Food deserts and their causes
Aiden Loya
Going out for dinner to a nice restaurant is a nice luxury many of us can afford. However, many people who don’t have the luxury are forced to resort to either making their own food. In a study done by Forbes, “it is almost five times more expensive to order from a restaurant than it is to cook at home. And if you’re using a meal kit service as a shortcut to a home-cooked meal, it’s a bit more affordable, but still almost three times as expensive as cooking from scratch.” Therefore it can be concluded that if given the chance a consumer should limit their dining expenses by trying to make their own meals at home to cut costs.
However, some consumers don’t have the option to dine out nor cook their own food, which becomes a major challenge for ensuring the health of a community; these communities are called “food deserts”. A food desert is defined as an area where residents aren’t able to access cheap and healthy food and are forced to eat unhealthy fast-food or even skip meals due.
Food deserts and income are heavily tied together. Areas with dense poverty most likely are also food deserts. According to a study done by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), “23.5 million people live in low-income areas that are further than 1 mile from a large grocery store or supermarket, and that 11.5 million of these people have low incomes themselves.” Furthermore, these places also have a high chance of not being able to access public transportation, healthcare, or parks, and other recreational health services.
In Milwaukee alone, 9% of the population lives in food deserts. These food deserts also typically overlapped with heavily segregated areas in Milwaukee. This continues the point that mainly poor ethnic areas are plagued by food deserts. There have been many continued efforts to try and help lift these areas away from being food scarce. Hunger Task Force is one organization that has set up pantries throughout Milwaukee County to help food deserts. The Victory Garden Initiative has also been another influential local organization that tries to incentivize people to eat healthily “[It] hosts the nation’s largest garden-building event, their Garden Blitz… It also has run a farm stand in the Harambee neighborhood that operates on a pay-what-you-can model to give everyone a chance to have fresh produce.” According to the Journal Sentinel. The “pay what you can” model helps bring up demand for these products by having the consumer not having to worry about price, and allows more healthy foods into these low-income areas.
(As seen from the pictures above there’s a heavy correlation between what areas of Milwaukee are food deserts and the segregated areas of Milwaukee.)
And for the broader United States, Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Campaign increased the presence of healthy foods in schools by changing meals and also creating an education plan. The Obama administration also approved a 400 Million dollar plan to create at least 80 more stores in food deserts according to Reuters. While there were some aspects to the campaign that could have been handled better such as a decrease in children’s consumption of the food, the campaign raised awareness on a topic many comfortable Americans haven’t had to think about. Sadly, food deserts will most likely make a return after a year of heavy lay-offs for many people, moving back a lot of the work done to improve these places.
Works Cited:
Baer, Drake. “Milwaukee Shows What Segregation Does to American Cities.” The Cut, 17 Aug. 2016, www.thecut.com/2016/08/milwaukee-shows-what-segregation-does-to-american-cities.html.
Dutko, Paula, et al. “Characteristics and Influential Factors of Food Deserts.” United States Department of Agriculture, Aug. 2012, www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/45014/30940_err140.pdf.
Guidice, Rachel. “Why Have Michelle Obama’s Healthy School Meals Been Junked?” Newsweek, 8 May 2017, www.newsweek.com/why-have-michelle-obamas-healthy-school-meals-been-junked-592938.
Hurdle, Jon. “U.S. Launches Program to End ‘Food Deserts.’” U.S., 19 Feb. 2010, www.reuters.com/article/us-food-health-program/u-s-launches-program-to-end-food-deserts-idUSTRE61I5E820100219.
McKnight, Patricia Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Milwaukee Has a Problem with Food Insecurity. Urban Agriculture Can Be Part of the Answer.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 13 July 2020, eu.jsonline.com/story/news/solutions/2020/07/13/urban-farming-one-answer-milwaukees-food-insecurity/5388888002.
Priceonomics. “Here’s How Much Money You Save By Cooking At Home.” Forbes, 10 July 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/priceonomics/2018/07/10/heres-how-much-money-do-you-save-by-cooking-at-home/?sh=1ec9169c35e5.
Do you think COVID-19 has had an affect on these food deserts? I would imagine that the rate of people living in these conditions has increased due to the off-the-chart unemployment rates and increased poverty rate in America. Also, to me it makes sense that the food deserts are tied to segregated areas, since people of color/non-white people statistically have lower incomes and higher unemployment rates. In fact, Milwaukee is the most segregated place in terms of race and poverty, which definitely doesn’t help the issue at hand.
