Most overweight people live in the seedier parts of towns, where facades are smeared with graffiti and sidewalks with dog droppings, according to a Scottish study.

Researchers at the University of Glasgow surveyed some 7,000 people in seven European cities, and found that nearly twice as many overweight people lived in dirty neighbourhoods than in clean ones, and that 40 percent fewer lived in districts with a lot of parks than in districts with few of them.

The survey also found that residents of areas with plenty of green spaces exercised over three times more frequently than those in seedy neighbourhoods.