What is the real story behind food deserts? New research from the Public Policy Institute of California comes to the same conclusion that researchers from the California Center for Public Health Advocacy came to five years ago. I guess the confirmation of these findings is cause for a low calorie celebration. Or perhaps a victory lap around the Staples Center, (LA’s official monument to Coca Cola).
The new study by Helen Lee of the Public Policy Institute of California found that there are actually very few official food
deserts in California, and that obesity is not correlated with how many grocery stores a community has.
Not many food deserts? So what’s all the fuss been about?
In most communities it’s not a lack of food that’s the problem, it’s a lack of healthy food compared to an over abundance of unhealthy food. Back in 2007, research by CCPHA, the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, and PolicyLink, found a strong and direct relationship between the RFEI of the area in which someone lives and their likelihood of being obese or having diabetes.
The what? The Retail Food Environment Index (RFEI) is a ratio of unhealthy outlets (fast food restaurants and convenience stores) to healthier outlets (grocery stores and produce markets) in a given area. It’s a measure of how unhealthy the options are when you walk outside your door. The higher the number, the more junk is being sold around you. Statewide, the RFEI is 4.2, meaning there are a whopping four times as many unhealthy outlets as healthy ones. (For more statistics on RFEI, or how it applies to local communities, visit this story from last October on Healthy El Monte.)
California adults living in high RFEI areas (RFEI of 5.0 or higher – five times more unhealthy outlets than healthier ones) had a 20 percent higher prevalence of obesity and a 23 percent higher prevalence of diabetes than their counterparts living in RFEI areas of 3.0 or lower. A higher RFEI was associated with a higher prevalence of both obesity and diabetes for people living in lower-income and higher-income communities alike. Not surprisingly, the highest rates of obesity and diabetes are among people who live in lower-income and higher RFEI communities.
This relationship between RFEI and obesity and diabetes rates hold true regardless of household income, race/ethnicity, age, gender, or physical activity levels of respondents.
With her forceful support for healthy eating and physical fitness, First Lady Michelle Obama made the words ‘food desert’ part of the public lexicon when she launched the Let’s Move campaign. Now, with the Administration pledging to get rid of food deserts within seven years by helping communities invest in healthier food outlets, the question is being raised whether poorer neighborhoods really do lack healthy food access.
In the 1964 obscenity case of Jacobellis v. Ohio, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote what is perhaps his best known judicial opinion. In his short concurrence in Jacobellis Stewart wrote that "hard-core pornography" was hard to define, but “I know it when I see it.”
Given the growing epidemic of obesity and diabetes among young people in places like Los Angeles, Pico Rivera and El Monte, perhaps what is more important than what we call these challenged neighborhoods, is what we are doing about them. It’s not just about getting more grocery stores in them, it’s also about increasing the availabilty of healthy food, compared to fast food and junk food, in the community. This is the kind of decision that every community gets to make for itself. It is one of the powers that zoning ordinances give local residents.
Are you sick of, and from, all the unhealthy choices sold in your community? Don’t despair; to the extent you can, vote with your fork and work with community leaders to bring into your neighborhood markets deserving of your business. And be sure to tell your city council that you and your kids deserve better.
Joel Epstein is an at-large member of the Board of California Center for Public Health Advocacy and a Member of the L.A. Streetsblog Editorial Board.
