Cross-posted at The Politicizer
A disproportionate number of urban and rural Americans lack access to healthy food. In the absence of mainstream supermarkets, fast food restaurants and other equally unhealthy outlets play a vital role in feeding these areas. As the economy worsens and access to more expensive healthy diets becomes increasingly limited, it is time for state and local government to confront the troubling preponderance of food deserts.
The United States Department of Agriculture broadly defines food deserts as "areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food." Food deserts are especially prominent in impoverished communities, deprived of the type of private development that graces wealthier areas. As you would expect, the imbalance between healthy and unhealthy food within food deserts gives rise to some of the nation’s highest rates of obesity. The severity of this imbalance presents a structural impediment to the impoverished that requires the immediate attention of state and local governments.
The affects of food deserts reach far beyond the blighted inner city or equally poor rural communities. Last month, researchers from Emory University released a study that assessed obesity’s effect on our overburdened health care system. They found that if current trends continue, obesity spending will quadruple to 344 billion dollars in 2018. Dr. Ken Thorpe, a health care economist who led the study, concluded that such unsustainable levels of obesity-related spending threaten the solvency of our health care system. One of his primary recommendations calls for the government to "remove barriers and empower Americans to take control of their health." This advice addresses America’s food deserts where structural obstacles to healthiness rob millions of Americans from the type of control they deserve.
Although very few states have comprehensively addressed food deserts, Pennsylvania’s Fresh Food Financing Initiative is an intriguing policy option that other states should explore. A public-private partnership created in 2004 between the state of Pennsylvania and various private entities, the FFFI provides grants and loans for entrepreneurs looking to establish retailers that market healthy food. Although a study of the initiative’s impact on the health of a particular underserved area is currently underway, the FFFI has indisputably increased access to healthy food. A PolicyLink analysis reveals that the program has created 68 new retailers across the state, which increases access to nearly 400,000 underserved Pennsylvanians. In addition to expanded access to healthy food, the program has created thousands of new jobs and a desperately needed jump in sales tax revenue for some of the state’s most desperate localities.
The FFFI has also proven to be a cost-effective program that has spurned an essential increase in private investment. Many food deserts persist because businesses simply do not wish to operate within poorer neighborhoods that maintain an unattractive environment for entrepreneurs. The state of Pennsylvania’s appropriation of 30 million dollars for the program, however, has led to $165 million dollars in private investment. That increase in private investment critically addresses a lack of economic development that maintains food deserts.
While programs modeled after Pennsylvania’s FFFI increase access to healthy food, an increase in access does not necessarily create a healthier area. In order for such programs to work, it is essential that consumers support their newly established grocery stores instead of returning to fast food restaurants and other outlets that do not market healthy food. Simply put, providing adequate access to consumers in under served areas does not guarantee that they will consume newly available diets. For this reason, it is essential that the eradication of food deserts is complemented by community-level campaigns that emphasize the importance of healthy eating. Earlier, I alluded to an ongoing study of the FFFI’s impact on the nutrition of a particular area. This study examines the opening of a large supermarket in a particular Pennsylvania food desert and will vitally assess the extent to which reducing food deserts improves a community’s nutrition.
As we wait to analyze the study’s findings, however, we should applaud Pennsylvania’s success in expanding access to affordable healthy food. Food deserts’ effect on our health care system captures everyone’s self-interest and it is time for state and local governments to stop dithering at the expense of public health. It is time our policymakers to grant food deserts the attention they attention and as obesity and other related problems threaten the future of our health care system, I’m hopeful that they will.