Food Desert

A food desert is a district in an urban or rural setting with little or no access to large grocery stores that offer fresh and affordable foods needed to maintain a healthy diet. Instead of such stores,these districts often contain many fast food restaurants and convenience stores.

"Access", in this context, may be interpreted in three ways:

• Physical access to shops can be difficult if the shops are distant, the shopper is elderly or infirm, the area has many hills, public transport links are poor, or if the consumer has no car. Healthy options are unavailable. Carrying fresh food from grocers is also a challenge for individuals who must take transit or walk long distances.

• Financial access is difficult if the consumer lacks the money to buy healthy foods (generally more expensive, calorie for calorie, than less nutritious, sugary, and fatty 'junk foods') or if the shopper cannot afford the bus fare to remote shops selling fresh foods. This limits individuals to cheaper local fast food outlets. Other forms of financial access barriers come in the forms of inability to afford storage space for food, or, for the very poor, homelessness, or living in temporary accommodations that do not offer good cooking facilities.

• The consumer’s mental attitude or knowledge about nutrition and food preparation can be major barriers limiting access to fresh produce and other healthy food choices. Consumers may lack cooking knowledge or have the idea that eating a healthy diet is not important.

Food deserts disproportionately affect socially segregated groups in urban areas, specifically single mothers, children, and the elderly living in underprivileged urban neighbourhoods. Families and individuals without a car are also at a higher disadvantage in terms of their access to healthy food in food deserts.

Many grocery stores that once existed in urban neighbourhoods have moved out of these areas and relocated in the suburbs at the same time as former residents (see urban sprawl). Low income earners and senior citizens who remain find healthy foods either unavailable or inaccessible as a result of high prices and/or unreachable locations. Conversely, in some rural areas, local fresh food outlets have closed, leaving shoppers in these areas with difficult access to healthful foods. Consumers who don’t own cars are at a greater disadvantage in rural areas, particularly in areas where rural bus services have declined due to cutbacks in spending.

Although the term 'food deserts' is now mainly used in the context of urban environments, the first case studies of consumers’ inaccessiblity to healthy foods were made in rural English villages. The Women's Institute in Britain examined the plight of elderly car-less widows left stranded by the closure of village shops and withdrawal of bus services as far back as the 1970s. Recent use of the term has stemmed from its use by the Obama Administration, and in and around Chicago.

Although it is difficult to make causal links between malnutrition in food deserts and health issues, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine states that the highest rates of obesity (32-40%) are in areas with no large supermarkets, while the lowest rates (21%) are among people living near supermarkets. Areas with higher rates of obesity are more prone to obesity related diseases, such as Diabetes, and heart disease.