Summary and Review of Why is takes more than a Grocery Store to Eliminate a Food Desert Sarah Corapi’s article, Why is takes more than a Grocery Store to Eliminate a Food Desert, addresses the important issue of “food deserts”: the health issues imposed on the people living in these areas, what steps have been made to improve these unacceptable areas, and what work there is yet left to do. In the PBS article Mrs. Corapi interviews Professor Steven Cummins, whom had worked in a study over what kind of impact a new grocery store had made on the people living in a Philadelphia town. The results were more than somewhat shocking. Despite having better access to healthy foods, it seemed that many people remained trapped in their poor eating habits.
The Future of Foods Projects Presented at LA City Hall on Food Day 2017 Promote a Good Food Economy for All Smart Stop: Plant-Based Convenience Store Could not find info online Hank’s Mini-Market: Convenience Store Transforming into a Community Arts Hub and Healthy Food Store in Partnership with Sweetgreen The healthy neighborhood market network has been working with corner stores in south LA and Boyle Heights to offer more fresh produce and healthy food options. Hanks's Mini Market located on 3301 W Florence Ave, LA CA and has been transforming the community by providing its food resources to Sweetgreen restaurants. http://goodfoodla.org/policymaking/healthy-neighborhood-market-network/ Create a Culture Shift
Food Deserts Food deserts are spaces that are at least a mile or more over from any super markets and/or shopping centers. They are usually located in places where most of the people who live there do not have reliable transportation. Most businesses in food deserts have corner stores and fast food restaurants, but there usually are not any healthy food places or choices in the area. Supermarkets have been harshly judged for leaving out a large population of the Black and Latino population in cities such as Memphis, Los Angeles and Detroit. These cities are desperate for more healthy food besides the many fast food places they have to offer.
This source comes from the magazine “Slate” which is known for arguing against Commonly held views about a subject’s one of them being food. The article “Food Deserts Aren’t the Problem” explains that giving the poor access to healthy food will not make the poor healthy. Heather Gilligan shows an insight to the things that cause poor people have a shorter lifespan than those with a higher income. The diet of the poor does not really change when they have access to healthier food manly because the healthier food is still to expensive.
Also, did you know that most of Queens, NY is a food desert? People have little to no access to healthy foods and grocery stores, other than bodegas with unhealthy dishes and snacks. Just like Nicki, many immigrants live in food deserts. With heavily enforced regulations and support, densely immigrant-populated areas, especially those lacking experience, will not suffer from food deserts. Immigrants are more susceptible to poverty and food deserts because they are
I just thought it was it was of convenience for everyone to walk and every city and state had just as many all over, just not enough supermarkets to go around. Although I was wrong, I did start to realize that with Bridgeport having by far the highest population in the state with having the nearest grocery store miles away plus for the biggest city in the state to have less than 3 total doesn't make sense. The corner stores were good as a kid but there was very few (if any) limited number of healthy, low-cost options. Going to the grocery store would feel like a field trip because once we finally would make it to one we would try to get as much as we could to last because we didn't want to make another trip anytime soon.
A food desert is defined as an area where it’s difficult to buy affordable, nutritious food due to the lack of available healthy food sources (Ver Ploeg, 2010). By creating the Victory Garden, we are making nutritious food available to the students on our campus and the neighborhood, thus lessening the burden of the Los Angeles food desert. According to the researcher Michael Ver Ploeg who studied food deserts and food availability, he thinks that some areas will not see change unless they grow community gardens or find local vendors that they can afford (Ver Ploeg, 2010). I strongly agree with this statement as I believe the creating Victory Garden will bring an influx of healthy foods to this community, while teaching people how to sustainably grow their own food (Irvine,
Having an increased variety of foods available, as well as more diverse sources, allows a consumer to make educated and informed choices. As the community itself becomes more invested in the topic of food, there arise “ordinary, middle income folks who have become really engaged in food and really care about where their food comes from” (Source E). As such, they turn to local markets where they know the community members that produce the food and how the food is sourced. These individuals then promote the reasons for buying locally sourced food, as a blog dedicated to eating locally provides, saying that “produce that you purchase at your local farmer’s market has often been picked within 24 hours of your purchase” (Source A). Yet, for all its claims and popular support, the locavore movement also spreads false information.
One serious problem that poor, urban cities face is the lack of available healthy and nutritious food in their areas. With little to no access to wholesome food, city dwellers around the country are forced to consume extremely low-quality and unhealthy food on a daily basis. However, there are many different ways that we can fix this issue and they are not as difficult as people think. Also, fixing these problems are very beneficial for not alone urban city dwellers, but also grocery stores themselves. One way to solve the problem of not having access to healthy food options is for chain grocery stores to open up in urban areas.
I am choosing to examine and address the issue of “food deserts”. Food deserts are known as poor urban areas where the residents within the poor areas cannot purchase affordable, healthy food, the term food deserts was constructed to illustrate why policy makers need to look more critically at the nutrition difficulties in low-income areas (Cummins,2002). A gap in health is embedded into the interrelationship of racism, culture and the historical, economic, and political structures that make for the experience of African Americans and other racial and ethnic groups within the United States (Lewis et al., 2011). The primary concern of “food deserts” is that poor or rural areas do not have access to supermarkets, grocery stores, or other food
Farmer’s markets allow families to experience the culture and passions of local merchants, farmers, and friends through freshly produced foods. In these communities, people buy nutritious goods difficult to find in their local grocery stores. For the past decade, the locavore movement has influenced and convinced many people to eat locally grown products as much as possible because they claim it preserves the environment. However, many people disagree with this movement stating even though it supports local farmers, it hurts farmers in other places. They also say it ignores economies of scale involving good miles.
Desert food neighborhoods deprive residents of proper nutrition and increase health risks. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) (n.d.) defines food deserts “as urban neighborhoods and rural towns without ready access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food” (para, 1). An approximated 2.3 million people live in rural food deserts where low-income and low-access community census tracts with a greater than 10-mile proximity to a supermarket exist (USDA, n.d.). In urban areas, a food desert is determined by a greater than 1-mile proximity to a supermarket (USDA, n.d.). In many cases, corner liquor stores with limited food selections with higher cost goods ranging between 3 to 37 cents more are counted as a supermarket based on the
Every year “children” in America suffer hunger. To help out kids in America, Ikea has started donating. like Ikea many other companies with different programs have been set up to help kids. Many studies have shown that kids are often without food. So in order to help these kids have a better life, people could to volunteer by donating food to different programs.
Food deserts are areas, urban or rural, lacking access to full-service supermarkets or fresh fruits or vegetables. Urban food desert is a “symptom of disinvestment, spatial concentration of poverty, and institutional racism (Blumberg, 2015).” Processes that lead to the creation of food desert is the U.S cities include: low income, low access, and low quality. Individuals with low incomes are likely to live in an area where nutritious foods are scarce. They are least likely to afford a lot, or if any, of fresh produce.
The overconsumption of foods with high levels of sugar, oils, fats and calories has contributed to the rise of obesity in America, and food deserts are to blame as a contributing factor to the epidemic. A UCLA study found that “people who live near an abundance of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores compared to grocery stores and produce vendors have a significantly higher prevalence of obesity and diabetes” (Designed for disease, 2008). In 2013, it was reported that 67% of the US population is overweight or obese (Budzynska et-al, 2012). Overweight and obesity are major public health problems because having a high percentage of body fat will raise an individual’s risk of diabetes, stroke, arthritis, heart disease and some cancers (Let’s Move). In California, adults living in food deserts had a 20 percent higher prevalence of obesity and a 23 percent higher prevalence of diabetes (Designed for Disease).
