Does environment influence childhood BMI? A longitudinal analysis of children aged 3-11.

Statistically significant associations were found between environmental measures of both more gardens and lower levels of crime and lower BMI (effect size (95% CI) respectively: -0.02 (-0.04 to 0.00), -0.04 (-0.07 to -0.02)). Areas with less crime were associated with a slightly lower odds of overweight among children with a higher educated parent (OR 0.93 (0.87-0.99)) CONCLUSIONS: By exploiting longitudinal measures of environment and BMI this study is able to establish a more causal association between environment and BMI. Environments with more gardens and lower crime tend to result in slightly lower BMI. However, the effect sizes are small and non-significant odds of changing weight status do not support environmental factors as a key determinant of cohort changes in childhood overweight/obesity.