The Zip Code Effect The health and success of a neighborhood speaks volumes for the status of overall physical, social, and psychological wellbeing of those who reside there. As we have discussed in class, not all neighborhoods are created equal and a single digit difference in zip code can create vastly different resource opportunities for individuals. The availability of healthy food is of particular concern because access or lack thereof directly influences health. According to the video on food deserts, grocery stores offer considerable insight into an industry’s perceived status and need of a community. Observing different neighborhood Smith’s stores confirmed this belief. A fifteen-minute drive is the difference between abundant access …show more content…
This is problematic because those in most need of nutritious meals to sustain health are those unable to access them. A simple change in zip code is the difference between a food desert and a food utopia. This finding furthers the text’s argument that “Place matters. Issues such as housing and income determine quality of life, especially among the low-income residents of urban areas.” Inequity of food selection at the Yale location can, in extreme circumstances, promote the failing health of a certain group- an action that is largely discriminatory in nature. To solve the food crisis, I suggest the implementation of more urban gardens. Similar to what the documentary on food deserts suggests, urban gardens no only create a sense of unity in a common goal, they provide the much-needed fresh and healthy food to those unable to access them. Since transportation to adequate grocery stores is also a barrier to must in food deserts, a free public bus whose purpose is to shuttle people to food availability would be beneficial. As discussed in class, grocery stores are serving to perceivably different populations based on zip code. However, all people shop with the same goal in mind and require the same access to affordable, healthy
In “Called Home”, the first chapter of the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year in Food Life, Barbara Kingsolver presents her concerns about America's lack of food knowledge, sustainable practices, and food culture. Kingsolver introduces her argument for the benefits of adopting a local food culture by using statistics, witty anecdotal evidence, and logic to appeal to a wide casual reading audience. Her friendly tone and trenchant criticism of America's current food practices combine to deliver a convincing argument that a food culture would improve conditions concerning health and sustainability. I agree with Kingsolver that knowing the origin of food is an important and healthy benefit of developing a true food culture, but it is impractical to maintain that everyone is able to buy more expensive food. Kingsolver presents a compelling argument for developing a food culture, however this lifestyle change may not be practical or even possible for a poverty-level citizen. The following essay will summarize and respond to Kingsolver’s argument to demonstrate how “Called Home” is a model for novice social scientists.
In her essay, “Food’s Class Warfare,” author Tracie McMillan promotes the inclusion of both “individual changes and structural ones” (217), particularly “class consciousness” (217), in the fight for quality diets in America. She reveals the most common sides of the healthy food debate as the inherent “just-buy-better stuff logic” (215) and the opposing “structural challenges of eating well” (215). The main strategies for defeating the American “obesity epidemic” (216) have been reaching out to the individual, as well as changing the structure of the American food system itself. The favorite concept for structuralists is “food deserts - neighborhoods with insufficient grocery stores and thus insufficient supplies of healthy food” (216). She deems the concept insufficient in practice, as it ignores smaller markets and equates large stores with a healthy food source. While the individual viewpoint and structuralists argue with each other, they share common ideals. According to
To What Extent has the Bedroom Tax Affected People Britain is currently undergoing the biggest overhaul of the welfare system since its introduction. The welfare system was first established with the assurance that people less fortunate would be able to have a standard of living that would ensure equality. But the recent amendments brought into place by the current government’s legislations may see the biggest divide between rich and poor since the days of the work houses. How will claimants be affected and who will be affected the most is an issue that will be examined more closely.
Though not the only country plagued with this issue, some of the United States’ most well-known cities, like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Baltimore, are home to food deserts, which are “characterized by the combination of very few food outlets and high poverty in a given geographic area” (Kato, 2014). Detailed in the Baltimore Sun article, “Baltimore to Give Tax Break to Attract More Grocery Stores”, are the efforts to be rid of food deserts in the western part of the city of Baltimore in Maryland. By implementing a lowered tax incentive for grocery stores, grocers are encouraged to put stores in food deserts, like the Save-A-Lot that was instated in West Baltimore. More grocery stores in such areas is an aid to the elderly and disabled in the community, who have difficulty traveling long distance to get healthy food, and for the community as a whole, which has a large concentration of individuals who are low-income and have trouble paying for high food prices at most grocery stores and a twenty-year life expectancy difference from its wealthy counterpart (Wenger, 2015). This article relates to chapter two of the Tice/Perkins text, specifically the feudalistic views of the poor, namely
Because the people who live in food deserts do not get proper supplements of fruits and vegetable, much of their diets are consisted of mainly junk food, fast food, and meats. As a result of this, today, more than one third of adults in America are obese. In addition to obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease can also be results of a lack of healthy food choices, which result from people buying their food from convenience stores that only sell processed foods and from fast food restaurants. This paper attempts to provide readers with a better understanding of the fact that not only do food deserts exists, they are threatening the lives of Amer...
