Fast-Food Clusters Near Schools

Study Finds Fast-Food Chains Abundant Near Chicago Schools

(AP) 
McDonald's Corp. spokesman Walt Riker said the fast-food giant locates its restaurants "in high-traffic areas like every other business, to serve customers. It has nothing to do with schools." He called the study assumptions speculative since the researchers didn't assess whether proximity of fast food affected students' eating habits.

Burger King did not return several phone messages seeking comment.

The study was released Tuesday in the September issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

The researchers compiled 2002 data on 613 fast food restaurants and 1,292 public and private schools in Chicago. Sources included Technomic Inc., a food industry market research company that publishes a list of leading fast-food chains. Restaurants and schools for which addresses could not be found were excluded, but the researchers said the report includes at least 90 percent of both.

An estimated 16 percent or more than 9 million U.S. children aged 6 to 19 are seriously overweight or obese, numbers that have tripled since 1980.

Children in Chicago are more than twice as likely to be overweight when they enter kindergarten than children elsewhere, so the study is especially troubling, said Dr. Matt Longjohn, executive director of the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children.

One solution is to "change demand" and make healthy food choices more accessible, Longjohn said.

Chicago's public schools are among districts that have eliminated junk-food and soft drinks from campus vending machines in an effort to tackle the problem, but the researchers said the clustering of fast-food restaurants near schools may be undermining those efforts.

"We can't really tell our students not to go to fast-food restaurants; all we can do is to educate them about what healthy food choices are," said Mike Vaughn, a spokesman for Chicago's public schools.