A tale of two schools: Bus stops, junk food and children’s health

We know that children’s chances of accessing healthy and nutritious food – or being flooded with unhealthy food – depend strongly on where they grow up. Our new tool shows how a schoolchild’s commute to and from school is a prime example of how where we live, play and go to school shapes our health.

Why bus stops?

Our research with urban design firm Gehl on learning from London’s foodscape highlighted how fast-food outlets near schools and transit routes effectively act as bus stops. The research found that junk food is dotted along bus routes, and that children spend time at these outlets after school with their friends, waiting for their bus home over a snack in a warm environment that helps them feel safe, social and empowered.

We created a tool that allows users to visualise a child’s bus journey from home to school and track the number of unhealthy food outlets they are exposed to along the way. We put school catchment area data together with TfL bus routes, food outlets, Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) scores, and obesity rates to understand what a typical journey for children in different neighbourhoods could look like, and how easy it could be to pick up an unhealthy snack on the way home. 

We focused on two typical schools in areas with very different IMD scores: Dulwich Hamlet Junior School (Dulwich) and St. James the Great Roman Catholic Primary School (Peckham).