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Feasibility Draft
The topic is a good one. Many folks do not even know that food deserts exist, nor
the impact it might have on a community or family.
In your discussion and study, the topic veers away from the problems of deserts to
the problem of people now knowing how to cook healthy meals or how to shop for
economys sake. These are all different problems. I understand that they are
related, but you need to focus on one problem and go from there. In the end, you
are stating that the lack of knowledge on how to shop and cook is more important
than access to food.
Do cite your images as well as sources. One of your Works Cited is not cited in the
text.
Grade: C 74
Introduction
Food deserts are a major problem affecting lower income communities in the United
States. The access to healthy and nutritious food is not only a necessity, but it's a right as a
human being living in a developed country. It saddens me to hear that there are people who only
have access to a local convenience store where there is a major lack of major necessary nutrients
found in fresh fruit and vegetables. People that have any sort of health disease are dug into an
even deeper hole when they live in a food desert, because they can't access the proper nutrients
they need to prevent further complications with their health issues. I have no doubt in my mind
that if this problem could be eradicated from our communities then it would greatly help them
make better choices towards a healthier life.
Discussion
When I was a lot younger, I used to live in a food desert when my family first immigrated
here from Mexico. We moved here because of my father's job and for several months we did not
have a car because we had just moved to the U.S.. My older brothers remember it more vividly
because they were older while I was just a baby. I remember for a long time all Jorge and I ate
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was canned Spaghettios. I remember the street we lived on had a little park nearby and we used
to play in the park while mom would go buy food at the convenient store right across the street,.
My my brother Serge mentioned to me when I interviewed him. I finally understand how big of a
problem it is for people who are going through economically hard times to get the nutrients they
need to stay healthy. I interviewed my mother next and asked her about those early months in
America. It was hard. Coming to a new country and leaving everything you ever knew behind,
it was hard, almost depressing. We didnt
have a lot of resources and we certainly
didnt have any connections because we
didnt know anybody. For a year and half
your father did not have a car to go to work
because he needed to work there for a year
to obtain a company car. It was tough
because we couldnt afford a car and all we
had as a source of food was a corner store across the street from our old house we used to rent.
The store wasnt very useful because all I could ever buy was canned foods and pre cooked
meals. My mother told me all these things in the interview and I could not believe I had once
lived in a food desert. I remember when I was growing up my brothers used to always comment
how good I have it now and how hard it was that first year. I would have never thought my own
family experienced the real problems that exist in food deserts.
There is a video published by the Naked Juice Company called Living in a Desert. The
video shows different scenes of a lower income neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, while
interviewing several different people in the community. The people interviewed were all passing
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the time at a local park where all the interviews seem to have taken place. At first the people
were asked more simple questions like what their favorite fruit or vegetable was, then they were
asked about the conditions of the neighborhood food that was accessible to them. The responses
were all very similar, all the people interviewed kept saying how expensive healthy food was
compared to not so healthy food. One of the gentlemen that was interviewed went into detail
about how he felt limited to the amount of things he could bring home from the grocery store,
and wondered how people buy all they need to buy if they dont have a means of bringing it
home with them. The people that were interviewed also went into detail about how bad the
quality of the food in their neighborhood corner store is (Living in a Desert).
Solution
When I first started to research this problem I came across an even bigger one that is also
as big of a problem as the food desert problem. The problem I came across was cultural and it
intrigued me as to why and how it could be possible. The study selected 186 low income women
from 6 different counties in North Carolina. The study concluded that women with supermarkets
near them weigh more than the women without one, and found out that women with access to
both consume fewer servings of fresh fruits and vegetables. I thought this was very interesting
because the data comes from counties in North Carolina, I did not think I could find data that
came from so close to home. The study actually tells a similar story to the last study I analyzed.
It shows a trend of how people who are privileged enough to have convenient access to fresh
food tend to eat less healthy. I feel like that is a whole separate problem to the one I am tackling,
but I do think it is very important for us to change the way we eat because it is up to us to set an
example for younger generations in the hope of lessening child obesity and other preventable
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health issues (Gustafon, Alison A, 2011). I think if we are going to attempt to try and take down
this food desert problem then we have to find a way to get people to change their minds about
healthy foods. From this perspective I can see there is a lack of education in health courses
across the state of North Carolina.
Method
I believe that trying to educate younger generations more frequently on healthy living and
eating should be our first priority. I think that is what I would tackle first if I were trying to take
on the whole issue. After this I would try to engage with state legislators to attempt to pass a law
where residential buildings/development must be within a mile range of a full sized grocery
store. I read an article that discussed many different types of studies that were conducted to find
out the efficiency of the aid that was being given to lower income communities. The article came
to a conclusion that despite the fact that lower income communities were presented access to a
full service grocery store, it did not necessarily guarantee that these people were eating healthy.
The article did agree and support the
idea that all people should have
basic access to healthy fresh
produce but that they also need
other resources to make a difference
the way people think about shopping
for food (Corapi, Sarah, 2014).
Results
in
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The biggest difference I want to make is for people understand the hard realities that
people go through when they lack proper transportation to go to a full-fledged supermarket. I
want there to be an understanding that there should be an access to fresh fruits and vegetables to
all people every day of the week. I hope this study engages people all across the local Charlotte
and North Carolina community, and makes people pay attention to food deserts. I want there to
be a change in the culture where there is a push to expect the best from our food providers. There
should be a change in attitude in how we eat, and should really make a true emphasis on eating
balanced meals. I want people that are trying to also research and figure this problem out to
realize that this is an extremely
complex problem that needs to be
seen from several different angles.
There are many factors that
surround this problem including
Peoples: eating habits, shopping
habits, socio-economic
background, education, and work habits.
Analysis & Conclusion
I think after looking at all of the studies closely and realizing that they all point to the
same issue of getting people to eat healthy when they have a variety of options at their disposal is
a big problem. However the big problem is the food deserts that plague communities all across
the United States. That is a problem we must first solve before we move on to the problem of
how people shop and how people eat. I believe that big supermarket companies such as Walmart,
Publix, and Kroger should initiate different kinds of expansions to lower income neighborhoods.
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I also think that convenient stores should carry a larger variety of items and there should be
convenient stores that sell only fresh produce like in convenient stores in NYC.
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Recommendations
I think that once the food desert problem is being tackled on a nationwide scale there
should be a push to educate younger generations on the benefits of eating healthy. There should
be a movement to educate people on how to shop smart so that they can actually benefit from
having fresh produce. I think in order for that to be a priority in peoples minds they should have
to pass a class in high school that forces people to understand how critical a balanced diet is. I
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wish I could have had a class that would have taught me how to grocery shop and how to cook
healthy meals
Citations:
Corapi, Sarah. "Why It Takes More than a Grocery Store to Eliminate a food Desert." PBS. PBS, 3
Feb. 2014. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
Gustafon, Alison A., Joseph Sharkey, Carmen D. Samuel-Hodge, Jesse Jones-Smith, Mary
Cordon Folds, Jianwen Cai, and Alice S. Ammerman. "Perceived and Objective Measures of the
Food Store Environment and the Association with Weight and Diet among Low-income Women
in North Carolina." Public Health Nutrition. N.p., 16 Feb. 2011. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.
"Living in a Desert." YouTube. Naked Juice Company, 22 Aug. 2013. Web. 04 Nov. 2015.