Measuring the association between the opening of a new multi-national restaurant with young people's eating behaviours.

Out-of-home eating (takeaway, take-out and fast-foods) is associated with intakes of higher energy and fat, and lower intakes of micronutrients, and is associated with excess weight gain. In 2017, a unique opportunity arose to measure the association between the opening of a new multi-national fast-food restaurant (McDonald's) and consumption of fast-food on young people aged 11-16. This study uses a repeated cross-sectional design to explore group level change over time with respect to out-of-home eating behaviours of young people.

'Acceleration' of the food delivery marketplace: Perspectives of local authority professionals in the North-East of England on temporary COVID regulations.

In January 2021, we assessed the implications of temporary regulations in the United Kingdom allowing pubs and restaurants to operate on a takeaway basis without instigating a change of use. Local authorities (LAs) across the North-East of England were unaware of any data regarding the take-up of these regulations, partially due to ongoing capacity issues; participants also raised health concerns around takeaway use increasing significantly. One year on, we repeated the study aiming to understand the impact of these regulations on the policy and practice of key professional groups.

Restructuring the built environment to change adult health behaviors: a scoping review integrated with behavior change frameworks.

Built environment restructuring can improve public health through increased opportunity for healthy behaviors. Behavioral science targets individual health behaviors within place, suggesting the potential to integrate these approaches. This scoping review was one of the first to summarise the impact built environment restructuring has on health outcomes and behaviors integrate these findings with the Capability-Opportunity-Motivation-Behavior model and Theoretical Domains Framework of behavior change.

Obesogenic environments: current evidence of the built and food environments.

Aims: Obesity is one of the most significant global health and social problems, with rates rising dramatically over the past few decades. While the basic drivers of obesity are obvious (more energy consumed than expended), the causes are multifactorial and complex. A decade ago, it was suggested that exploring the ways in which the built environment influenced physical activity and dietary behaviours might provide fertile ground for investigation.

Youth, alcohol and place-based leisure behaviours: a study of two locations in England.

Excessive alcohol consumption among young people in England regularly features in national media and has been a focus of recent academic research and government policy. Though the majority of young people do not regularly drink excessively, heavy sessional drinking - 'binge' drinking - is associated with negative health and social consequences for those who do. Alcohol-related health problems in young people are not spread consistently across England, however, and while there are significant intra-regional differences, northern regions fare worse overall than those in the south.

Obesogenic urban form: theory, policy and practice.

There is a growing body of research, which suggests that many contemporary urban environments do not support healthy lifestyle choices and are implicated in the obesity pandemic. This paper reviews the evidence from this field in relation to theory, policy and practice, from three different disciplinary perspectives: urban design, geography and public health nutrition. In the UK, our development has been higher density and our urban form more varied, yet the paper concludes that it still may be making a contribution to our own obesity crisis.

Obesogenic environments: exploring the built and food environments.

Obesity is a significant health and social problem which has reached pandemic levels. The obesogenicity of an environment has been defined as 'the sum of influences that the surroundings, opportunities, or conditions of life have on promoting obesity in individuals or populations'. Prevention and treatment of obesity has focused on pharmacological, educational and behavioural interventions, with limited overall success.