Food accessibility and proximity

Food accessibility and proximity

Food accessibility and proximity, that is, how near and closeness to fresh food sources is one of the several numerous factors that affect to a greater extent the livelihood of a majority of American residents with regards to healthy eating practices. We have been trying to ask ourselves deep down, what exactly is the problem at hand on the case above? Lack of affordable access to fresh food, fruits, and whole grains to the low-income residents of America has placed a majority of them in a position full of risk factors to their wellness and well-being health-wise.

This situation comes about from the lack of supermarkets, food markets, and any form of a fresh vegetable shop, chain store, or groceries around the region of inhabitance. There are very many causes and reasons as to why this is the case. For instance;

The extent of poverty lines, the demographic setting of the region in terms of age and gender, the population distribution of the area, and questions like is it an urban or a rural area? Also, to consider is the social and economic status of the residents. This consideration entails income, food prices, and availability of resources, for example, access to an efficient transport system.

There exist several moves and initiatives that are recommendable and can get done to ensure the said case above is reduced and curbed at a higher percentage. Federal and state policy initiatives are one of the methods that can be employed to handle this situation. There is also the creation of gardens for the community and farmers’ markets. Other recommendations can also include;

• Provision of proper education to the youths narrowing it down to the importance of self-care and nutrition
• Investment in more food trucks, meal deliveries, and rideshare
• Setting up of fresh food health services pharmacies.
• Food security projects
• Adjustments of local state and federal laws that are related to taxation services to entice investors to set up food markets, groceries, and supermarkets in low-income residential regions

Background discuss and review of literature 2.1) the problem scope

For a very long duration of time, health experts and practitioners have highly placed significant emphasis on the importance of proper healthy living and eating habits by eating foods such as fruits and fresh vegetables. Why is this has this been made so necessary? Healthy living habits not only play a significant role in ensuring an individual’s wellness health-wise is on point but also assists in the prevention of opportunistic illnesses with regards to a weak immune system and a long list of diseases. Yet, the majority of Americans residents have ignored this and have seemingly continued to consume more junk foods and processed foods such as chips and fast foods, for example, cheeseburgers and pizza.

According to researches that are being continuously conducted by the USDA, the United States department of agriculture, much data has got collected in connection to the case of food desserts. It has been estimated that since the year 2000, more than 23 million individuals in the United States of America are living in regions that have been termed as ‘food deserts’. This is now a major issue of concern seeing how it has narrowed down to directly or indirectly impacting on the lives of Americans. What is meant by a food dessert? This is an area that has been considered generally to be lacking an easy reach to efficient and sufficient access to affordable fresh nutrition foods, for example, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. In place of that, such an area is characterized by the presence of convenience stores and some gas stations that are limited in terms of space, i.e., shelf space to give room for selling of these healthy foods thus making it impossible for nutritional foods to be easily virtually accessible for the number of people and families living there.

Roughly more than eighty-two percent of these regions, food desserts, are found in the well developed urban areas. This does not literally mean that rural areas have been relatively exempted. Talks on the existence of food desserts by public health officers usually refer to such areas. According to the United States department of agriculture, there exist over three hundred and fifty-five thousand individuals in the whole country that is living in between a ten to twenty kilometers gap from supermarkets and fresh food stores. Data collected has proven that this case scenario exists all over the country but has been felt hard in Southern and Midwest America. This is more in states with a low-income rate, for example, the Mississippi and Louisiana, as compared to high-income states, for instance, new Hampshire and Oregon. All said and done; low income areas are the main victims of the case of food desserts. The following statistic has been made by the said United States department of agriculture (USDA) in the year 2015,

Regional setting

Income status

Number of fresh food stores

Urban

High income region

24,000

Rural

Low-income region

19700

The areas that are at a higher chance of high poverty rates are more prone and likely to be food desserts regardless of their rural and urban designation. This is the main result after the research by the USDA in the year 2000 census, which has proven to be true, especially in very dense areas. Urban areas, where cases such as unemployment and racial difference, are not a predictor of this case scenario of food desserts because they are more likely to be similar across all tracts. Comparisons have been made to explore how demographic shifts such as age, gender, ethnicity might be associated with food dessert areas. Census tracts that are designated as low-income tracts were considered. The table below can be used to explain the numbers and percentage of food desserts tracts by rural and urban status and by low-income status scenario.

.

Overall

Urban

Rural

Number of low income tracts

24,927

17,940

2,204

Food desert tracts as a percentage of total tracts

10.0

8.2

15.9

Food dessert tract as a percentage of low income tracts

26.2

23.3

33.8

Food dessert tracts

6,529

4,175

2,204

Total number of tracts

64,999

50,784

13,827

The said above low-income census tracts are those that are facing a poverty rate that is below 20 percent, and the total tracts for the urban and rural sets exclude tracts that are having a population that is more than 50 percent living in quarters.

2.2) problem contributing factors

There are so many concerns and need to understand the contributing factors that have led to the case of the existence of food deserts. Below are some of the contributing factors;

• Transport and mobility

This has really played a major role in determining how an individual is more likely to access and obtain sufficient nutritious, healthy, and affordable foods. Over time, a good number of consumers are placed in a constrained situation whereby they are incapable of access to a food market, supermarket, or grocery because they live far.

Researches conducted by the United States department of agriculture, USDA, has shown that of all the homesteads and households in the United States, 2.3 million, that 2.2 percent of Americans live more than a mile from a supermarket and do not have access to a vehicle for transportation. More to this case, there is an additional number of about 3.4 million households and homesteads that live in between a one half to one-mile distance from the supermarket and lack access to a vehicle of transportation too. This is around 3.2 percent of all households.

