Source: Food Environment Atlas, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service
Even within the borders of one of the world’s top agricultural countries, healthy food can be hard to come by. Many Americans reside in food deserts—communities where retailers offering fresh food are scarce but fast-food restaurants and convenience stores selling prepared foods can abound.
The top two maps at the right show the proximity of full-line grocers to two groups for whom healthy food is often difficult to procure: low-income households and those without access to a vehicle. Scientists are still exploring the links between food deserts and health by investigating how the nonavailability of fresh food may spur obesity, diabetes and other diet-related conditions. One 2006 study found an association between the presence of supermarkets and lower obesity rates. Convenience stores, on the other hand, were associated with higher rates.
“You always have to be careful about suggesting cause and effect,” says Mari Gallagher, whose Chicago consulting firm carries out case studies of local food environments. The relation between food and health is complex, and personal choice clearly plays a role. “But we do think that the environment, in a lot of different ways, matters,” Gallagher says. “You can’t choose healthy food if you don’t have access to it.”
This article was published in print as "High and Dry in the Food Desert."
See what we're tweeting about
18 Comments
Add CommentInteresting, though as you know there is pushback, see:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"As Experts Agree Food Deserts "Do Exist," Right-Wing Media Use Flawed NY Times Article To Claim They Don't | Media Matters for America"
http://mediamatters.org/research/201204200017
The map is pictorially interesting, but I'd be more "convinced" if I could see X-Y plots of Diabetes and Obesity, vs. the other factors, and even more Geeky, the "R" values. That way I could see how strong the correlation was between them.
Thanks... Good work
There has long been an established relationship between obesity and diabetes. We're pushing hard to determine the real reason for obesity. In the 1960's for instance, it's generally believed that obesity was much less a problem than it is today. If we examine food consumption patterns, surely more grocery store goods were prepared in the 60's than now. Nutritionally, restaurant fare and home cooking are similar, both then and now. Obesity results not from deliberate choice, but from actions forced by one of the most powerful natural urgings we have, hunger. This is also the most important one for our survival as individuals.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen we consider populations living in different climates, we find heavier people in cold climates, and skinnier people in warm climates. These people instinctively eat to suit their climate. Raw seal blubber in the North, and grains and fish in the tropics.
Since the 60's or so, we now have a vastly powerful way to create our own summer climate. Air Conditioning. We like A/C because we don't have to sweat. Why be hot inside or outside, when we can be in the cool inside.
Air Conditioning helps lower our core body temperature, which in turn ups the instinctive drive for more calories. Excercise increases core temperature. Ice cold drinks lower it. After a hot day laying on the beach, how many people want a huge suggary/fatty/starchy meal? Maybe a little salad will suffice. Long cold day in the biting cold skating or tobogganing, and I want hot cocoa, with marshmallows, lots of marshmallows, and I want it now!
I'd love to see a correlation of a graphic of obesity vs. some measure of the degree of cooling by A/C. I have a feeling it will appear similar to the "Health Indicator:Obesity" and "Health Indicator:Diabetes" graphs, above.
So, although potentially contributory, my opinion is that Food Deserts are at best a secondary cause of Obesity and Diabetes.
It's the old chicken and egg problem. Does the skinny guy keep his apartment hot to keep warm, or is he skinny because he keeps it warm? Winter heating has become much more expensive due to energy costs skyrocketing. So we're colder, and therefore eat more.
Thanks for this - but can the editors look at the details a bit more closely- I mean looking at Philadelphia area and North Jersey on these maps one would think that neither area has an obesity / dibetes problem, yet we know Philadelphia and Newark each have problems in these areas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAdditionally, I doubt Colorado is as healthy as this map makes it seem
Someone, please look more closely at these numbers/maps.
