Is Walmart making people fat?

A study from the "Journal of Urban Economics" to be released to the public in March claims that, on average, people living around a Walmart supercentre gets fatter once the store moves into the area.

Like other Walmarts, Walmart supercentres sell basically anything and everything you could possibly think of, but also sells groceries as well. In the United States, there are 2899 supercentres. In Canada, 119 of the 323 Walmarts are supercentres.

Over a 10 year period, it was found that there was an increase of pounds per person of 1.5 pounds, and the obesity rate was said to increase by 2.3%.

It is believed that this weight increase may occur because of the increased access to low-cost, processed foods from these supercentres.

Some questions you should think of include what other factors may be contributing to this weight gain? Could it be that other items, such as DVDs, TVs and video games may also be less expensive at these supercentres? How are the lower prices of Walmart affecting how other stores price their goods?

You can read the full article here.