ReplyDeleteI’m glad Obama created a plan to try and help this issue, but I don’t think $400,000,000 is enough to eliminate it as a whole. Trump has spent over 2 trillion dollars on stimulus checks to help people all across America, and when comparing that to 400 million, the plan seems like it would hardly make a dent, or the effects of it would hardly last enough time to solve the issue.
I have never heard of a Food Desert before. I went to an Indian Reservation in South Dakota and based on your definition of ‘Food Desert’, they definitely suffer from lack of access to healthy foods and are forced to buy certain types of produce. This is because of their large levels of poverty and lack of government funding. Overall, this trend has caused many members of their community to be obese, diabetic, and have other health issues. I knew that Milwaukee County had a range of income levels, however, I did not realize that some communities within Milwaukee are hit so bad with poverty that they are considered to have Food Deserts too. The ‘pay what you can’ model implemented within these communities to have access to healthy food is super important. I also didn’t realize the impact of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Campaign ( I thought it was only a way to sell whole-wheat spaghetti at lunches :)). Some people claim this program barely made a dent because the US has already provided 2 Trillion in pandemic relief but I think that is a stretch to compare. A pandemic requires more relief funding because of its external shock nature. However, I think this is an issue that needs more government attention/funding especially now!! The health of an economy can be measured by the well being of citizens and if 9% of a whole county doesn’t have access to nourishing foods that is a reflection of the state of the economy. Income shouldn’t be tied to overall health but unfortunately it is.
ReplyDeleteIt's very sad to hear that many people don't have the resources to access healthy food. I obviously knew that many families struggled because of low incomes, however, I had never heard the term "food desert" until now. It also makes me again frustrated at the many downfalls the current covid-19 pandemic has brought to our world. Obviously the death toll is extremely heart wrenching,but the effects of the shut down economy our just as painful as they will bring so much struggle to so many families as many were laid off. I agree with your final statement that the covid-19 pandemic will definitely create more food deserts, especially in big cities such as Milwaukee.
ReplyDeleteI'd be curious to see a map of food deserts overlapped with the banking deserts that exist, as I imagine there'd be quite a bit of overlap. Being poor doesn't always mean you just don't have money, it often means you live in an area without the infrastructure to get out out of poverty. And restricting food and banking to poor people is a good way to keep them poor.
ReplyDeleteThese food deserts clearly are very debilitating, and I think one of the biggest services that we can do to help eliminate them is to spread information about them. I had never heard of the term "food desert" before, and I wouldn't be surprised if many other people haven't either. I feel that often, organizations like the Hunger Task Force advocate the need to help eliminate hunger, but I think that if they used the term food desert more often, it would strike a chord with people. Do you think that the government should build and finance grocery stores, or should they just subsidize the private ownership of grocery stores in these food deserts. Why do you think the free market hasn't put grocery stores in the middle of the food deserts?
ReplyDeleteI can see how these "food deserts" are affecting people and their daily lives. I have never heard of food deserts before. I would think Covid-19 would spike because of unemployment rates increasing. If people were not able to afford to cook their own food, how would they manage it without a job? "In Milwaukee alone, 9% of the population lives in food deserts. These food deserts also typically overlapped with heavily segregated areas in Milwaukee." This quote sums up how effective food deserts can be. 9% of Milwaukee's population cant afford to make their own food. I can see how this can affect overly populated areas. With so many people, It really isn't surprising that food is scarce.
ReplyDeleteI have heard about food deserts before and a lot of volunteer work that I have been involved in has been to combat issues like this. However, something that I hadn't thought of before was the impact that food disposal can have on areas like this. In recent years, there have been more initiatives to decrease the amount of food waste from restaurants and grocery stores by the donation of those products. Additionally, with other programs like the Imperfect Produce or Misfit Market help provide food that doesn't fit the standard of grocery stores to other consumers. The awareness of these programs and the elimination of widespread food waste could eliminate food deserts. I have heard that there is enough food in the World to feed everyone, it's just the matter of how we solve that issue. What do you think about potential solutions to food deserts so we could decrease the 9% of population that is not adequately cared for? Is this a failure of the government, of the wealthy, or of grocery stores and businesses?
ReplyDeleteI’ve never heard of the term “food desert” even though I feel like I understood the concept before it was fully explained. I think this is an issue that probably a lot of Americans simply aren’t aware of, so I think it was a very well chosen topic for your blog post. I feel like it’s a tricky situation to fix because there’s low production and low consumption but a high need for both. I think that giving the residents and communities suffering in food deserts a sort of grant to jumpstart workers/producers for healthier foods and also giving consumers adequate funds in order to purchase the healthier foods might lead to the communities finding their own balance in supply and demand which might help eliminate those problem areas.
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