Neighborhoods with healthy food options may be less likely to have overweight kids, according to a recent study.

Researchers found that children who had access to at least one healthy food outlet within about half a mile of their home had a 38 percent decreased risk of being overweight or obese compared to those who did not. Each additional outlet for healthy foods within that distance was associated with a 19 percent reduction in risk of being overweight or obese.

"Few previous studies have considered the likely reduction in risk of childhood overweight or obesity associated with proximity to healthy food outlets," Laura Miller, lead author of the study and an epidemiologist with the Public Health and Clinical Services Division for the state of Western Australia, said in a statement

For the study, researchers collected data from more than 1,800 children between the ages of 5 and 15 in the city of Perth in Western Australia and their neighborhood food outlets. The study controlled for age, physical activity, time spent sedentary, the number of take-out meals per week, and the socioeconomic status of the neighborhood.

Food outlets in Western Australia must be registered with local government authorities and were geographically coded by location and types of food sold. In addition to familiar chains such as McDonalds, Chinese, Thai, and Indian take-out restaurants, fish-and-chips shops, burger joints, and pizzerias were all coded as fast food outlets in the study. Supermarkets, fruit and vegetable shops, and butchers were coded as healthy food outlets.

"This study provides a sense of the associations between neighborhood food stores and restaurants relative to self-reported height and weight in Australian children," researcher Penny Gordon-Larsen, professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Fellow of The Obesity Society, said in a study.

Researchers said supermarkets, general stores, fruit and vegetable stores, and butchers provide more healthy food options, and also allow for control over ingredients and portion size.

The findings were recently published in the American Journal of Health Promotion.