In majority of these small towns and rural areas with limited nutrition food access, lack of a good transportation system and Infrastructure is the most defining characteristic of them. Nevertheless, for a number of Americans citizens, a trip to fetch healthy foods and fruits to a grocery is significantly proven to be a major challenge with regards to transportation. Most of these residents tend to make their purchasing decision and food choices based on what is easily accessed and available in their neighborhood. What does this mean? They end up to avoid the transportation cost that they might incur in search of a grocery or a fruit and vegetable store and opt for a fast-food restaurant or a corner store such as a gas station that offers prepared and processed foods.

• Demographic factors and social-economic factors

The food environment with regard to consumption choices and purchasing decisions is a very dynamic one that is in a capacity of changing at any given time depending on the determinants and influencing factors at hand. There is quite a large influence on how food availability is at a particular region based on demographic and socio-economic factors such as race, ethnicity, income, population and the degree of urbanization.

Lisa M. Powell, from the University of Illinois at Chicago, has performed deep research to present a closer view of how food desserts have spread across America. She managed to present her findings as national data categorized by the United States of America zip codes. Together with her team, Powell used much data from Dun and Bradstreet ( D&B) to measure the density of food outlets and the American chamber of commerce research association (ACCRA) for the prices of food and fruits. Using the data from D&B , twenty nine percent of zip codes in all of America had no sign of a supermarket or a fruit and vegetable grocery. Based on her models, the following were found out;

• Middle income and upper income neighborhoods had a greater access to chains store and food markets as compared to the lower-income neighborhood. This brings in the demographic factor of the income distribution.
• The majority of the African Americans population and residents had half as much access to these food markets and chain stores as compared to the American Caucasian residents! The issue of race here has really dictated much on how food store distribution is in the whole of America.
• The non-Hispanic population had two third access to chain stores, supermarkets, food stores and groceries as compared to the Hispanic population which had only one-third access to these stores. In such a case, ethnicity has also played a role in this case of food desserts.
• There is also a scenario of predomination of the existence of independent non-chain stores in the African American society and the Hispanic communities than the predominantly Caucasian communities.

In the case above, generally, it can be concluded that the predominantly African American neighborhoods are having the smallest levels in an increase of overall availability of these healthy food stores and have the largest number of decrease in numbers of grocery stores.

Viewing it from an income point of view, lower-income neighborhoods have the smallest growth in overall access to chain stores and the largest decrease in the number of food groceries.

• Economic factors

In this, the extent of poverty lines is the main issue of concern. How much an individual earns will determine what he or she will consume on a daily basis. Higher prices of fresh foods and fruits in the chain stores have forced some of the Americans to opt for fast cheap foods that are easy to access. Most of them prefer to escape the cost that might be incurred in search of fresh foods due to low income as discussed in the cases above.

2.3) action that has been taken in the past

After a survey that had been previously conducted, it was concluded that ninety-four percent of the American residents would willingly purchase and consume more fresh food products if they were easily available and accessed at the local convenience stores. Due to this, action was immediately taken. For instance, the city of Minneapolis began enacting an initiative, MHCSI, the Minneapolis health corner store initiative. This was a way through which all corner and convenience stores were given a requirement of stocking up a certain amount of fresh foods in their shelves. indeed, necessity is the mother of invention! But did this initiative successfully work?. It played a role in the reduction of these food desserts but still, there exist more and more food desserts in the United States.

3)Policies analysis

There a number of programs and policies that can be applied to reduce this case of food desserts. The following can be included in the list of policy programs that can be adopted;

• Incentive programs to entice new stores opening

The state and the federal government can opt to lay down policies that favor investors and encourage them to set up new fresh food stores. This can be interconnected with the reduction of taxes imposed on these investors in order to fully entice them. It will be advantageous to the neighborhoods that lack these food stores, however, this policy can affect the economic state of the nation due to the reduction of taxes that serve as revenues.

• Community-level interventions

Mobile carts, food trucks, farmers’ markets and community gardens is also another intervention that can be employed to increase the availability of healthy foods and fresh food . Such an option is very advisable if there is need for improvement of the food environment in that, it is less expensive, requires less space and can be easy and quicker to implement it as compared to programs that encourage opening of new stores. The end goal of this initiative is to give the consumer an easy access to nutrition foods by increase supply. The only demerit is failure of cooperation by the locals to support such an initiative.

• Improvement in transport and transportation related services

Bringing the people to the food stores is also an alternative in contrast to bringing the stores to the people. Introduction of cheap transportation services like supermarket shuttle services could be an effective way of reducing the case of food desserts. This can also be less costly as compared to set up new stores in the lacking regions hence it can also be highly recommended.

Other policies might include, housing and community development related policy and anti-poverty policy. Nevertheless, these policies are deemed as insufficient in curbing the case of food desserts since it requires much bigger programs that can be game-changers and can act as fast as possible.

4)recommendation

The department of agriculture, Treasury and health and human services (HHS) are bringing together resources and more expertise that can be able to support sustainable projects and strategies to eliminate the case of food desserts. These will also be applied by private organizations.

Improvement of the transport system is the most recommendable policy that can be employed to curb this issue at hand. A good transportation subsidy given to those with very limited access to food stores may enable these consumers to access food stores that better fit their budget. Such an improvement may also assist people to access other services that may also be lacking in the region for instance banking services, wellness and health care providers.