priddseren, if you weren't on this website planting unsubstantiated stories all day long, I'd think you actually were a remote, out-of-touch conservative farmer. But, we all know you're not. For those who didn't know better, 'liberals' do not support the manufacture and sale of processed foods. They support local and sustainable farming. They are the ones who pay farmers MORE to process their crops LESS. It is, in fact(!), conservative politicians who support, encourage, and subsidize mass food manufacture (though they don't eat it themselves at their country clubs), and who encourage the deregulation of food safety, food testing, food labeling, and similar **minimal** suitability requirements for what adults and their children will find on store shelves. No doubt some liberal politicians have fallen on the wrong side of this issue, too. But us 'liberals' have no more use for them than we have for all the disingenuous, preachy, fear-mongering, pseudo-religious, bribed and bought 'conservative' (in name only) manipulators whom our troll, priddseren, wants you to believe are going to show up at your doorsteps with farm-fresh food. Just notice how light-colored New York, California, Michigan, and New England are in the graphs above. You think it's a coincidence that this is where the 'liberals' are living? Follow the research and the facts, and not priddseren the schill, and your waistline and general health condition will tell you who's telling the truth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is the first time that I have learned that the degree of cooling has some relationship with obesity and diabetes-a larger degree of cooling, a bigger rate of obesity and diabetes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery interesting, really?
@sstromer
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell said. Hawaii has one of the lowest rates of obesity in the country. It is also one of the most liberal states in the union.
There is unfortunately a disproportionate number of Polynesians and Native Hawaiians that are obese. That is do in part to the destruction of the wetlands that were once used for farming taro (once a very healthy food staple in Polynesia). The wet lands were filled in because they were cheap land suitable for strip malls and tourist resorts. The replacement for taro was refined rice, which is not cultivated in Hawaii and refined sugar which is no longer grown here either.
Canned Spam and hormone fed mainland pork has become the replacement for the lean wild pigs that were once a staple for Hawaiians. Grain fed hormone injected beef is now the replacement for leaner grass fed beef that was raised in Hawaii. Ranchers now ship all the steers to the mainland to have them fattened where the grain is cheaper. Local chicken farms disappeared about a decade ago and hormone fed chickens raised in hellish barns is now the islands main source of poultry and eggs. Even hormone fed farm raised salmon is quickly overtaking the local fish industries as the fisheries are depleted more and more every year.
It is the hormones that are the biggest culprit to the fattening of America and those are added for greater profits for investors, not the average consumer who has little choice in the supermarkets.
I feel fortunate here in Hawaii we still have plenty of small truck farmers who grow organic fruits and vegetables (and even cheaper then the stores can sell it. Chemical free fresh fish is available year round at a great price for anyone who is willing to clean their own as I do.
If you want to see obese Caucasians here all you have to do is go to a tea party rally in the richest areas of the cities here. It is easy to guess what political party those people support.
I grew up in a rural ara and the nearest grocery store was miles away....hint, I don't recall more than one 'fat' kid in school and never knew a diabetic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWalk into any Walmart. Healthy people are in the produce section. Fat people have their cart full of crap...their choice. Good mothers put an apple in their kid's lunch...bad mothers put a crsap snack.
singing flea: "There is unfortunately a disproportionate number of Polynesians and Native Hawaiians that are obese. That is do in part to the destruction of the wetlands that were once used for farming taro '
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishuh? do you really think Polynesians would be eating taro today and not Twinkies? It's easy to grow taro on Maui...the people prefer to buy their food...just as anyone else in 2012 does. Do you live off of snaring rabbits and picking berries? Why do you think Polynesians would want to live off of taro? Many Polynesians in Hawaii CHOOSE to drink pop and eat cookies. Their choice.
More than a mile from a source of fresh produce? More than a MILE? That's the criteria? Maybe if they WALKED to the store and got their fresh produce they could kill two big fat birds with one stone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI imagine, though, that if there was a full service Publix on every corner throughout the most impoverished areas of this country there would still be the usual run on beer, Mac n' cheese, Yoo Hoo, fish sticks, and fried tater tots. And all of it paid for with food stamps. And please don't anyone suggest that you can't by alcoholic beverages with food stamps; it's pretty well documented that you can buy anything with food stamps in the "right part of town"
Actually, THAT'S the demographic I'd LIKE to see; what is the correllation, if any, between food stamps and obesity? I think it's a safe bet to say that there is a clear causal relationship.
This is not a proximity problem. It is not what is laughably characterized above as an access-to-fresh-food problem; it is an ignorance problem. It is a culture-of-poverty problem. People behave largely according to the state dependent learning they are acclimated to, and profound poverty breeds profound poverty.
American liberalism/progressivism started the "War on Poverty" 47 years ago, when the poverty rate was about 12%. The poverty rate has not wavered more than two percentage points in either direction since then, despite the Two or more trillion we have spent on combatting/fostering it.
