Previously, I have unpacked environmental racism and injustice, providing a definition for the term, then a working list of what efforts can be made to combat it. In this blog post, I will introduce a concrete example of environmental injustice: food deserts.
A food desert is a geographical location where affordable and nutritious food is difficult to obtain. Food deserts exist mainly in rural areas and low-income communities.The American Nutrition Association, a non-profit devoted to optimal health through wellness and education, provides an poignant point as to why and how food deserts exist. The AMA offers that food deserts lack whole food providers, especially providers that offer produce. And in return, more "quickie" marts are established in the wake of less supermarkets. Quickie marts are local corner stores, or bodegas, that sell more packaged, processed food high in sugar and fat.
People living in low-income communities, are primarily victims of food deserts. Big cities that have a surplus of neighborhoods are often affected. Additionally, people who do not have access to cars are huge victims of food deserts.
This map is from the United States Department of Agriculture and it provides a proper visual of communities where food deserts are rampant.
For example, in Chicago, many of the poorer, Black communities do not have access to fresh food within a mile of where they live. It was so bad that a supermarket chain was given $5 million to build stores in food deserts in Chicago .
What can be done?
Unfortunately, not every state as an initiative building bond like that of Illinois. However, other efforts are being made. First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!" campaign focuses on spreading healthy initiatives in families and communities with the goal of eliminating childhood obesity. This video introduces The White House's efforts to eliminate food deserts across America.
With the help of the United States Department of Agriculture, First Lady Michelle Obama established a food desert locator, to track supermarket accessibility in low-income communities.
The locator map itself is pretty genius, as it showcases the sad reality of food deserts.
So we've got a locator? So what? What else can we do? (Those are actual, genuine questions I have.) In my opinion, there's only so many articles, and research that goes into this work. Now where is that work? When I looked into ways the community could help itself, I found so many "options" that were sold as easy and doable, when in reality, they were not. They suggested that people start their own gardens, and stop construction of gas stations in favor of urban farming. These are nice ways to combat food deserts indeed, but who has the time, energy, and resources for that? Certainly not these low-income communities.
How can we be realistic and get people the healthy nutrition they deserve? These are all my own thoughts and questions. Moving forward, I will vamp up my research and talking about food deserts here in Rhode Island.
If you have any ideas how we can eliminate food deserts realistically, feel free to comment below!
I never new that there was a thing called a food desert and they seem to be extremely scary. I can't imagine not having access to different types of foods and being stuck getting my food at a "quickie" mart. I think that this is a sad reality that many people must deal with everyday. I was also surprised when you said you will be researching about food deserts in Rhode Island. I think my shock in this aspect goes along with not thinking that something like this could be going on around you in your own area. I look forward to learning more about this from you. I don't know exactly how we can eliminate food deserts as it isn't that easy to build a supermarket in each area that is a food desert. But I do hope that a solution is found soon.
ReplyDeleteAs horrible and unaware as I might sound, I never heard of food deserts before. I mean I am aware of the situations many states and countries have with the lack of food around them and especially healthy food, but I did not know this is the term for it. It's sad to think that in our own country there are states where food, healthy fresh food, is unavailable to people. Most of us take that for granted because we are usually stuffing our faces with all the food that we can easily access. Others don't have the same opportunities like you mentioned in your post, that a market with fresh and healthy food is about more then a mile away from some homes and communities. Michelle Obama's campaign to spread awareness of how to keep families healthy and how to initiate better habits when it comes to eating right, is very good and hopefully helps people learn to reduce the amount of health concerns America faces due to obesity and the increasing intake of fast and processed foods. I enjoyed learning about this and can't wait to learn more!
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