For many families in the United States, hunger can be a daily struggle. According to Feeding America, in 2015, about 13 percent of households were food insecure. In total, 42.2 million Americans lived in food insecure households, including 13.1 million children. There are also concerns that many lower-income Americans are overweight or obese–there is plenty of scientific evidence to suggest that low-income children are more likely to be overweight or obese than children in higher-income households. One concept that gets talked about a lot when it comes to hunger and health in the United States is the idea of a “food desert.” But what is a food desert, where are they, and what impact do they have on food insecurity?

What Exactly is a Food Desert?

While there are a number of different definitions that can be applied to the concept of a food desert, it’s generally defined as an area in which it is difficult to find fresh fruit, vegetables, and other “whole” foods that when combined, contribute to a well-balanced diet. In many cases, nearby supermarkets aren’t easily accessible by public transportation, and oftentimes, the residents don’t have access to cars. Essentially, a food desert just means an area in which it is difficult to come by wholesome and nutritious food.

Food deserts are usually located in lower-income areas, often neighborhoods in which most residents are people of color. According to the Food Empowerment Project, a non-profit that works to provide food to low income areas, wealthy areas have almost three times as many supermarkets as lower-income areas. And neighborhoods that are predominately white have four times as many supermarkets as majority black neighborhoods.

What’s a Food Swamp?

In addition to the concept of a food desert, you may hear the term “food swamp” thrown around occasionally. A food swamp is usually defined as an area where there is access to healthy food, but there is easier access to unhealthy foods, like junk food and fast food.

The concepts of food desert and swamp are closely related. In fact, there are arguments that “food swamp” is a more accurate term than food desert altogether, because many lower-income neighborhoods have plenty of fast food restaurants and convenience stores that carry unhealthy foods.

Where Are Food Deserts Located? 

There are multiple measures that can be used to determine whether or not a place is a “food desert.”

Redfin, for example, determined food deserts by calculating the percentage of people in a given city who can walk to a grocery store within five minutes. Using those metrics applied to 2014 data, the five American cities with the lowest percentage of people who can walk to a grocery store in five minutes are, in this order: Indianapolis at 5 percent; Oklahoma City at 5 percent, Charlotte at 6 percent, Tuscon at 6 percent, and Albuquerque at 7 percent. In contrast, the five American cities with the highest percentage of food access within five minutes were New York City at 72 percent, San Francisco at 59 percent, Philadelphia at 57 percent, Boston at 45 percent, and Washington D.C. at 41 percent.

That’s not to say that all food deserts exist in cities. In fact, rural areas are hard hit as well, although they need to be classified slightly differently. The metric usually applied to rural food deserts is if there’s no grocery store within 10 miles of a high-population area. In some rural areas, this is exacerbated by population shifts, as more people are moving to urban and suburban areas. When people move out of an area, grocery stores close, sometimes creating food deserts.

And certain areas are harder hit than others–for example, many Native American reservations fall under the definition of food deserts. Navajo Nation is almost 30,000 square miles, but only has 10 grocery stores. A study conducted by the Diné Policy Institute concluded that “a majority of participants from the communities represented in this study travel at least 155 miles round trip, while others regularly drive up to 240 miles to access foods.”

In 2011, the United States Department of Agriculture created an online, interactive map tool that measures food deserts across the country. The tool uses the following definition to measure what a food desert is:

A food desert is a low-income census tract where either a substantial number or share of residents has low access to a supermarket or large grocery store. ‘Low income’ tracts are defined as those where at least 20 percent of the people have income at or below the federal poverty levels for family size, or where median family income for the tract is at or below 80 percent of the surrounding area’s median family income. Tracts qualify as ‘low access’ tracts if at least 500 persons or 33 percent of their population live more than a mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (for rural census tracts, the distance is more than 10 miles).

According to then-Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, the tool is intended to:

Help policy makers, community planners, researchers, and other professionals identify communities where public-private intervention can help make fresh, healthy, and affordable food more readily available to residents. With this and other Web tools, USDA is continuing to support federal government efforts to present complex sets of data in creative, accessible online format.

You can check out the tool for yourself here.

How Can the Problem of Food Deserts Be Solved?

There have been a lot of proposed solutions for food deserts. One prominent figure working to eliminate food deserts is former First Lady Michelle Obama, who made it one of the primary focuses of her activism. The Obama Administration put forth the solution of funding and equipping grocery stores in low-income neighborhoods, as well as providing financing for other options for healthy food, like farmers markets and co-ops.

