Food Deserts or Food Swamps?

Xue Luo

doi:10.23974/ijol.2020.vol5.1.161

Abstract

Access to healthy, varied and affordable foods has a great impact on individual dietary patterns and diet-related health outcomes. Consequently, there is an increasing interest in identifying food deserts - areas with poor access to supermarkets or other food retailers that provide a wide range of healthy and affordable food. Using geographic information systems (GIS), this study examines geographic accessibility to both supermarkets and fast food outlets, and explores their relationship with neighbourhood socioeconomic and zoning characteristics to identify food deserts and food swamps in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The results show that access to supermarkets and fast food outlets varied by neighbourhood-level socioeconomic deprivation in Windsor, with socioeconomically disadvantaged areas having better food access than advantaged areas. Consistent with previous findings in other Canadian cities, this study finds that food swamps were more prevalent than food deserts in Windsor.

Highlights

Adequate consumption of nutritious foods is essential to overall health and can reduce the risk of nutrition-related chronic disease and obesity
This paper aims to address the following research questions: 1) Does access to supermarkets and fast food outlets vary across neighbourhoods of different levels of socioeconomic deprivation? 2) How is access to supermarkets and fast food outlets related to neighbourhood socioeconomic characteristics after controlling for planning and zoning factors? 3) Where are the food deserts and food swamps within the city?
This study shows that access to supermarkets and fast food outlets varied according to neighbourhood-level socioeconomic deprivation in Windsor, with socioeconomically disadvantaged areas having better food access than advantaged areas

Summary

Introduction

Adequate consumption of nutritious foods is essential to overall health and can reduce the risk of nutrition-related chronic disease and obesity. Theories in the public health field about food choice have tended to focus on factors that influence individual decisions (Health Canada, 2013). Researchers and policy makers have come to recognize the influence of environments (e.g., physical, social and economic) on individual dietary patterns (Health Canada, 2013). A significant amount of research has focused on examining spatial disparities in the accessibility of food services that may have an effect upon individual food choices (e.g., Black et al, 2011; SmoyerTomic et al, 2008). Some argue that “food deserts” – areas with poor access to supermarkets or other food retailers that provide a wide range of healthy and affordable food - may contribute to social and spatial disparities in diet and diet-related health outcomes (Beaulac et al, 2009). The relatively poor access to supermarkets would suggest that elderly, low-

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