Food Swamps and Poor Dietary Diversity: Longwave Development Implications in Southern African Cities

Bruce Frayne,Cameron McCordic

doi:10.3390/su10124425

Abstract

While the literature on food deserts focuses on limited availability of food in urban settings, ‘food swamps’ may better characterize the extensive prevalence and accessibility of cheap, highly processed foods. For urban populations, access to nutritionally inadequate poor-quality food has dire developmental consequences. The long-wave impacts of malnutrition at gestational and early childhood stages are negative and can be non-reversible. Moreover, those who survive into adulthood may face a lifetime of sub-optimal physical and mental development that undermines the second and third UN Sustainable Development Goals—to end hunger and to ensure healthy lives. This paper assesses the long-term health vulnerability of children with limited access to adequate and nutritious food in rapidly urbanizing cities. The analysis focuses on the African Urban Food Security Network (AFSUN) data drawn from 6453 household surveys in 11 cities and nine countries in Southern Africa. The results indicate that children in these households are consuming a limited diversity of food, have limited access to resources and have greater odds of experiencing both short-term and long-term food and nutrition insecurity. These findings demonstrate an underlying vulnerability to long-term health impacts stemming from nutritionally inadequate diets, with potentially significant costs to human capital.

Highlights

The United Nations’ 2030 Agenda poses two direct development challenges that pivot on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11: Sustainable Cities
The analysis focuses on the African Urban Food Security Network (AFSUN) data drawn from household surveys in 11 cities and nine countries in Southern Africa
These findings demonstrate the widespread nature of food insecurity faced by the sampled poor households in cities across Southern Africa

Summary

Introduction

The United Nations’ 2030 Agenda poses two direct development challenges that pivot on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11: Sustainable Cities. These challenges are captured under SDG 2: Zero Hunger, and SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being. Cities of the Global South have become a “ground zero” for these compounding challenges This investigation assesses the poverty, food security and food consumption characteristics of poor urban households in Southern Africa containing children aged 5 years old and younger. The promise of ending hunger and achieving good health for all is a major challenge in the context of the rapid urbanization of the Global South [3,4]. “malnutrition is in turn a major contributor to both mortality and morbidity and is a vexing development problem, the locus of which is increasingly urban” [16] (p. 119)

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Discussion

Conclusion