Why is food desert a bad term?

Using the term desert implies that the lack of healthy and affordable food is somehow naturally occurring and obscures that it is the direct result of racially discriminatory policies and systematic disinvestment in these communities. Building more grocery stores won't necessarily make things better.

What is meant be the term food desert?

food desert, an impoverished area where residents lack access to healthy foods. Food deserts may exist in rural or urban areas and are associated with complex geographic and socioeconomic factors, as well as with poor diet and health disorders such as obesity.

What is another term for food desert?

There's a new word on the street these days: food apartheid. Many argue it's more accurate to discuss areas lacking in fresh produce, grocery stores, and affordable healthy food options as such, rather than as food deserts.

Is food desert an appropriate term?

“Food desert” has become a common term to describe low-income communities—often communities of color—where access to healthy and affordable food is limited or where there are no grocery stores.

Who invented the term food desert?

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. 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.

Why These Activists Use the Term 'Food Apartheid' Instead of 'Food Desert' | NBCLX

When did food deserts become a problem?

The term “food desert” reportedly originated in Scotland in the early 1990s and was used to describe poor access to an affordable and healthy diet (4).

What is the opposite of a food desert?

A food swamp is an area where an abundance of fast food, junk food outlets, convenience stores, and liquor stores outnumbers healthy food options. It's distinct from a food desert, which is a neighborhood with little access to affordable, nutritious food.

What is meant by the term food desert and where might you expect to find them?

Food deserts are regions where people have limited access to healthful and affordable food. This may be due to having a low income or having to travel farther to find healthful food options.

How do food deserts affect the economy?

Counties with high rates of food deserts also tend to have higher per capita expenditure at fast food restaurants. (Among full service restaurants, the pattern is reversed: there is more per-capita spending in places with fewer food deserts.)

Are food deserts an environmental issue?

Over time, environmental problems such as drought, groundwater depletion, and climate change can significantly curtail food production and raise food costs. In turn, this can exacerbate public health problems such as obesity and malnutrition, and eventually lead to the scary situation of people going hungry.

Do food deserts cause food insecurity?

Food insecurity is a persistent problem in our country, and structural inequalities increase its prevalence in certain populations and geographies. Singling out neighborhoods without grocery stores as “food deserts” has failed to produce a successful solution.

How much of America is a food desert?

The Locator identifies about 10 percent of the approximately 65,000 census tracts in the United States as food deserts. About 13.5 million people in these census tracts have low access to sources of healthful food.

Are food deserts real?

However, recent research questions the concept of food deserts. For more than two decades, much evidence has supported their existence, but current studies suggest people in low-income areas actually live in food swamps, where they're inundated with a wide variety of both healthful and unhealthful foods.

How do food deserts impact rural families?

Characteristics and Influential Factors of Food Deserts, from the USDA-ERS, reports that food deserts tend to have smaller populations, higher numbers of vacant homes, higher rates of unemployment, and more residents with less education and lower incomes.

How do food deserts affect minorities?

The food desert situation in the United States disproportionately affects minority groups. Compared to the white population, these demographic groups typically have less access to grocery stores and thus restricted opportunities to find nutritious food.

Why is food insecurity a problem?

It places a substantial burden on our society through health care and social costs. People experiencing food insecurity often consume a nutrient-poor diet, which may contribute to the development of obesity, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and other chronic diseases.

Are food deserts becoming more common?

The overall increase in low-income areas in the United States of America – the cause of the net increase in low-income food deserts – raises concerns about the growing number of struggling households with limited access to affordable nutritious foods, and the ways in which disparities may expand in part as a result.

Are food deserts a form of inequality?

A growing problem that cripples many Americans, food inequality is the disparity in communities' access to nutritious food caused by the distribution of populations, natural resources and funds.

Do food deserts cause obesity?

Study results also showed that the individuals who live in food desert are at an elevated risk for obesity. Together, these findings suggest that Americans who either do not have enough to eat or live in areas without access to stores that sell affordable nutritious foods are at greater risk for obesity.

How do you address food deserts?

Is the Bronx a food desert?

Areas long-considered food deserts include Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville, Brooklyn, the South Bronx and parts of Harlem. People living there often turn to more expensive bodegas and small groceries.

Are food deserts a problem in the US?

About 23.5 million people live in food deserts. Nearly half of them are also low-income. Approximately 2.3 million people (2.2% of all US households) live in low-income, rural areas that are more than 10 miles from a supermarket.

Why do food deserts exist?

Food deserts are brought about by a number of factors. They are typically located in low income areas where people often do not own a car. While public transportation can assist these people in some instances, often economic flux has driven grocery stores out of the city and into the suburbs.

How do food deserts affect education?

Food deserts also hinder academic performance. By having poor nutrition, students aren't developed properly and not prepared to perform in a high and efficient rate in school, which causes poor academic performance. Lastly, children residing in food deserts are more likely to develop type-2 diabetes.

Why do some communities feel uncomfortable with having the terms food deserts and food swamps applied to them?

Why do some communities feel uncomfortable with having the terms, food deserts and food swamps applied to them? These terms focus on a community's deficits. Crops produced on a large scale.