A new study reveals that women who are living in poor areas are more likely to get obese.  In the long run, these women might get type 2 diabetes.

In the earliest randomized test of its kind, researchers supplied women living in high-poverty areas with vouchers and counseling to help them move into better neighborhoods.  After 10 years of residing in the new areas, the women developed a sense self control over their food and exercises more.  The women now are 19 percent less likely to be obese and 22 percent less likely to have acquired type 2 diabetes compared to the control group residing in high-poverty neighborhoods.

McCormick Foundation Professor of Social Service Administration, Law and Public Policy at the University of Chicago, Jens Ludwig says investments beyond the health care system can be  vital complements to spending inside the health care system.

The effects in their paper appear to be nearly comparable to the best practice daily life and medicine interventions. The initial goal of the study was to aid families be safer.  However, it turns out there’s another effect on these  serious health results that are in the ballpark of lifestyle and medical involvements.

Outcomes of the study are available in the Oct. 20 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

From 1994 through 1998, the study authors had persuaded 4,498 women with children living in public housing, in high-poverty areas, in joining the study. The study known as “Moving to Opportunity”, and its goal was to see if moving the women and their children from high-poverty neighborhood could make some changes in their lives.  The participants came from five U.S. cities: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

The women got designated to one of three groups based on the fallouts of a chance lottery: one group received housing vouchers that can be redeem if they are willing moved to an area with less than 10 percent of citizens living in poverty, and they received advised on moving; another group received housing vouchers without restrictions; and the final group received no intrusion.

From 2008 throughout 2010, the researchers gathered record information, which includes measurements of height, weight and blood samples in testing for diabetes.

Throughout the follow-up period, 17 percent of women in the control group were morbidly obese, having a body mass index of 40 or above. With the women who moved to lower-poverty areas, that rate was 14.4 percent, which is 19 percent beneath the control group. Women who got conventional housing vouchers had a morbid obesity rate of 15.4 percent.