Food Diversity And Food Deserts

1371 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Consequences of unhealthy eating habits essay

Food deserts are areas where the population has limited access to fresh produce and healthy, affordable choices for food. Many of those living in food deserts are in poverty, restricting their budget for food. For this reason, they revert to fast food and cheap, processed food. The root of the issue lays at the problems of race and poverty, as the gap between rich whites in power and poor people of color grows. Some offer simple solutions to the problem such as planting a garden while others consider food alternative programs, but for long lasting change, legislature is to address the issue.
Examining the Impacts of Food Deserts and Food Imbalance on Public Health: Mari Gallagher
Mari Gallagher, a former president at a technology company, shifted her focus to public health and urban planning with an emphasis on Food Deserts around the United States to offer attainable solutions. She uses her background in business and development to address food access issues in a sustainable way. Her qualitative and quantitative research projects in urban areas across the United States have led to her current method of block-by-block planning as she mentions, “vitality and health of any urban community is a block-by-block phenomenon” (5). She uses information collected directly from these blocks along with the Census tract to build maps and color codes them to demonstrate the large amount of areas living in an area of food imbalance. The balance score attributed to the cities she researches are calculated based on how many fringe versus healthy grocers are close and accessible to each block in the city.
Gallagher defines a food desert as “a large, continuous area with poor access to mainstream grocers” and a food imbalance as a food desert wher...

... middle of paper ...

...the issues of food justice in particular with food deserts. While all mention poverty as the main, deeper issue, they also acknowledge race, culture and class as other systematic issues attributing to today’s food system inequalities. Gallagher’s block-by-block methodology is innovative and successful, as seen in both her research as well as some of Winne’s stories. Winne’s book aligns with Gallagher’s article in that they both promote food alternatives and programs to assist the people living in food deserts. While Winne warns readers to be cautious of some programs, Guthman puts most of them down, arguing that these programs do not tend to community wants and needs, but to those of outsider, whites. The more hopeful accounts of Winne and Gallagher offer more solutions at the small and large scale, but Guthman’s analysis of such programs must be taken into account.

Show More
Related

  • Food Desert Rhetorical Analysis

    666 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many in the U.S., today, try to eat well,balanced, meals to order to maintain a healthy lifestyle. They do so by purchasing their food at farmers markets or making their own meals, so their food isn’t processed or genetically modified. Even though people are trying to maintain health in order to live long lives, without medical complications, many don’t have the opportunity to pursue life like this. In “Research shows food deserts more abundant in minority neighborhoods,” the author, Kelly Brooks, portrays an anecdote and logical reasoning, from Kelly Bower’s research, to thoroughly describe the food deserts in poor minority neighborhoods and how this issue needs to be repaired.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of 'Guerilla Gardener In A Food Desert'

    1803 Words  | 4 Pages

    He went on to share that South Central LA is not the only food desert in United States, there are 26.5 million Americans living in food deserts. But, what makes his food desert different from some in this country, is that the "drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys." For example, people are dying from curable diseases. The obesity rate is 5 times higher than it is in Beverly Hills just 8-10 miles away. He was tired of seeing what was happening in his

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Food Deserts

    1303 Words  | 3 Pages

    Though not the only country plagued with this issue, some of the United States’ most well-known cities, like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Baltimore, are home to food deserts, which are “characterized by the combination of very few food outlets and high poverty in a given geographic area” (Kato, 2014). Detailed in the Baltimore Sun article, “Baltimore to Give Tax Break to Attract More Grocery Stores”, are the efforts to be rid of food deserts in the western part of the city of Baltimore in Maryland. By implementing a lowered tax incentive for grocery stores, grocers are encouraged to put stores in food deserts, like the Save-A-Lot that was instated in West Baltimore. More grocery stores in such areas is an aid to the elderly and disabled in the community, who have difficulty traveling long distance to get healthy food, and for the community as a whole, which has a large concentration of individuals who are low-income and have trouble paying for high food prices at most grocery stores and a twenty-year life expectancy difference from its wealthy counterpart (Wenger, 2015). This article relates to chapter two of the Tice/Perkins text, specifically the feudalistic views of the poor, namely

    Read More

  • People Who Live in Food Deserts in America

    1455 Words  | 3 Pages

    Shaw, H. J. (2006), Food Deserts: Towards the Development of a Classification. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 88: 231–247.

    Read More

  • Poverty in Janet Poppendieck's Want Amid Plenty

    688 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Janet Poppendieck's “Want Amid Plenty: From Hunger To Inequality” she argues that America puts excessive focus upon hunger issues among the poor when there are many other important issues that go unnoticed. Poppendieck believes that it is time to find a way to shift the discourse from undernutrition to unfairness, from hunger to inequality. In today's society, there are many food banks, food drives, soup kitchens, etc. Food is extremely abundant in America, therefore Poppendieck's statement is proven true when she states that there is too much focus on hunger. Throughout this text, she strongly supports her claims about hunger, equality, and poverty in general.

    Read More

  • Food Deserts: Healthy Living In The Black Community

    1036 Words  | 3 Pages

    Food deserts are places where healthy foods are not produced nor sold. Unfortunately, Chicago is filled with food deserts. Approximately 600,000 people reside in areas that consist of food deserts (Gallagher, 2006). Nearly 200,000 of those people are children. These children do not have the opportunity for healthier options, which shows an increase in obesity rates (News One Staff, 2011). There are 77 Chicago communities and out of that 77, 23 are food deserts (Gallagher, 2006). Chicagoans-particularly the black communities- are forced to live off the accessible food that is near them. The food deserts are in Austin, North Lawndale, Armour Square, Near South Side, Fuller Park, Grand Boulevard, Washington Park, Woodlawn, West Lawn, Chicago Lawn, Englewood, Ashburn, Auburn Gresham, Beverly, Washington Heights, Morgan Park, Roseland, Pullman, South Deering, Riverdale, South Chicago, and West Pullman (Grossinger, 2007). The communities are usually served by junk food- filled corner stores, which do not offer an abundance of healthy foods. The communities are in desperate need of change.

