Food Deserts

Food desert is one of the main causes of obesity in low-income areas, measures to solve this problem have been developed, but it is not only necessary to take some measures to alter obesity. Today there are over 60 million obese people in the world. The socio-economic status of Americans plays a major role in the national obesity rate. People with higher incomes are less likely to become obese than people with lower incomes. One in seven infants living in a low-income region is obese (Disease Control and Prevention Center).

The US Department of Agriculture map 2016. According to the mixed food desert project, nearly 24 million Americans live in the food desert. The desert is concentrated in the southern states. It is related to the concentration of poverty. The map shows the percentage of areas that do not have cars living within 1 mile without a supermarket. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Bureau divides the country into several 0.5 square kilometers of grid and measures the distance. The distance from the geographic center of each grid to the nearest grocery store measures the accessibility of the people living in the grid to food. The Canadian Ministry of Health divides the area into buffer zones centered on people's homes, schools, or workplaces. Euclidean distance is the shortest distance between two points of interest, measured for food access data.

The main difference between rural and urban food deserts is the distance between the residents and the nearest supermarket. 20% of rural areas in the United States are classified as food deserts. In these counties, about 4 million people can not enter a large supermarket. This distance difference leads to major economic and transport differences between rural and urban areas. In the survey of the rural food desert in 2009, we found that the overall health condition of rural residents, food access and social environment are significantly different compared to urban residents. Rural resident reported that overall health condition was bad and physical fitness was limited, 12% judged health, moderate or poor, while urban residents were 9%. They believe that their current health status will be determined by their feeding behavior when the risk of future chronic illness is affected by the dietary history of the diet.

Urban Food Desert resident, usually low income community, must deal with limited health food choices in addition to a more obvious shortcoming in life. Desert deserts are often defined as places where residents must travel twice before reaching the nearest supermarket, just as they do in wealthy areas of the city. Several recent studies have provided data supporting the assertion that those living in deserts are facing major barriers to affordable health food purchasing and consumption.