Food deserts are places where healthy foods are not produced nor sold. Unfortunately, Chicago is filled with food deserts. Approximately 600,000 people reside in areas that consist of food deserts (Gallagher, 2006). Nearly 200,000 of those people are children. These children do not have the opportunity for healthier options, which shows an increase in obesity rates (News One Staff, 2011). There are 77 Chicago communities and out of that 77, 23 are food deserts (Gallagher, 2006). Chicagoans-particularly the black communities- are forced to live off the accessible food that is near them. The food deserts are in Austin, North Lawndale, Armour Square, Near South Side, Fuller Park, Grand Boulevard, Washington Park, Woodlawn, West Lawn, Chicago Lawn, Englewood, Ashburn, Auburn Gresham, Beverly, Washington Heights, Morgan Park, Roseland, Pullman, South Deering, Riverdale, South Chicago, and West Pullman (Grossinger, 2007). The communities are usually served by junk food- filled corner stores, which do not offer an abundance of healthy foods. The communities are in desperate need of change.
“Food Deserts” are arears where people have a hard time finding affordable, healthy food. These places are usually low-income neighborhoods that do not have any supermarkets nearby but have convenience stores that sell junk food and fast food places around them. Ron Finley, a guerrilla gardener, lives in a “food desert” in South Central Los Angeles. He plants fruit and vegetable gardens to help nourish his community with healthy eating. In the article “Giving the Poor Easy Access to Healthy Food Doesn’t Mean They’ll Buy It,” Margot Sanger-Katz states that “merely adding a grocery store to a poor neighborhood doesn’t make a very big difference” because the diets of the residents living in those neighborhoods did not change. I think “food deserts” are only a part of the bigger problem in America because obesity is everywhere, not just in low-income
Food shopping when you are poor in America doesn't mean taking the minivan out to Costco; it can mean walking to the only "supermarket" in the neighborhood, often a small corner retail operation with high markups on food and household supplies.With so many people in poverty it is questioned if giving the poverty aid is even a solution as stated by David Cheal in his book New Poverty: Families in Postmodern Society, “Throwing money at social problems is no longer
“Food Deserts” as defined by the CDC, are “areas that lack access to affordable fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk, and other foods that make up the full range of a healthy diet” (Center for Disease Control and Prevention). In simpler terms, a food desert is a community with little to no grocery stores. Many reports show that neighborhoods with less access to neighborhood grocery stores have a higher risk for obesity and unhealthy diets unlike neighborhoods where residents have better access to neighborhood grocery stores. The “USDA estimates that 23.5 million people, including 6.5 million children, live in low-income areas that are than one mile from a supermarket. Of the 23.5 million, 11.5 million are low-income individuals in households with incomes at or below 200 percent of the poverty line. Of the 2.3 million people living in low-income rural areas that ...
Alviola IV, Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr., and Michael Thomsen to learn more about what food deserts and how they impact the society around them. I believed that this was a good source because it went into what food deserts are and how they might be connected to the increase of obesity. I learned that a food desert is an “area where access to healthy foods is limited or constrained” (Alviola 106). I also learned that studies have shown people who live in food deserts “are likely to pay higher prices for food and have limited options in terms of purchasing healthy foods” (Alviola 106). After reading this article I have realized that Xavier may also be in a food desert because the closest grocery store is Kroger whose produce is almost always non-fresh and does not look edible to eat which encourages people to leave and resort to eating fast food for every meal. Needing more information about the effects of Food Deserts I started to look at an article called, “The Effects of Food Deserts on the Weight Status of South Dakota Children”, written by Emily Niswanger, Elizabeth Droke, Suzanne Stluka, and Kuo-Liang Chang. I believed that this was a great next source to look into because the name of the article was exactly what I wanted to get more information about. The source was about one study that was made in the state of South Dakota to discover if food deserts do have an effect on
There are many policy issues that affect families in today’s society. Hunger is a hidden epidemic and one major issue that American’s still face. It is hard to believe that in this vast, ever growing country, families are still starving. As stated in the book Growing Up Empty, hunger is running wild through urban, rural, and even suburban communities. This paper will explore the differing perspectives of the concerned camp, sanguine camp, and impatient camp. In addition, each camps view, policy agenda, and values that underlie their argument on hunger will be discussed.
From slavery to Jim Crow, the impact of racial discrimination has had a long lasting influence on the lives of African Americans. While inequality is by no means a new concept within the United States, the after effects have continued to have an unmatched impact on the racial disparities in society. Specifically, in the housing market, as residential segregation persists along racial and ethnic lines. Moreover, limiting the resources available to black communities such as homeownership, quality education, and wealth accumulation. Essentially leaving African Americans with an unequal access of resources and greatly affecting their ability to move upward in society due to being segregated in impoverished neighborhoods. Thus, residential segregation plays a significant role in
According to Dolgoff and Feldstein (2003), “the needs and goals of the Food Stamp Program are to alleviate hunger and malnutrition by enabling low-income households to buy a nutritious adequate diet” (p. 132). The program also improved the market for local merchants to produce food for eligible low-income households and other agencies such as the School Lunch Program which safeguard the health and wel...
...Hobbiss, A. Food Deserts And How To Tackle Them: A Study Of One City's Approach.Health Education Journal, 137-149.
Social hierarchy and conditions within a community has a direct impact on the health and wellness of the people that reside within the boundaries of that city. Major contributors to the welfare of a neighborhood include but are not limited to: the area in which they live, their social standing within the population and the income of the individual or family. Each factor has a severe influence on the life expectancy of the peoples within the society.