Obesity researchers increasingly use geographic information
systems to measure exposure and access in neighborhood food and
physical activity environments. This paper proposes a network
buffering approach, the “sausage” buffer. This method can be
consistently and easily replicated across software versions and
platforms, avoiding problems with proprietary systems that use
different approaches in creating such buffers. In this paper, we
describe how the sausage buffering approach was developed to be
repeatable across platforms and places. We also examine how the
sausage buffer compares with existing alternatives in terms of
buffer size and shape, measurements of the food and physical
activity environments, and associations between environmental
features and health-related behaviors. We test the proposed
buffering approach using data from EAT 2010 (Eating and Activity
in Teens), a study examining multi-level factors associated with
eating, physical activity, and weight status in adolescents (n =
2,724) in the Mi