Do you live in food desert where some people have no access to healthy foods do transportation or income? In many ways the loss of job or car put us all in food desert (unless you live next to a supermarket).
The term "food desert" was reputedly first used by a resident of a public sector housing scheme in the west of Scotland in the early 1990s. It first appeared in a government publication in a 1995 document from a policy working group of the Low Income Project Team of the then Conservative government's Nutrition Task Force. The term has been used increasingly by academics, policy makers, and community groups to describe populated urban areas where residents do not have access to an affordable and healthy diet. Government reports have said that food deserts may damage public health by restricting the availability and affordability of foods that may benefit health. These reports have influenced several policy recommendations designed to promote adequate retail provision of food for those with a low income or who live in poor neighbourhoods. The reports have aimed to identify best practice and innovative approaches to improving shopping access in such neighbourhoods. BMJ 2002;325(7361):436 (24 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.325.7361.436
During a speech in September 1998 to launch the publication of the Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health, Donald Acheson (chairman of the inquiry) used food deserts as an example of a mechanism by which poverty and social inequality could cause poor health. This appeared in the national press, which reported that millions of households were undernourished because they did not have the opportunity to make healthy food choices. Residents of poor communities have blamed the lack of supermarkets in their areas as the main reason for not being able to eat more healthily.Popularly, therefore, the major food retailers are held partly responsible for the emergence of food desertsfor not establishing shops in poor communities and so denying residents the benefits of choice and a good price.BMJ 2002;325(7361):436 (24 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.325.7361.436
Health is more health care. If one looked the World Health Organization's "Social determinants of health: the solid facts 2nd edition" Richard Wilkinson and Sir Michael Marmot, food deserts and food insecurity contribute to stress/depression, early life influences, malnutrition, social exclusion, addiction and unemployment. That is over half of the social determinants can influenced by where one lives.
According wikipedia:
a food desert is urban or rural area with little or no access to foods need to maintain a healthy diet but often served by plenty of fast food restaurants.
The concept of access can be interpreted in three separate ways.
Physical access to shops can be difficult if the shops are distant, the shopper is elderly or infirm, the area is hilly, transport links are poor and the consumer has no car. Also the shop might be across a busy road difficult to cross with children or with underpasses that some fear to use because to a crime risk. For some such as the disabled, the inside of the shop may be hard to access physically if there are steps up or the interior is cramped with no room for walking aid. Carrying fresh foods home may also be hard for some.
Financial access is difficult if the consumer lacks the money to buy healthy nutrient dense foods (generally more expensive, calorie for calorie, less healthy energy dense sugary and fatty junk foods) or if the shopper cannot afford the bus fare to remote shops selling fresh foods and instead uses local fast food outlets. Other forms of financial access barriers may be the inability to afford storage space for food or for the very poor living temporary accommodation that does not offer good cooking facilities.
Thirdly the mental attitude or food knowledge of the consumer may prevent them accessing fresh vegetables. They may lack cooking knowledge or the idea eating a health diet isn’t important.
The New York Times Magazine ran a piece in a yearend A to Z section December 14, 2008 under the letter F for Fast Food Zoning it ran this piece:
South Los Angeles has roughly 900 restaurants nearly half of which are fast food establishments. Perhaps not unrelated; the adult obesity rate in South L.A. is 30 percent which is 10 percent more than the rest of Los Angeles County and diabetes levels there are also a county high according to study by the L.A. County Department of Public Health.
In an effort to provide residents with nutritious choices, the L.A. City Council adopted landmark legislation in July mandating a one–year moratorium on the building of new fast food eateries in a 32 sq. mile area. Fast food zoning in other cities but is based on aesthetics considerations, not health factors. According Jan Perry, a council member who co-sponsored the bill and whose district in part of South L.A. the idea is to freeze fast food development so sit down restaurants and quality food markets will build in the area. "When every corner is take up with fast food," says Perry "there is no room for anything else. If the measure sounds desperate, that because it is." Perry has had difficulty attracting high quality grocers to the low-income area and Ralph’s supermarket that served the community for decades closed two years ago.
Public health advocates favor the ban provided it ushers in real reform. "Is the city working with stores to have an increase of healthy things available?", asks Mark Valliantos, policy director of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College. "Are they just eliminating the bad choices?"
- Fast Food Zoning, Steve Kurutzy, New York Times Magazine, Dec. 14, 2008.
Is zoning the answer to America's food desert dilemma? Yes or no? With obesity rates so high people will try anything?
Zoning excludes unwanted uses harming the community’s general health and welfare. Cullingworth B., Planning in the USA: policies, issues and processes Routledge 1997
Do fast food restaurants fall under this category? Under the weight of an obesity epidemic and health care crisis every avenue to improve America’s health must be explored. How do we turn zoning from an exclusionary affair in a desirable inclusive event for the welfare of the community? It might mean trade offs like tax increment financing (TIF) that come with possible drawbacks as local school districts and county budgets struggle to balance their own budgets. This creates a conflict between community health, education and government welfare programs. Public policies must be evaluated for their long-term impact on the America’s health. The stress of unemployment must weigh against the long-term opportunity cost to the community’s health. There is the possibility of government excluding the cheap food establishments and minimum wage jobs necessary for expanding for the lower income community purchasing power in an age of wage stagflation and job evaporation. Good jobs and good dietary choices might mean a shift in long term thinking to the stop the long term dietary desertification of America’s inner city landscape. How does America provide universal health care coverage when the National Restaurant Association promotes "a growth industry and small business franchises/entrepreneurs necessary for community development"? Is this tradeoff just a rhetorical bait and switch? Something is better than nothing when work in community all but disappears. For some communities fast food employment is all there is. How do we get beyond the race into the dietary deserts?