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Résumé (français)

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Résumé (anglais)

One of the challenges in planning for obesity prevention is the dearth of relevant local data. We analyzed a large nationally representative data set, the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) 2.2, to obtain regional and local distributions of physical activity and diet using statistical and spatial techniques. CCHS 2.2 contains information on health status, diet, physical activity, and measured body mass index (BMI), collected from January through December 2004. The total sample size is approximately 35,000; for the Hamilton metropolitan area it is approximately 600. The analyses were limited to descriptive statistics stratified by age group (2-11 years old, 12-17 years old, 18 years and older) and sex. For continuous variables we computed weighted means, standard errors, and coefficients of variation using the bootstrap macro (BOOTVARE_V3.1.SAS). For spatial analyses we used interpolation with inverse distance weighting. Analyses were conducted at the Research Data Center, McMaster University, using SAS Version 9 and ArcGIS 9.2, in compliance with Statistics Canada’s disclosure rules. Children 6 to 11 years old and 12 to 17 years old spent 2.6 and 5.8 hours per day, respectively, in sedentary activities. Children 2 to 11 years old consumed fruits and vegetables 5.3 times per day; however, 34 percent of that was from fruit juices, and 6 percent was from potatoes. Reported consumption of key nutrients such as fiber and saturated fat varied by neighborhood. We identified risk factors for obesity in the Hamilton population specific for age groups, sex, and location using a subset of national data. This information can guide programs and policies for obesity prevention at the local level.