A little over two years ago, my daughter was born. At the time, I was in moderately decent shape; although I smoked, I ate fairly well, walked all over the place, and generally kept my weight in an area that my doctor and I considered acceptable. However, my daughter's birth, my decision to quit the demon cancer sticks, and the fact that I spent an insane amount of time on the couch with her quickly bore fruit. Within six months of her arrival, I had packed on about 20 pounds.

After I had to buy new, larger pants, I decided that enough was enough. I started going to the gym, watching what I eat, exercising more, and generally trying to regain my svelte, pre-fatherhood body. I spent a lot of time looking in the mirror, looking at my measurements, and looking at my diet. When I moved to New York, however, my weight loss began to slow, sputter, and even reverse a little bit.

It wasn't too hard to figure out why I wasn't losing weight like I used to. While I was busy looking at the scale, I wasn't looking at my neighborhood. On the bright side, the Vietnamese restaurant near my apartment has several relatively healthy offerings and the taco truck a couple of blocks away is great if I don't order cheese, sour cream, and fried meat. However, the Dominican bakery, with its seductive tres leches cake, the Puerto Rican Cuchifritos stands, and the various pizzerias, Chinese food joints, and Gyro restaurants all taunt me with their wares. While I'm pretty good at avoiding the siren song of KFC, Burger King, and all the other fast food places, I am a sucker for homemade, high-fat goodies.


A study headed by UCLA's Center for Public Health Policy Research has demonstrated a compelling link between incidents of obesity and diabetes and access to fast food and convenience stores. In fact, the study generated a measurement system, the Retail Food Environment Index, or RFEI. Essentially, the RFEI of an area is determined by totaling up all the fast food restaurants and convenience stores in an area and dividing them by the number of farmers' markets, supermarkets, and other produce vendors.

Based on their analysis of 40,000 people, the study's authors determined that the average California neighborhood has an RFEI of 4.5. According to their data, adults who live in an area with an RFEI of 5 or higher have a 23% higher chance of developing diabetes and a 20% higher chance of being obese than those who live in an area with an RFEI of 3 or less. While I haven't calculated the RFEI of my area, I have to admit that passing three ice cream trucks, three frozen ice stands, two ice slushy makers, two pizzerias, two fried chicken joints, and a greasy burger restaurant on my way to the gym taxes my will power. Based on this information, I've rearranged my route--I now just walk past one second-rate deli and a Dunkin' Donuts. I'll have to see if it has an effect!