Background Within Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific, rising overweightness driven by demographic and economic changes raises concerns for urban liveability. Existing food outlet classifications overlook nutritional content, requiring alternative analyses to assess how food environments are shaping urban living.

Methods We compiled geolocated data on 14,764 food outlets across 2655 postal addresses in Singapore. The analysis incorporated built environment features, including transport networks and green spaces. This dataset was linked to socio-demographic and BMI data from 15,614 participants in the Multi-Ethnic Cohort Phase 2 study. Average calorie, carbohydrate, total fat, and saturated fat content, along with the proportion of meals exceeding 10% saturated fat, were estimated for 234 residential zones. Multivariable logistic regression models assessed the impact of these nutritional exposures on overweightness, adjusting for socio-demographics and environmental factors.

Results Neighborhood environments with higher availability of calories, carbohydrates, total fat, and saturated fat were positively associated with being overweight. Specifically, a one-unit increase in scores for calories, carbohydrates, total fat, and saturated fat corresponded to 6% (95% CI: 1%–12%), 5% (0.01%–11%), 5% (0.3%–9%), and 5% (0.02%–9%) increased odds of being overweight, respectively. Reduced green space was also linked to higher overweight risk.

Conclusions Associations between nutrient-dense food environments and increased overweight risk underscores the critical importance of urban planning strategies that facilitate healthier dietary behaviors and better public health outcomes.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

This study was funded by NUS Ground Up Seed Fund (A-8001108-00-00).

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The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

The Institutional Review Board of the National University of Singapore gave ethical approval for this work (NUS-IRB-2022-794).

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All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors