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The higher cost of healthy food is particularly visible when considering restaurants and fast food chains, where an estimated 40% percent of American adults eat at least once a day. Because tasty, energy-dense foods like hamburgers and french fries are cheaper than healthier alternatives, people order them much more often. Additionally, because added sugars and fats in processed foods are cheaper to manufacture, transport, and store than are perishable foods like meat, dairy, and produce, companies typically offer “supersized” options only for their most energydense items. Supersizing salads, for instance, is not an option at most fast food chains. Value meals follow the same logic— package combinations of salad, fruit and yogurt are few and far between. And when operating on a limited budget, it makes sense to go for the better deal. If you need a lot of food, the unhealthy package meals are the ones that make the most economic sense.
In view of obesity’s deleterious effects, national and local governments are hatching plans to decrease its prevalence. Among the federal government’s most focused initiatives is a campaign called Healthy Lifestyle and Disease Prevention, or “Small Step,” which seeks to end obesity through minor lifestyle changes, encouraging people to walk instead of drive, and to buy low-fat foods. But if the barrier to eating low-fat foods is fundamentally economic, and not just ‘behavioral,’ what good will come from merely ‘increasing awareness’? Many studies have disputed the idea that people are opposed to eating more nutritious foods. For example, a 1997 study by French, Jeffery, et al. showed that reducing the prices of low-fat foods in vending machines leads to a significant increase in the sales of these items. In other words, we cannot overcome obesity simply through education and exercise. To effectively address the problem, we will have to significantly alter the way we provide food to the American community.
Cost, however, is not the only reason that obesity disproportionately afflicts America’s poor. Environmental factors can also make eating well in low-income communities a challenge. Kelly Brownell, Director of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, describes America’s food landscape as a “toxic environment.” Modern eating and exercise habits diverge so widely from those to which our bodies have been biologically conditioned that it is nearly impossible to live the balanced lifestyle our bodies need. The “toxicity” of the environment is particularly pronounced for those struggling economically. For instance, studies have found that in the U.S., people living in the poorest neighborhoods receive 2.5 times the exposure to fast-food restaurants that wealthier people do. Since experts routinely indict the prevalence fast food as one of the major culprits in the obesity epidemic, the fact that fast food restaurants—with their low prices, time-efficient structures, and large portions—are so plentiful in poor areas is particularly significant.
Not only are fast food restaurants more common in poorer neighborhoods, regular grocery stores are also less common. It isn’t always profitable for chains to open stores in areas with low spending power. These areas are termed “food deserts,” because commercial grocery stores with low prices are few and far between, forcing residents to rely on local corner stores for their food needs. The issue of availability adds yet another wrinkle to the complexity of choosing healthy foods—it isn’t just that people can’t afford fresh apples and spinach for their families; in many cases, fresh apples and spinach cannot be bought in their neighborhoods. Because of limited demand and space, smaller stores don’t sell the same quality of produce and grains that grocery stores do, and if they do, they certainly don’t sell them at affordable prices. This situation leaves people who choose fruits paying significantly higher prices for an inferior product. Would poor Americans make better nutrition choices if afforded the opportunity? For those who don’t see the value in buying fruit or vegetables to eat, they aren’t going to start after seeing limited quantities of produce lining shelves for days. Local governments try to offer incentives for companies to expand into food deserts so that people can buy good food at fair prices, but companies are often reluctant to invest in these high-risk markets, so the problem remains.
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