And now, according to SCIAM, poor people are fat because they are "forced"(???) to walk more than a mile to get fresh foods. And of course, poor people aren't smart enough to choose healthy foods and are "forced" once again (at gunpoint, one wonders?)to eat at "Popeyes" or "Church's Chicken." I wish I was so victimized; I'm hungry, and I don't get paid until Friday....
"...do you really think Polynesians would be eating taro today and not Twinkies?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease go back and read my post again, but this time without prejudice.
The main culprit is hormones used in the production of livestock. My reference to taro was about the long since gone diet of Hawaiians.
Poi is far to expensive now to replace rice, sugar and flour as a staple food. If you ever grew taro you would know why. Polynesians never had the luxury of a quality education when Twinkies and Spam were introduced to them. That was reserved for the rich here in Hawaii. You are an ignorant fool if you think these people turned to this diet by choice. Just like the poorly educated obese people down south, Polynesians are a victim of fast food and highly processed junk foods that industry for decades touted as quality food. Take Wonder Bread for example. It is total crap when it comes to nutrition, yet everyone had the jingles of Wonder Bread and Nestle's Quick drilled into their brains by the time they were out of kindergarten.
The fact is that today's eating habits are a product of TV and advertising. We were all programmed from the age of radio and later TV that junk food would 'build bodies 12 ways'. This is a direct result of corporate manipulation of the food market. There is now only 7 major food manufacturers making 90% of the countries food and most of it is made for taste, texture and eye appeal. Nutrition is not even in the corporate equation. Most people today actually have been brainwashed by advertisers to send their kids to school with a breakfast of Kellog's Frosted Flakes or Pop Tarts thinking they actually fed those kids a vitamin and protein rich meal. These people where taught this food was healthy by money grubbers, not educated teachers.
You cannot change the eating habits of the country by labeling obesity as personal choice. Just like smoking, people need to be educated about the health consequences of junk food and advertisement needs to be banned on TV just like tobacco ads, especially on children's programs.
The conservative's mantra that what is good for business is good for people is nothing more then a death sentence for the kids growing up today.
Anyone who doesn't understand that concept has no business teaching in the school system in today's modern society.
These are pretty maps but are a bad use of the data. Which is the cause and which is the effect? What is the correlation between the two and degree of confidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs to those who are trying to turn this into an argument of liberal vs. conservative political views that is a waste of time that this data can neither confirm or repudiate.
Does this take into account consumers that work around "food deserts" by ordering their foods from sources around the world with FedEx and UPS delivery? For example, one can order fresh seafoods at competitive prices from Alaska or via seafood dealers online, and a variety of pantry foods from Amazon at lower prices than pristine supermarkets in healthy "food islands" can offer. With proper storage, these foods can be stocked for months and replenished through proper scheduling. One can get by in so-called "food deserts" so long as major shippers deliver there and one has an internet connection (cable, cellular, or satellite).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thistimbo "More than a mile from a source of fresh produce? More than a MILE? That's the criteria? Maybe if they WALKED to the store and got their fresh produce they could kill two big fat birds with one stone."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo true.
But we know that once they walked to the store the 'big ones' would still buy a Twinkie instead of a banana. On the walk back they'd stop at a burger joint for a fix of sugar, salt and fat.
I would also have to question the willingness of good honest people to want to open a grocer of other type of 'fresh food' outlet in some of the aforementioned areas for fear of crime. When dealing with the 'whole foods' industry, they're working on razor thin profit margins. With that kind of risk who's going to open up shop in a high crime area? Perhaps some of the neighborhoods are inadvertently setting up their own food deserts from the actions caused by their local community.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMeandering science free blabber.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you have "learned" anything from that comment I suggest you do a little research and unlearn it fast.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood Luck!
It's axiomatic that a person who feels he has to use the term "Mensa" as part of his user name doesn't belong in Mensa.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the same way, anyone who proclaims himself to be a "grown ass man", isn't.
@cm1701 Colorado has been found to be the "fittest" state in the US. With lots of ranch land and the Rockies running vertically through the middle of the state, many of the people living there are active in their jobs and recreationally. Perhaps you should look into the numbers? In re: NJ etc., remember this is per capita and averaged. Nobody's saying there's a place with NO obesity or diabetes - if you look at the color bar you see that the white regions for diabetes represent 3-8% prevalence, and for obesity represent 12-25% prevalence. That's not nothing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this