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Web End = Soc (2016) 53:171181DOI 10.1007/s12115-016-9993-8
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Web End = SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY
Food Deserts: What is the Problem? What is the Solution?
James D. Wright1 & Amy M. Donley1 & Marie C. Gualtieri1 & Sara M. Strickhouser1
Published online: 17 February 2016# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016
Abstract The theory of food deserts is that poor people eat poor diets in part because fresh, healthy food is not accessible in areas where they tend to live. We review evidence from a number of disciplines on various elements of this theory and find it wanting. Access to a car is, for most, a more important consideration than access to a full service supermarket. Moreover, a number of cases are reviewed where full service supermarkets were opened in food deserts, usually with little effect on shopping or eating habits.
Keywords Fooddeserts .Dietandnutrition .Foodinsecurity . Access to healthy foods . Access to transportation . Nutritional knowledge . Food costs . Food cultures
What is a Food Desert?
There seems to be agreement that the term Bfood desert^ was first used in Scotland in the early 1990s (Cummins and Macintyre 1999) to refer to areas (neighborhoods, census tracts, communities, etc.) that lacked access to healthy, nutritious and affordable food. Once conceptualized, it became obvious that food deserts were not distributed randomly across the landscape. Rather, they tended to be concentrated
in low-income or minority neighborhoods. Could access issues and food deserts more generally therefore be the cause of disparate dietary patterns, levels of food insecurity and health outcomes across races, economic classes, and geographic regions?
Although seemingly a simple question, no one has yet come up with a completely satisfactory answer. The very definition of a food desert has been debated; indeed, some have wondered if such things even exist. Do people who live in these Bdeserts^ in fact eat a different diet or pay higher prices than people who live in areas where fresh, wholesome food is abundant? And if so, are the food deserts responsible for this or are other causal factors present? Would putting full service...