food desert
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What is a food desert?
A food desert is an impoverished area, either rural or urban, where people lack access to healthy foods. Factors such as socioeconomic conditions and urban planning contribute to their existence. Food deserts are difficult to traverse, especially for those without cars who rely on public transportation.
Residents of food deserts often experience poor diets and health disorders like obesity. Studies reveal disparities in food availability, diet, and health linked to income, ethnicity, and the local food environment. Food deserts usually have more convenience stores than supermarkets, and the available food is high in calories, low in nutrients, and expensive.
Some measures to improve access to healthy foods include promoting healthy food retailers and connecting consumers to outlets with affordable, fresh produce through farmers' markets, school programs, urban gardens, and online supermarkets.
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Where are food deserts usually found?
Food deserts are typically found in impoverished areas, both rural and urban, where people struggle to access healthy foods. These areas are characterized by a combination of complex socioeconomic and geographic factors that contribute to poor diets and health issues like obesity. Studies show that poor neighborhoods often have fewer supermarkets compared to wealthier ones, and the same is true for predominantly Black neighborhoods versus predominantly white ones. Instead, food deserts tend to have a higher number of convenience stores that offer high-calorie, nutrient-poor foods at high prices. The lack of transportation and the unaffordability of nutritious foods further exacerbate the problem.
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Why do food deserts form in certain areas?
Food deserts are impoverished areas where people lack access to healthy foods, due to complex geographic and socioeconomic factors. They can be found in both rural and urban settings and are often associated with poor diet and health disorders like obesity.
While the exact origins of food deserts are not fully understood, research suggests that economic factors like supply and demand and urban planning play a role. Disparities in income level, ethnicity, and the local food environment also contribute to the formation of food deserts. For example, low-income areas may lack nutritious foods and education about healthy food choices, which maintains the demand for unhealthy foods and perpetuates their availability.
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How do food deserts affect people's health?
Food deserts significantly affect the health of residents due to limited access to nutritious foods. These areas, whether rural or urban, often have more convenience stores than supermarkets, offering high-calorie, nutrient-poor foods at high prices. This leads to poor diets and health disorders such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, and kidney failure. Food insecurity may also lead to skipping meals or switching to low-quality foods, resulting in malnutrition, weakness, and increased risk of type 2 diabetes and hypertension.
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What groups of people are most impacted by food deserts?
Food deserts disproportionately affect impoverished areas, whether rural or urban, where people lack access to healthy foods. Studies show that income level, ethnicity, and the local food environment are associated with disparities in food availability, diet, and health.
For example, wealthy neighborhoods often have more supermarkets than poor ones, and predominantly white neighborhoods have more than predominantly Black neighborhoods. These food deserts are frequently characterized by a high number of convenience stores that offer high-calorie, nutrient-poor foods at high prices instead of supermarkets with fresh vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. Economic factors, such as supply and demand, and urban planning also play a role.
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What can communities do to reduce or eliminate food deserts?
Communities can reduce or eliminate food deserts by promoting healthy food retailers and connecting consumers to affordable, nutritious options. Strategies include farmers' markets, school programs, urban gardens, and online supermarkets with delivery. Community-development financial institutions can provide loans to food retailers in these areas. Urban planning and transportation services also play a role in connecting consumers to food retailers. These efforts address disparities in food availability, diet, and health associated with income and ethnicity. By increasing access to healthy food choices and promoting education about nutrition, communities can improve residents' well-being.
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food desert, an impoverished area where residents lack access to healthy foods. Food deserts may exist in rural or urban areas and are associated with complex geographic and socioeconomic factors, as well as with poor diet and health disorders such as obesity. Most knowledge of food deserts has come from studies of the United Kingdom and the United States. In fact, the term food desert was introduced in the early 1990s in western Scotland, where it was used to describe the poor access to nutritious foods experienced by residents of a public housing development.
Defining food deserts
Food deserts are likened to physical desert regions because the search for and acquisition of nutritious foods is not easily accomplished in either environment. Indeed, food deserts often are not readily traversed, particularly by people without cars who rely on public transportation. Furthermore, if nutritious foods are available, they often are unaffordable. However, despite numerous investigations, conducted in not only the United Kingdom and the United States but also Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, the criteria that define food deserts and their boundaries and the reasons for their existence are not fully understood.
Socioeconomic factors and food deserts
Despite the uncertainties concerning the origins of food deserts, research has suggested that economic factors, such as supply and demand, as well as urban planning, which serves to connect consumers to food retailers and transportation services, are at play. These factors interact in ways that are complex. For example, while the interaction of supply and demand generally determines which food products are available and the price of those products, consumer demand is heavily influenced by personal preference, which itself is influenced by individual behaviour and socioeconomic factors. Hence, in a low-income area where there exists not only a lack of nutritious foods but also a general lack of education about healthy food choices, residents may unknowingly choose unhealthy foods, thereby maintaining the demand for those food products and perpetuating their availability.
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Food deserts and health disparities
The study of food deserts has drawn attention to disparities in food availability, diet, and health that are associated with income level, ethnicity, and local food environment. For example, in several U.S. states, including Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, and North Carolina, wealthy neighbourhoods were found to have more supermarkets than poor neighbourhoods, and the same was true for predominantly white versus predominantly black neighbourhoods. Other studies have revealed that some urban and rural food deserts have local food environments characterized by a relatively high number of convenience stores and few or no supermarkets. While convenience stores sell food products, they generally offer high-calorie foods that are low in vital nutrients at relatively high prices and do not offer the wide selection of healthy foods, such as vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, that can be found in supermarkets. As a result, overweight and obesity, as well as cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, and kidney failure, tend to be more prevalent in areas with a greater number of convenience stores relative to supermarkets.
Improving access to healthy foods
Some countries where food deserts have been determined to exist have introduced measures to improve access to healthy foods. These measures include finding ways to promote the establishment of healthy food retailers in food deserts and to connect consumers to outlets where fresh vegetables and fruits and other healthy foods are available at reasonable cost. The latter may be accomplished through farmers’ markets, exposure to healthy foods in schools, urban garden and agriculture projects, or even online supermarkets that offer healthy foods for order over the Internet and delivery to accessible locations.
One of the first countries to attempt to make inroads into the problem of food deserts was the United Kingdom; however, its Food Poverty (Eradication) Bill of 2001 failed passage. The United States also took steps to improve access to healthy foods, introducing the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, which was followed by an evaluation of the prevalence of food deserts in the country. In 2010 U.S. Pres. Barack Obama proposed the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI), which encouraged retailers to bring healthy foods to impoverished urban and rural communities. A large share of subsequent funding for HFFI went to community-development financial institutions for lending to food retailers in food deserts.