Can Americans be truly healthy in communities overstuffed with fast-food and soda-and-chip corner stores? An important new study says, “Not likely.”
The study, “Designed for Disease: The Link Between Local Food Environments and Obesity and Diabetes,” shows clearly that when the unhealthy food options near your home vastly outnumber healthier options like supermarkets and fresh food vendors, your risk for obesity and diabetes climbs dramatically.
Even after accounting for race and income, people are at significantly higher health risks when their “food environment” is crowded with unhealthier food options, according to the study by UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research, the California Center for Public Health Advocacy and PolicyLink, the organization I lead. The study looked at the health status and food environments of more than 40,000 Californians – and the results were consistent, staggering and alarming.
The type of community we live in clearly has a tremendous impact on our health. That is why I am so excited and inspired to be a part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Commission to Build a Healthier America. By shining a light on the way our economic, social, and physical environments affect our health, the commission is helping to expand our national discussion on health beyond just health care.
Those key environmental effects are never more clear than in the neighborhoods loaded with unhealthier food options. In an era when we are acutely aware of the effect of our diets on our overall health, we are leaving millions of Americans adrift in neighborhoods where healthy eating is next to impossible. For many people, food “choices” are really nothing of the sort. People must first have a broad and healthy set of food options in order to be able to make healthy choices.
In communities where there are five times as many fast food and convenience stores as fresh food outlets, residents run a 23 percent higher risk of suffering from diabetes than residents who live in communities with only a 3:1 unhealthier-to-healthier ratio.
Sadly, such a 3:1 ratio is what passes for the “healthy” end of the food environment spectrum. For every fresh food outlet near the average Californian’s home, there are 4.5 less healthy outlets.
Though low-income communities are hit hardest by this phenomenon, these stunning statistics run across the demographic gamut – among every race, ethnicity, income-level and geographic region.
The study shows clearly that we can no longer treat the health effects of our food environment as a mere matter of personal choice and parental responsibility. Public policies encourage certain types of food outlets to locate – or not to locate – in specific communities. By the same token, smart, targeted public policies can help shape healthier food environments, particularly in low-income communities and communities of color.
State and local leaders can make a significant difference in our food environments by:
- Providing incentives to encourage grocery stores to locate in underserved areas and for existing smaller stores to carry more fresh fruits and vegetables. Low-interest loans or seed grants could spark new store development and could help corner stores invest in refrigeration units they need to stock more fresh food.
- Promoting local farmers markets, mobile vendors, food cooperatives and community-supported agriculture. These small-scale projects can make a big difference in the choices residents can make when shopping for groceries.
- Requiring menu labeling. Menus that list nutritional information give people the facts they need to make healthy choices. Without menu labeling, they are choosing in the dark.
These steps, of course, will not by themselves solve all the problems of unhealthy food environments. But this new study makes plain that we must start attacking this issue immediately – or face the grim reality that the risk of obesity and diabetes will haunt millions of Americans simply because of their food options outside their front door.