    Read More

  • Essay On Food Deserts

    768 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Food Deserts” are arears where people have a hard time finding affordable, healthy food. These places are usually low-income neighborhoods that do not have any supermarkets nearby but have convenience stores that sell junk food and fast food places around them. Ron Finley, a guerrilla gardener, lives in a “food desert” in South Central Los Angeles. He plants fruit and vegetable gardens to help nourish his community with healthy eating. In the article “Giving the Poor Easy Access to Healthy Food Doesn’t Mean They’ll Buy It,” Margot Sanger-Katz states that “merely adding a grocery store to a poor neighborhood doesn’t make a very big difference” because the diets of the residents living in those neighborhoods did not change. I think “food deserts” are only a part of the bigger problem in America because obesity is everywhere, not just in low-income

    Read More

  • Food Insecurity In Canada

    2107 Words  | 5 Pages

    A community health assessment of the Hillside-Quadra area was performed and considered various aspects of the community, including the population, the socioeconomic environment, and health and social services. Personal communication with some of the residents determined that food insecurity is of major significance for many in the community. “Food insecurity exists within a household when one or more members do not have access to the variety or quantity of food they need due to lack of money” (Statistics Canada, 2015). Community kitchens (CK), are easily adapted to an IFK concept, have been implemented by two communities within Victoria (Appendix B; Personal Communication) and are capable of serving as a public health initiative that benefits the communities they serve (Iacovou et al.,

    Read More

  • A Sociological Perspective On Food Insecurity

    942 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the year 2015, around 40 million U.S. citizens were food insecure (Randall para. 3). Food insecurity can be defined in paragraph 3 by “[having] difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources. This 12.7% of American citizens also contains another group - children. Aged 10-17, 6.8 million adolescents struggle with a food insecurity. There have been several years of cuts to the social programs designed to help these people, along with the Great Recession continuing to leave an impact on the U.S. economy (para. 6). Under the Obama administration, $8.6 billion was cut from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps. From 1993-2001 under the Clinton administration, former President Bill Clinton’s administration “gutted the welfare system” (para. 15). Because of these budget cuts, the families who rely on food assistance from the government have been allotted less throughout the years. From a sociological perspective, the concepts of sociological imagination, class stratification, and social location are in effect when it comes to child hunger in the United States. Being hungry is an issue larger than any one individual can control.

    Read More

  • Food Deserts

    866 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Food Deserts” as defined by the CDC, are “areas that lack access to affordable fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk, and other foods that make up the full range of a healthy diet” (Center for Disease Control and Prevention). In simpler terms, a food desert is a community with little to no grocery stores. Many reports show that neighborhoods with less access to neighborhood grocery stores have a higher risk for obesity and unhealthy diets unlike neighborhoods where residents have better access to neighborhood grocery stores. The “USDA estimates that 23.5 million people, including 6.5 million children, live in low-income areas that are than one mile from a supermarket. Of the 23.5 million, 11.5 million are low-income individuals in households with incomes at or below 200 percent of the poverty line. Of the 2.3 million people living in low-income rural areas that ...

    Read More

  • Article Review: Food Deserts And Childhood Obesity?

    2066 Words  | 5 Pages

    Alviola IV, Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr., and Michael Thomsen to learn more about what food deserts and how they impact the society around them. I believed that this was a good source because it went into what food deserts are and how they might be connected to the increase of obesity. I learned that a food desert is an “area where access to healthy foods is limited or constrained” (Alviola 106). I also learned that studies have shown people who live in food deserts “are likely to pay higher prices for food and have limited options in terms of purchasing healthy foods” (Alviola 106). After reading this article I have realized that Xavier may also be in a food desert because the closest grocery store is Kroger whose produce is almost always non-fresh and does not look edible to eat which encourages people to leave and resort to eating fast food for every meal. Needing more information about the effects of Food Deserts I started to look at an article called, “The Effects of Food Deserts on the Weight Status of South Dakota Children”, written by Emily Niswanger, Elizabeth Droke, Suzanne Stluka, and Kuo-Liang Chang. I believed that this was a great next source to look into because the name of the article was exactly what I wanted to get more information about. The source was about one study that was made in the state of South Dakota to discover if food deserts do have an effect on

    Read More

  • America’s Food Crisis, by Bryan Walsh

    961 Words  | 2 Pages

    Walsh, Bryan. “America’s Food Crisis.” NEXUS. Eds. Kim and Michael Flachmann. Boston: Pearson, 2012. 166 – 173. Print.

    Read More

  • Food Stamps to SNAP

    1028 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to Dolgoff and Feldstein (2003), “the needs and goals of the Food Stamp Program are to alleviate hunger and malnutrition by enabling low-income households to buy a nutritious adequate diet” (p. 132). The program also improved the market for local merchants to produce food for eligible low-income households and other agencies such as the School Lunch Program which safeguard the health and wel...

    Read More

  • Low Income Families Living in Food Deserts

    1341 Words  | 3 Pages

    Shaw, H. J. (2006), Food Deserts: Towards the Development of a Classification. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 88: 231–247.

    Read More

  • Sustainability of The Global Food System

    1117 Words  | 3 Pages

    Knox, Paul, and Sllie Marston. "Chapter 8 Food and Agriculture." In Human Geography: Places and Regions in Global Context. Glenview, Il: Pearson, 2013. 266-298.

    Read More

More about Food Diversity And Food Deserts

Open Document