Availability of and access to physical activity opportunities and links with health behaviours and obesity among adults

Health experts are increasingly concerned about the rising number of people who are obese or overweight. Being obese damages health, it can lead to diabetes, certain cancers, heart disease and a number of other health problems. One of the factors that can lead to being obese is not taking enough exercise. Researchers think that the type of environment people live in might make a difference. For example, some areas might not have enough recreation facilities such as swimming pools, sports centres or parks where people could go for a walk or jog. Also, it might be more difficult for some people to travel to facilities if they don?t have a car or there isn?t any public transport that goes there. Although experts think that these things might be important, there isn?t any research that has looked at this question across the country in urban and rural areas. So a team of researchers is going to bring together the information that has been collected in other studies and use this in a new way to help answer this question. The researchers will map the locations of recreation facilities across all mainland Scotland, and look to see how easy it is to get there and how much it costs by different forms of transport. They will then go on to look at whether living close to facilities or how easy it is to get to them, makes a difference to how much exercise people take or how likely there are to be obese. The researchers will also examine whether the availability of recreation and transport facilities matters more for the physical activity and obesity levels of some people than others e.g. women or men, the elderly, people on low incomes or people living in rural areas.The results of this study will help government planners and policy makers responsible for health, recreation and transport to plan their services more effectively and fairly.

Obesity levels are rising with a simultaneous decline in physical activity. Efforts to increase physical activity levels which focus upon changing individuals? behaviour have had limited success. Increasing attention has therefore been directed towards the potential of the local environment (e.g. the availability of physical activity amenities and resources) to influence physical activity levels and obesity. However, the precise mechanisms through which the UK environment can impact upon physical activity levels and obesity are not well understood. One potential contributory factor is the extent to which the availability of and access to facilities for physical activity is distributed equitably across different neighbourhoods. Most studies to date have been conducted in the USA or Australia, limiting their applicability to the UK. In this proposed study, we intend to examine firstly, the extent to which there is equitable distribution of the availability and access (by different modes of transport) to physical activity opportunities; secondly, to examine if the distribution of opportunity is associated with physical activity levels; and thirdly, to determine if this, in turn, is associated with obesity. We propose to examine these questions in relation to the Scottish population, with a particular focus on adults and fixed PA facilities such as sports centres, swimming pools and green space. Knowledge of the extent to which access and use of physical activity facilities and associations with obesity is socially patterned is important for informing the direction and focus of public health and planning policy.