There have been other, more unique solutions proposed as well. In some places, volunteers work to transport healthy food that would otherwise be disposed of from grocery stores in other areas. Some areas have taken to promoting urban farming and community gardens to combat food deserts. There are also efforts to put healthier, whole foods into already-existing institutions, like introducing more produce options into convenience stores and neighborhood corner shops.

Do Food Deserts Actually Need to be “Solved?”

There are also questions of whether food deserts are actually the issue, or at the very least the whole issue. There’s an argument to be made that obesity and poor nutrition aren’t necessarily caused by a lack of access to whole food, but rather issues with people’s shopping and eating habits.

Some research indicates that the increased presence of supermarkets in food deserts doesn’t do much to improve the shopping choices that locals make. In addition to a lack of education about nutrition, other factors go into play, like convenience, habit, the fact that unhealthy food is sometimes the cheapest, and strong advertising pushes from junk food producers.

As a result, some efforts to counter food deserts have focused on improving nutrition education. For example, there is a preschool in Memphis, Tennessee, that works with its students, many of whom live in food desert areas, to teach them the importance of a healthy diet from a young age.

Conclusion

Food deserts are such a fluid concept that it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what they are, where they are, and what exactly they mean for the American population. Some argue that food deserts are a myth, and that our concentration should be focused on providing more nutrition education, not more choices of shopping venues. But one thing that is certain is that the rates of hunger and obesity in the United States–one of the richest countries in the world–are downright unacceptable, and food deserts are one concept that will continue to be brought up to combat those concerning trends.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post What is a Food Desert? appeared first on Law Street.

People starving or going hungry seems like something out of the past in the United States. After all, aren’t we always telling ourselves how we are the wealthiest and greatest nation on the planet? Although those are certainly debatable points, we are definitely one of the fattest at least, right? Well while the United States is home to immense wealth, happiness, and large waist lines, hunger is still a very real problem here. In fact, one in six people in this country faces hunger every day. That number increases to one in five for children, one in three if the child is black or Latino. The point is that even in the United States, the lone remaining superpower, hunger is still a major issue. Furthermore, if it is a problem here then it is likely a problem everywhere. The question then, is how to solve the crisis? How do we make it, to quote Gone From the Wind, so that, we “never go hungry again?”

Why is there a food shortage?

Production

In looking for the culprit for hunger, naturally it seems wise to look for the root of the problem. However, while it may seem like a no-brainer that hunger is caused by a shortage of food or lack of production, this is actually false. In fact today we already produce enough food to feed everyone on the planet and the amount of food being produced each year actually outpaces population growth as well. Although it is as of yet unclear whether production can keep up with growth indefinitely, right now the amount of food is not the major issue concerning hunger. If the amount of food isn’t the issue, then what is it?

Cost

The answer to that question is several-fold. First as always, cost plays a major role. After all nothing in life is free, especially not lunch. Truthfully though it is not so much a matter of cost as it is a matter of poverty. In fact when it comes to hunger, poverty is inextricably intertwined. Poverty is akin to a disease that weakens the immune system and cost is what is then allowed to spread. While there is clearly enough food to feed the world’s population, it is not equally and appropriately distributed because many groups throughout the world simply cannot afford it.

Along this same vein is the cost of production. While this is certainly less of a problem in the United States with its advanced transportation structure the simple act of harvesting food and transporting it to a market for sale can price out needy people in other regions of the globe.

As a result this can lead to hunger. It can also cause malnutrition, as those unable to afford healthy–or any–food turn to cheaper and less nutritious substitutes. This can further serve as a catch 22 of sorts, as the inferior food makes a person weaker and less healthy and thus less able to find an occupation that could provide nutritious food that would then lead to better health.

Waste

Another major problem is the amount of food wasted. According to the World Food Program, every year one-third of the food that is produced is never consumed and is instead wasted. In addition along with the wasted food are all the wasted resources such as fertilizers and water that go into food production. Thus while enough food is produced to feed seven billion people, it is unlikely there is enough to feed those same seven billion and throw away another third.  The video below provides a more detailed breakdown on yearly waste.

Regional Instability

While waste may be a less apparent reason for hunger, perhaps the most obvious is conflict. Indeed in areas of prolonged and expansive war, hunger is a very serious problem. Not only does the physical destruction from battle destroy valuable farmland, the conflict also forces people off their lands and often into other areas that are already struggling to feed their own people. A real-time example of this is what is currently going on in Syria. With refugees trying to flee the conflict, the means to adequately feed the ever-growing displaced population are fewer and fewer to come by.

