《中英對照讀新聞》Neighborhood may help prevent childhood obesity 鄰里環境可能有助於預防兒童肥胖

◎ 陳成良

The neighborhood an adolescent lives in may influence his or her development of obesity, new study findings suggest. Specifically, investigators found that adolescents from close-knit neighborhoods were less likely to be obese.

新的研究發現，青少年的住家鄰里環境可能會影響他（她）日後是否會成為胖子。確切的說，研究人員發現，在鄰里間聯繫密切的環境中，青少年較不容易肥胖。

Close-knit neighborhoods exhibited strong collective efficacy -- neighbors get along and are willing to help each other, and many adults are role models for adolescents.

人與人之間聯繫緊密的鄰里環境會發揮很強的群體功效—使得鄰里間和睦相處，樂於互相幫助，並有許多成年人為青少年建立角色典範。

"There is an obesity epidemic in this country and treatment has focused on diet and exercise with relatively little success," study author Dr. Deborah A. Cohen, a senior natural scientist at the Santa Monica, California-based RAND Corporation, said in a company statement.

「肥胖已成為這個國家的流行病，但是著重在運動與飲食的治療方式卻成效不大，」這份研究報告的作者、也是總部位於美國加州聖塔摩尼卡市蘭德公司的資深自然科學家黛博拉．科恩博士，在該公司的聲明中說。

Previous studies show that a neighborhood's level of collective efficacy is predictive of crime, premature death, death from cardiovascular disease and other health outcomes.

先前的研究顯示，鄰里環境中的群體功效強弱，可在一定程度上預測出那裡的犯罪率、過早死亡、心血管疾病死亡率及其他健康方面的情況。

Adolescents in low-collective efficacy neighborhoods, on the other hand, were 64 percent more likely to be at-risk-for-overweight and 52 percent more likely to be overweight than those living in neighborhoods with an average level of collective efficacy, the researchers report in the journal Social Science & Medicine.

那些生活在群體功效較弱的鄰里環境中的青少年，出現體重超重的危險性，比生活在群體功效強之鄰里環境中的同伴高了64%，即使與那些生活在群體功效正常的鄰里環境裡的青少年相比，這種危險性也高出52%，研究人員在「社會科學暨醫學期刊」中的報告指出。

新聞辭典

obesity：名詞，（過度）肥胖。形容詞為obese，形容人相當肥胖（very fat）。

close-knit：形容詞，緊密結合的。knit當動詞，意為「編織、結合」。用法如：His broken bone knitted quickly.（他的斷骨很快就癒合了）。

epidemic：名詞，本文中意為「擴散、流行」，同樣的用法如：an unemployment epidemic（失業潮）。epidemic另一個常見解釋為「流行病」，當形容詞則為「傳染的」（尤指疾病）。用法如：an epidemic outbreak of influenza （流行性感冒大流行）。