After reading several articles
relating to food, sustainability, food insecurity, poverty etc, one concept
that really stuck out to me was the term “food desert”. I have never heard
about this before. In case you aren’t sure either, in an article by Maria
Trimarchi, she states, “Food deserts are large geographic areas where
mainstream grocery stores are scarce or missing. They are found predominantly
in low-income areas, although not everyone living in a food desert is poor.” So
basically, a food desert is an area where you can not easily get to a
mainstream super market. These food deserts are a problem because they lead to
food insecurity. This means that the people living in these areas have very little
access to healthy food and are not always sure where their food will come from.
Food insecurity in these food deserts is often linked to poverty as well. In
the same article by Maria Trimarchi she writes, “they have little-to-no access
to nutritious food and are likely to have unbalanced diets and skip meals.”
This being said, it does make sense why people in these food deserts are so
likely to become obese.
I
find the connection between food deserts and obesity to be very interesting.
The facts do make sense, but I would think that in an area where you don’t have
access to a good grocery store you would be less likely to be obese. I found a
video talking about the link between these. The video is a news report about a
food desert in Mississippi. In the video, the reporter talks to someone that
lives there and they say that it is really hard to find healthy food. She also
states that one of the closest places to buy food is a convenience store that
only sells pre packaged snack food. The connection between food deserts and
obesity makes a lot more sense to me after watching this video and it now seems
like a lot larger of a problem.
Sources:
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