Food Deserts

A food desert is an urban area with little to no access to foods needed to maintain a healthy diet! What replaces these healthy foods are a plethora of Chinese stores, McDonald's, KFC's, and numerous other pizza stores. Everyday you may see your brother, sister, son, or daughter sit and have a meal from one of these fast food restaurants at least three to four times a week! Why is it that the dinner time has slowly been taken away from inner city families. I think that it has to do with the lack of family values, parenting, and access to healthy food in large quantities. Four wings, french fries, and a 2 liter soda for $4.50 is hard for a supermarket to beat, especially when inner city mother's are trying to raise two to three kids. Like I said there are a lot of reasons why things have gotten so bad, but the first step is always knowledge of the situation at hand. This lack of access to healthier food has been broken down into three different ways; financial access, physical access, and food knowledge. One of the main reasons people eat the way they eat in the city is because its convenient money wise. You can get a lot more for your buck at your neighborhood corner store. People also may not have the physical access to reach good supermarkets, produce stores, etc. These stores may be too far from where you live, the shopper may be elderly or infirm, the area is hilly, public transportation links may be poor, and also we the buyers may not have a car. Lastly a large majority of people simply do not think that eating healthy is important. When you think about it, its really sad because a lot of people are trapped in these food deserts and don't even know about it! Like I said earlier, you have to have knowledge of the situation first before you can make any kind of change. Take care of your bodies yall!

Peace Trevor Winston Lee