WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A new study in the Journal of Urban Economics showed that when traffic gets worse, people are more likely to stop at fast food places instead of going to grocery stores.
Researchers from Vanderbilt University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Illinois collected and analyzed data from 2017 to 2019. They tracked visits to nearly 21,000 food locations in Los Angeles County, including fast-food spots, dine-in restaurants, convenience stores, and supermarkets. This was done using smartphone location data from millions of people.
Along with food visits, they also looked at traffic data from more than 2,500 highway sensors to measure how much extra time drivers spent in slow-moving traffic. Since LA drivers rely heavily on highways, the area was a perfect place to study how traffic affects food decisions.
The researchers focused on weekdays, when people are usually more pressed for time due to work and commuting. They also adjusted for things like holidays, weather, and seasonal trends to make sure their results were accurate.
They discovered that even a small increase in traffic delays, such as about 31 extra seconds per mile, led to a 1 percent rise in fast food visits. This small change becomes significant when multiplied across millions of drivers.
The effect was most noticeable during evening rush hour, especially on roads heading away from the city center, when people are on their way home and deciding what to eat for dinner.
To double-check their results, the researchers tested the data in several ways. They compared traffic at different times of the day, looked at traffic going in and out of the city, and even used accidents to study random changes in traffic. Every method confirmed the same conclusion - longer traffic delays lead to more fast food stops and fewer healthy eating choices.
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