A decade-long study of thousands found that students whose schools are within a block of a fast-food outlet are more likely to be obese than students whose schools are a quarter of a mile or more away.

“Neighborhoods that choose to zone out fast-food restaurants are probably taking a step to protect the future health of their children,” Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, told the New York Times.

The study, buried on page 14 of the NYT, was done by economists at the University of California and Columbia University.

In July, the Councilwoman Jan Perry led the L.A. City Council to adopt landmark legislation mandating a one-year moratorium on the building of new fast-food eateries in a 32-square-mile area.

Perry's ban generated national media attention and outrage, including a story in the New York Times that mentioned the Leimert Park Beat.

The facts, according to the Los Angeles Times:

South Los Angeles has the highest concentration of fast-food eateries in the city. 45% of the 900 restaurants in South L.A. are fast-food chains, compared with 16% of 2,200 restaurants in Los Angeles' Westside.

South L.A. also has far fewer grocery stores.

Thirty percent of adults in South L.A. are obese, compared with 20.9% in the county.

For children, the obesity rate was 29% in South L.A., compared with 23.3% in the county.

“I think we got as close to proving causation as any other study has, and probably as close as is feasible with the existing data,” said Enrico Moretti, one of the paper’s authors. “We’re quite confident that these are credible and unbiased estimates of the causal effect of fast food on obesity for the group we focused on.”

LA Times takes a flyover on the topic as well on Friday.