Childhood Overweight and the Built Environment: Making Technology Part of the Solution rather than Part of the Problem

• Author: Amy Hillier
• Published date: 01 January 2008
• Date: 01 January 2008
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0002716207308399
• Subject Matter: Articles

56 ANNALS, AAPSS, 615, January 2008

The changing nature of how children engage with their

physical environment is one factor in the dramatic

increase in childhood overweight. Children today are

engaging much less with the world outside their homes

in terms of physical activity and much more in terms of

eating. Technological innovations in media have con-

tributed to these changes, keeping children inside and

sedentary during more of their playtime and exposing

them to highly coordinated advertising campaigns. But

researchers are increasingly looking to technology for

solutions to understand how children interact with

their built environments and to make changes that pro-

mote healthy living. This article reviews many of these

innovations, including the use of geospatial technolo-

gies, accelerometers, electronic food and travel diaries,

and video games to promote physical activity and

healthy eating. It also explores some of the other possi-

bilities for harnessing the potential of technology to

combat the childhood overweight epidemic.

Keywords: childhood overweight; childhood obesity;

built environment; geographic information

systems; GIS; global positioning systems;

GPS; technology

The idea that children used to eat a made-

from-scratch dinner at home with their

families before running outside to play may

have taken on mythic power in the context of

the current childhood overweight epidemic.

But fifty years ago, who would have imagined

the obesegenic environments we would create

for them, in part with the help of technology?

Who would have imagined that, at the extreme,

our children would be sitting in the backseat of

climate-controlled minivans watching movies

on personal DVD players while eating take-out

Childhood

Overweight and

the Built

Environment:

Making

Technology Part

of the Solution

rather than Part

of the Problem

By

AMY HILLIER

Amy Hillier is an assistant professor of city and regional

planning at the University of Pennsylvania School of

Design. In addition to city planning courses, she

teaches for Penn’s Urban Studies Program, the School

of Social Policy & Practice, and the Master of Urban

Spatial Analytics program. She is also a senior fellow at

the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. Her

research uses GIS and spatial statistics to analyze geo-

graphic disparities in housing and health.

DOI: 10.1177/0002716207308399

fast-food meals featuring the same animated characters they are watching on

their screens?

The changing nature of how children engage with their environment is one

factor in the dramatic increase in childhood overweight. Children today are

engaging much less with the world outside their homes in terms of physical activ-

ity and much more in terms of eating. Technological innovations, including the

Internet, sophisticated video games, and the many at-home television and movie

options, have contributed to these changes. As a result, children spend on aver-

age nearly four hours a day watching television, DVDs, and prerecorded shows

and playing video games. Over the course of a week, their exposure to media

(including music) is equivalent to a full-time job (Rideout, Roberts, and Foehr

2005). The American Medical Association suggested that for some children—

perhaps more than 5 million—extensive use of video games may constitute an

addiction (Associated Press 2007).

In addition to keeping children inside and sedentary during more of their play-

time, these media expose them to highly coordinated advertising campaigns,

many of which target children (Gantz et al. 2007; Kelly 2005). Gantz et al. (2007)

estimated that children ages eight to twelve see approximately seventy-six hun-

dred television food ads a year, and two out of three parents say their children

have asked them to buy foods that they have seen advertised on television

(Rideout 2004). Children and adults, alike, have responded to aggressive food

marketing and the convenience of eating out. The proportion of calories

Americans of all ages consume from foods obtained away from home increased

from 18 percent in 1974 to 32 percent in 1996 to about half of all calories in 2004

(Stewart, Blisard, and Jolliffe 2006; Lin, Frazão, and Guthrie 1999).

At the same time researchers document these trends, they are increasingly

looking to technology to better understand how children interact with their built

environments and to make changes that promote healthy living. This article

reviews many of these innovations, including the use of geospatial technologies

such as geographic information systems (GIS) and global positioning systems

(GPS), accelerometers, electronic food and travel diaries, digital audio players,

Web sites, and cell phones. First, it explores the idea of the built environment,

reviews the research on the influence of the built environment on physical activ-

ity and eating, and considers the technological changes that have made children

more sedentary. After describing many of the innovative uses of technology to

address the problem of childhood overweight, it offers an agenda for making

technology—and children—a bigger part of the solution.

What Is the “Built Environment”?

“Built environment” is used here to describe everything that children

encounter when they step outside their door in their immediate neighborhood

area. It is based on a spatial conception of environment that imagines that children

CHILDHOOD OVERWEIGHT AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT 57