THURSDAY, March 15 (HealthDay News) -- Children in a neighborhood with an extra-wide walking/bicycle trail were three times more likely to get vigorous exercise than those in a neighborhood with regular sidewalks, a new study shows.
The researchers compared children in two low-income neighborhoods in Chattanooga, Tenn. One has a two-mile trail for cycling and walking that winds from new public housing and single-family residences to a school, library, recreational facility, park and retail shops.
The other neighborhood has similar features, but regular-width sidewalks, according to the study scheduled to be presented Thursday at an American Heart Association (AHA) meeting in San Diego.
"There was more vigorous activity in the park and along the trail. There was more jogging or bike riding, which makes sense because the urban trail was made for that," study author Gregory Heath, an assistant provost for research and engagement at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and the UT College of Medicine, said in an AHA news release.
Previous studies of this type of neighborhood feature have focused mostly on suburban or upper-income communities, according to the release.
"Infrastructural changes like these are expensive. But quite frankly in the long run, they're worth it," Heath said.
Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
-- Robert Preidt 
Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCE: American Heart Association, news release, March 15, 2012
THURSDAY, March 22 (HealthDay News) -- Obesity is associated with reduced memory and thinking skills in adults aged 60 to 70, especially those with greater amounts of abdominal fat, according to a new study.
The study included 250 people aged 60 and older who underwent various measurements of their body fat and a test of thinking skills.
The researchers found that a high body mass index (BMI) was associated with increased risk of poor cognitive (mental) performance in people aged 60 to 70. BMI uses a person's height and weight to estimate their amount of body fat. In general, a higher BMI means more body fat.
The study also found that those with the highest level of abdominal fat tended to have worse thinking skills than those with the least amount of abdominal fat.
Among the participants aged 60 to 70, those who were obese were older, more likely to be male and more likely to have high blood pressure than those who weren't obese.
There was no association between obesity and reduced mental skills among people older than 70, according to the study in the journal Age and Ageing.
"Our findings have important public health implications. The prevention of obesity, particularly central obesity, might be important for the prevention of cognitive decline or dementia," lead author Dae Hyun Yoon, of the Seoul National University Hospital Healthcare System in South Korea, said in a journal news release.
Although the study found that obese adults aged 60 to 70 tended to have poorer thinking skills, it did not prove that obesity caused people to have worse memory or mental skills.
-- Robert Preidt Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCE: Age and Ageing, news release, March 21, 2012