Food-related health risks due to accessibility barriers

Abstract

Issues with access to fresh and healthy produce can have long-lasting impacts on health, especially food-related health outcomes such as obesity and diabetes. To address these health outcomes (at least partially), researchers have often discussed various solutions to ameliorate access issues to fresh and healthy produce in order to encourage residents to purchase and consume more nutritious foods. Access to healthy foods have been discussed in terms of traditional grocery stores availability, alternative fresh food venues such as farmers markets and farm stands, and federal programmes that provide support for food procurement for lower income families. Access by itself also refers to the physical ability of getting to these fresh food venues and research has also discussed the ownership of, and access to vehicles by households of varying economic abilities. In this paper, we suggest that apart from these initiatives, there needs to be a conscientious effort in understanding that public transit also plays a crucial role in accessibility, and added to that, the understanding of food needs and preferences of ethnically diverse populations is in order to be able to address the nutritional component and cultural acceptance of foods that are commonly sought by these populations. Awareness, availability, acceptance and accessibility need to be combined with affordability to help encourage residents to include fresh and healthy produce into their daily diets in order to combat common food-related health issues.