Road delays can lead to unhealthy food

Ever noticed how much more tempting it is to pick up fast food for dinner after he is stuck in traffic? It is not alone. New University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign research shows that traffic increases considerably in fast food restaurants, which leads to unhealthy food for millions every year.

The work is published in the Journal of Urban Economics.

“In our analysis that focuses on Los Angeles County, unexpected traffic delays beyond the usual congestion led to an increase of 1% in fast food visits. That may not sound like much, but it is equal to 1.2 million more fast food visits per year in LA In LA in La in La Only Province we describe our results as modest but useful in terms of potential for changing unhealthy food choices, “said study author Becca Taylor, assistant professor at the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, part of the College of Agricultural , Consumer and Environmental Sciences in Illinois.

Taylor and its co-authors had more than two years of access to daily highway traffic patterns in Los Angeles, together with data showing how many users of mobile phones entered fast food restaurants in the same period. With this data, the team created a computer model with a causal link between unexpected traffic delays and fast food visits.

This pattern was held on different time scales, including 24-hour cycles and per hour during a certain day. When they were analyzed in the day, traffic delays of just 30 seconds per mile were sufficient to spend fast food visits by 1%.

“It may not be intuitive to imagine how a delay of 30 seconds per mile feels,” Taylor said. “I consider it the difference between 10 hours of traffic and 5 pm traffic.”

When the researchers broke the day in an hour -long segments, they found a considerably larger number of fast food visits when the delays of traffic struck during the evening rush hour. At the same time, the visits of the supermarkets fell slightly.

“If there is traffic between 5 pm and 7 pm, which happens to be around the evening meal, we will see an increase in fast food visits,” Taylor said. “Drivers must make a decision to go home and cook something, first stop at the supermarket or just get fast food.”

Given that every large city has both traffic and fast food restaurants along highway roads, it is not a piece to extrapolate the pattern outside of Los Angeles. Taylor and its co-authors say that the connection between traffic and unhealthy food choices is only a reason that policymakers throughout the country and the world must prioritize the reforms of infrastructure to alleviate congestion.

“Our results contribute to the literature that suggests that time limitations are really important for the food choices that people make. Any policy aimed at detaching time limitations – and traffic is in essence of time – can help fight unhealthy food,” ” Taylor said. “That could mean that improvements in the infrastructure to reduce traffic congestion, to expand the availability of public transport and possibly increase work from house opportunities.”

Study authors are Panka Bencsik from Vanderbilt University, Lester Lusher from the University of Pittsburgh and IZA and Becca Taylor.