Improved nutrition — for not just our families, but our neighbors as well — provides numerous societal benefits. Healthier lifestyles lower health care costs and increase individual productivity.
Mark Twain once wrote, “The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d druther not.” That might be a stretch, as much of what is good for us also is delectable. But it can be a challenge to eat well, and it can be a challenge for many residents to find their way to healthy food options.
Food deserts — residential areas without easy access to grocery stores — have received much attention in recent years, with advocates blaming those deserts for the nation’s pandemic of obesity. If residents do not have access to healthy groceries — primarily fresh produce — the theory says they spend their money on fast food or less-healthy packaged products. Buying an apple at a full-service grocery store, after all, is less expensive and more nutritious than a bag of Cheetos from the corner bodega.
In truth, there are multiple factors that contribute to poor nutrition, with nutrition education and personal preferences ranking among them. But the notion of food deserts was brought to mind by a recent article from Columbian reporter Scott Hewitt.
Highlighting the new Community Kitchen food pantry at Fruit Valley Village, which allows clients to push shopping carts through the aisles and peruse the items on the shelves, the article explained the problem of food deserts through the eyes of Alan Hamilton from the Clark County Food Bank: “Picture a parent without a car who arrives home in Fruit Valley by public transportation,” Hamilton said. “That parent picks up the kids and ushers them aboard another bus — then transfers to yet another bus — to reach the grocery store. They do their shopping. Then it’s two buses and a transfer to get home again. By now it’s 8:30 or even 9 p.m.”
That scenario is played out frequently in low-income areas throughout the United States. With major grocery stores more likely to locate near middle- or high-income areas, and with low-income residents less likely to have cars or the time to do shopping, food deserts add to the inequity found in our communities.
By themselves, food deserts are not to blame for unhealthy eating choices. A study this year by economists at New York University, Stanford University and the University of Chicago found that the nutritional gap between affluent households and low-income households in the United States expanded substantially between 2004 and 2015. Richard Florida wrote about this for CityLab.com, concluding “America’s great nutritional divide reflects the fundamental class divisions of our society, mirroring the very same class divide we see in fitness, obesity, and overall health and well-being.” In other words, we can lead people to broccoli but we can’t make them eat it.
The issue is complicated, touching upon everything from the economics of locating grocery stores to the human nature that goes into food choices. Yet it is important as we consider the benefits that come with improved health throughout our community.
Meanwhile, kudos are warranted for Community Kitchen in providing for needy residents. Kudos also are warranted for the nearby Quick Shop Minit Mart, where owner Don Rhoades is emphasizing fresh produce and planning an expansion that will include a teaching kitchen where neighbors can learn to prepare healthy food.
A healthier community benefits all of us.
