The New Jersey Childhood Obesity Study: Food Environment Maps, New Brunswick

The maps in this chartbook describe the food environment in ew Brunswick in terms of access to supermarkets, smaller grocery stores, convenience stores, and limited service restaurants. Research shows that when residents have access to healthy food outlets, they tend to eat healthy.

• Food environment maps were created using geo-coded commercially available data of food outlets (Info USA, 2008 and Trade Dimensions, 2008) in New Brunswick and in a 1 mile buffer area around New Brunswick.

•Using the commercial data and additional investigation, food outlets were classified into different categories based on their likelihood of carrying healthy choices: supermarkets carry most healthy choices; smaller grocery stores carry fewer healthy choices; convenience stores and limited service restaurants are likely to carry mostly unhealthy choices.

• Access to different types of food outlets was computed at the census block group level based on concentration of stores / restaurants per unit area and is reported as food outlet densities.

•Food outlet density maps are compared with Census 2000 data to visualize accessibility of healthy foods in neighborhoods with different characteristics.

Data Sources: Info USA food outlet 2008 data

Trade Dimensions food outlet 2008 data

Census 2000 data

New Jersey Department of Education 2008-2009 data