes, are changes in population diets, where there has been a predominantly increase in the food offer, which tends to be skewed toward energy-dense, nutrient-poor and ultra-processed foods that are widely available. Among the possible determinants of the increasingly poor diets, is the urban food environment. As most of the published research comes from developed countries still not known if findings can be applied to developing countries such as Mexico. The aim of this study is to characterize the retail food environment of Mexico City considering population density and level of urban marginalization. The data source used in this study is the National Statics Directory of Economic Units 2020, which informs on the urban supply of food and beverages. Food outlets were categorized into 16 types depending on their level of healthfulness. We used choropleths maps to visualize the densities of food outlets at different geographical and marginalization levels. Our results show that the southern region of Mexico City displays both an abundance of healthy and unhealthy food. Also, census tracts with a high density of food outlets are correlated to higher marginalization, whereas a lower density of food outlets correlates with lower marginalization. The findings from this study will help to focalized the regions of the city with an unhealthy food environment and inform policy action to improve local food environments.