User:Carwil/RHEnviro

Environmental factors
A positive correlation between minorities and a socio economic status of being low income in industrialized and rural regions of the U.S. depict how low income communities tend to include more individuals that have a lower educational background, most importantly in health. Income status, diet, and education all construct a higher burden for low income minorities, to be conscious about their health. Research conducted by medical departments at universities in San diego, Miami, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina suggested that minorities in regions where lower socioeconomic status is common, there was a direct relationship with unhealthy diets and greater distance of supermarkets. Therefore, in areas where supermarkets are less accessible (food deserts) to impoverished areas, the more likely these groups are to purchase inexpensive fast food or just follow an unhealthy diet. As a result, because food deserts are more prevalent in low income communities, minorities that reside in these areas are more prone obesity, which can lead to diseases such as chronic kidney disease, hypertension, or diabetes.

Furthermore, this can also occur when minorities living in rural areas undergoing urbanization, are introduced to fast food. A study done in Thailand focused on urbanized metropolitan areas, the students who participated in this study as were diagnosed as “non-obese” in their early life according to their BMI, however were increasingly at risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes, or obesity as adults, as opposed to young adults who lived in more rural areas during their early life. Therefore, early exposure to urbanized regions can encourage unhealthy eating due to widespread presence of inexpensive fast food. Different racial populations that originate from more rural areas and then immigrate to the urbanized metropolitan areas can develop a fixation for a more westernized diet; this change in lifestyle typically occurs due to loss of traditional values when adapting to a new environment. For example, a 2009 study named CYKIDS was based on children from Cyprus, a country east of the mediterranean sea, who were evaluated by the KIDMED index to test their adherence to a mediterranean diet after changing from rural residence to an urban residence. It was found that children in urban areas swapped their traditional dietary patterns for a diet favoring fast food.