Food desert
[6] In 2017, the United States Department of Agriculture reported that 39.5 million people or 12.8% of the population were living in low-income and low-access areas.
[7][8] Food deserts tend to be inhabited by low-income residents with inadequate access to transportation, which makes them less attractive markets for large supermarket chains.
[12] The single supermarket in a low-income area does not, according to researchers Rose and colleagues, necessitate availability nor does it decrease obesity rates and health risks.
[12] The concept has its critics, who argue that merely focusing on geographical proximity does not reflect the actual purchasing habits of households and obscures other causes of poor diets.
[13] A report by Cummins and Macintyre states that a resident of public housing in western Scotland supposedly coined the more specific phrase "food desert" in the early 1990s.
[14] The phrase was first officially used in a 1995 document from a policy working group on the Low Income Project Team of the UK's Nutrition Task Force.
[16] More recent studies explored the impact of food deserts in other geographic areas (such as rural and frontier) and among specific populations like minorities and the elderly.
Research conducted with variations in methods draws a more complete perspective of "multilevel influences of the retail food environment on eating behaviors (and risk of obesity).
"[16] As a result, there has been a paradigm shift within the movement with community organizers encouraging members of affected neighborhoods to consider how inadequate food systems correlate with the intersectionality of race and class.
The Planting Seeds Just Tour serves as an example, as it visited solution based projects to resist injustices with ecological wisdom and food justice that were run by women of color.
The tour also highlighted economically viable alternatives to provide healthy food and created spaces in which community members could participate in conversations regarding sustainability.
The activist and community organizer Karen Washington describes the term as "[looking] at the whole food system, along with race, geography, faith, and economics.
[29] Scholars cite the greater appeal of large chain supermarkets to individuals because of the wider variety and better values of food they offer as well as longer business hours compared to smaller, independently or family-owned grocery stores, leading to decreased demand and support for smaller food stores.
[33] In the early 2020s, new food deserts were created after shoplifting and looting in neighborhoods in the U.S. cities of Chicago,[34][35][36][37][38][39] Minneapolis,[40][41][42] Philadelphia,[43][44] Pittsburgh,[45] San Francisco,[46][47][48][49][50][51] and Seattle.
When neither a car nor public transportation is available, diets are rarely healthy because fast food and convenience stores are easier to access and do not cost as much money or time.
This situation was particularly dire for low-income communities, as they often have fewer resources to cope with such disasters and are more likely to live in areas prone to flooding and lacking in food retail options.
A longitudinal study of food deserts in JAMA Internal Medicine shows that supermarket availability is generally unrelated to fruit and vegetable recommendations and overall diet quality.
[59] In a 2018 article in Guernica, Karen Washington states that factors beyond physical access suggest the community should reexamine the word food desert itself.
Wrigley et al. collected data before and after a food desert intervention to explore factors affecting supermarket choice and perceptions regarding healthy diet in Leeds, United Kingdom.
The results showed that nearly half of the food desert residents began shopping at the newly built store, but only modest improvements in diet were recorded.
[61] A similar pilot study conducted by Cummins et al. focused on a community that was funded by the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative.
The study found that "simply building new food retail stores may not be sufficient to promote behavior change related to diet.
"[61] Studies like those show that living close to a store that is stocked with fruits and vegetables does not make a large impact on food choices.
[61] A separate survey also found that supermarket and grocery store availability did not generally correlate with diet quality and fresh food intake.
[62][61] Under welfare-to-work reforms enacted in 1996, female adult recipients must log 20 hours a week of "work activity" to receive SNAP benefits.
[66] Because people who are food insecure are still fundamentally involved in society, they are faced with the other stressors of life as well as the additional frustration or guilt that comes with not being able to feed themselves or their family.
[74][75][76] The concept of deprivation amplification has been proposed as an explanation of how food deserts can perpetuate poor health outcomes for a community: scholars suggest that residents of low-income neighborhoods' exposure to inadequate and unhealthy food environments can increase their individual risk factors for disease and poor health.
[28] However, a 2019 study published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics cast doubt on the notion that exposing poor neighborhoods to healthy groceries reduces nutritional inequality.
[80] Several studies have highlighted alternative food sources that deem supermarket access less relevant in transitioning countries such as many in Africa and rainforest cities in Brazil.
[79][80] Likewise, a 2017 study conducted in Brazil highlights the critical role of non-retail sources such as fishing, farming, and home gardens in people's food security and access.