Climate Change

Along with cost, waste, and conflict is another growing concern related to hunger–the impact of climate change. According to Worldwatch Institute, climate change could affect many of the agricultural areas that can least afford it such as South and Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East. While it may improve the conditions for other needy areas such as East Asia and Latin America, this still greatly increases the chances of malnutrition for the world’s poor. Furthermore it also puts the question of adequate production further into doubt. According to the study, by 2050 there will actually be less food being produced than in 2000. This is especially concerning in that the population by 2050 is expected to grow from approximately seven billion today to nine billion then.  The video below details the dangers of climate change on food production.

Ways to Fix the Problem

Although hunger is an age-old problem and new challenges are rising that exacerbate it, there is still room for hope. That hope comes in the forms of a number of programs aimed at addressing the root causes of hunger and its resulting side effects.

At the grassroots level are programs such as the one initiated by the organization Stop Hunger Now. The approach of this organization is two-fold: first is the actual feeding of hungry children around the world via healthy food packets that are high in nutrition and can improve development, and second are programs aimed at combating poverty, one of the major causes of hunger globally. This includes teaching skills to break the cycle of poverty and educating people on better health practices, which reduces the risk of malnutrition.

Along with private programs are government efforts. In the immediate are programs that address hunger directly, such as those that assist in buying food like SNAP, also commonly known as food stamps. In 2013, one in five households was on food stamps–an all-time high. To help feed all these people the government spent approximately $80 billion in 2013.

There are also government efforts on the global scale as well. One such program conducted by the United States is known as Feed the Future. How this program works is first the federal government selects a number of countries. The next step is the planning phase where the government then tailors programs for each country. Once the planning step is completed, a large investment is made aimed at empowering women, growing high-yield and diverse crops, creating an adequate infrastructure for moving the product once is has grown, and above all else providing an occupation that can help lift people out of poverty.  The video below explains the Feed the Future program in greater detail.

These programs and countless other similar programs are providing a means both to fight hunger at the present and the overall issues underlying it specifically poverty.

Conclusion

In 2000 the United Nations released a set of eight goals it wished to achieve by 2015 known as the Millennial Goals. Number one on the list, eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. This goal was very ambitious, even bordering on unrealistic. Thus by next year hunger and extreme poverty are not likely to be completely done away with.

Nonetheless, the rates of both are greatly reduced. Extreme poverty for example has been cut in half, which as has been alluded to, is essential to ending hunger. Reducing hunger directly has also met with great success, in 2012 and 2013 for instance, 173 million fewer people faced continuous hunger compared with 1990 to 1992. The number of children whose growth has been stunted by poor nutrition has also decreased markedly as well from 40 percent to 25 percent today.

Indeed significant gains have been made in the fight against hunger. While there is still no panacea to end it, all these steps and programs have made more than a dent. Continued efforts to address the main causes will only go further in reducing it; however, to ever completely eradicate it, seismic shifts need to be made in ending problems like inequality, war, and waste. Hunger therefore is not likely to ever be eradicated overnight, instead it will take a continued effort, one hungry mouth at a time.

Resources

Primary 

World Food Program: What Causes Hunger?

United Nations Development Program: Millennial Development Goals

Additional

Do Something: 11 Facts About Hunger in the United States

Freedom from Hunger: World Hunger Facts

Worldwatch Institute: Climate Change Will Worsen Hunger 

Guardian: World Food Day: 10 Myths About Hunger

CBS News; War and Hunger

Stop Hunger Now: Mission and History

CNS News: Record 20% of Households on Food Stamps in 2013

Feed the Future: Approach

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Hunger: An Intractable Problem With a Myriad of Causes appeared first on Law Street.

Happy Thursday, folks! You’re almost there. Breathe with me. Friday’s coming.

In the meantime, let’s get to our biweekly session of bitching about the GOP, shall we? Today, we’re talking about school lunches. And poor kids. And how Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia is a gigantic asshole.

Here’s what happened. Across the nation, kids from families whose income levels are below 130 percent of the poverty line can receive free school lunches. Kids from families with income levels between 130 and 185 percent of the federal poverty line are eligible for reduced lunch prices. This is news to no one.

Trust me on this. My awesome wife teaches in Newark, one of the poorest cities in New Jersey. Literally all of the kids at her school get free lunch. Free lunch for low income kids is nothing new.

Said no one.

Anyway! Rep. Kingston decided to make news out of something that’s not new — a common talent for many GOP rainmakers. This week, he went on the record saying that poor kids should NOT get free lunch — oh no! The blasphemy!

Instead, he made the following suggestions:

“Why don’t we have the kids pay a dime, pay a nickel to instill in them that there is, in fact, no such thing as a free lunch? Or maybe sweep the floor of the cafeteria — and yes, I understand that that would be an administrative problem, and I understand that it would probably lose you money. But think what we would gain as a society in getting people — getting the myth out of their head that there is such a thing as a free lunch.”

Oh my gosh I CAN’T. I cannot. What are you doing, Rep. Kingston? Really.

Friends is on my level today.

Let’s start with the first and most obvious issue with your solution to a non-problem: children are not possessors of money. They don’t work. That’s what being a child means. So, really, they all get free lunches. Every single one of them. Even the richest of rich kids are getting a free lunch. Because it’s not their money that paid for it. It’s their parents’ money.

Take me for example. I was a solidly middle-class child. My parents, being the health nuts that they are, were not big fans of the idea of me eating mystery meat in my elementary school cafeteria. So, every day, they dutifully packed me a brown bag lunch. I got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat bread and a handful of cookies, virtually every single day. For me, that lunch was free.

I didn’t pay for it. I didn’t even know that food cost money. Or that when my parents went to work, they were paid in money. I kind of just thought working was a thing that grownups had to do — the same way kids had to go to school — and all of the other stuff like food and housing was just magically bestowed upon people who followed the rules.

Baby me did not understand how much this leather jacket probably cost my big sister.

Clearly, I was a naïve child.

But! There was a kernel of truth in my naivety. For me, food really didn’t cost money. It just appeared in my brown bag every day, as if by magic. Nowadays, as a precariously middle-class adult who has to purchase food before it lands in my brown bag (I’m still packing a whole wheat PB&J for work, I’ll admit it), I’m fully aware that food was free when I was a kid.

I’m even more aware of it when my now gray-haired parents take me out for lunch.

My reaction whenever my parents invite me out to dinner.

Anyway! All children get free lunch. They aren’t working the night-shift to pay for their sandwiches. So, your argument is already inherently flawed, Rep. Kingston.

Moving right along. What is this obsession with punishing poor people for being poor? Seriously. The GOP is fixated on it. When you suggest forcing children to sweep the floors in order to earn their lunch, you’re talking about child labor. That’s bad enough, but when you’re only suggesting the poor kids participate, you’re talking about a caste system.

You’re talking about a world where rich kids learn early on that only certain people sweep floors. Namely, not them. You’re teaching them that someone else will always clean up after them. Someone else will always have to beg for their scraps.

Then, you wind up with kids like this boy, who killed 4 people because of pathological rich kid syndrome.

And, you’re teaching the poor kids that they’re the ones who need to beg for those scraps. Because of the social standing of their family — which they have zero control over — poor kids will understand themselves to be inherently less than. That’s a traumatic and debilitating lesson to learn at such a formative age.

Finally, there’s the looming issue at hand — the solution that Rep. Kingston is obviously hinting at, but isn’t explicitly articulating.

He’s saying that it would be better if these kids didn’t get a free school lunch at all. If we HAVE to give it to them, at least make them work for it, he’s saying. But really, his best case scenario is equally expensive lunches for all.

Folks, this is a classic case of a Republican who lacks empathy. It’s an alarmingly common quality among headline-making GOP’ers.

Where my wife teaches, all of the students qualify for free lunch. Every single one of them. These kids are poor. They don’t have the luxury to grow up naïve like I did. They know food costs money because they don’t have any of it. As in, neither food nor money.

For many of her kids, lunch is the only meal they eat. They hardly eat at all on weekends. Why? Because they’re poor. They can’t afford food. And the little food they do have at home, they give to their baby brothers and sisters.

My wife’s students are good kids. They’re smart and loving and talented, and hysterically funny. And they deserve to fucking eat.

So, Rep. Kingston? Shut the fuck up.

Stop talking about child labor, and a (not really) new caste system, and the idea that poor kids shouldn’t be fed lunch on the school’s dime. Stop talking out of your ass, and start feeding some children.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Philippe Put via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post GOP to Hungry Kids: You Don’t Work Hard Enough appeared first on Law Street.