(no subject)

[owlectomy]

I generally like this post that's been going around Tumblr referencing specific studies about fat and health and moral panic, but:

Food deserts are a thing.

If you consider every deli that has a couple of bananas and onions to be a grocery store, like the studies reference by the New York Times article, you can prove that food deserts are not a problem.

But there are places that don't have real grocery stores with a reasonable selection of fruits and vegetables nearby. And there are places where the real grocery stores nearby have produce that is old and rotting. (Grocery stores in rich neighborhoods buy fresher produce than grocery stores in poor neighborhoods).

Food deserts aren't a problem because of fat people. But it is probably healthier to have access to a good variety of decent produce than to not have access to it.

Comments

[laughingrat]

Yeah it's tough, the erasure of food deserts makes me feel like class issues are being overlooked. I've also seen POC activists decry the concept of food deserts as well, probably due to understandable resentment at their neighborhoods, families, eating habits, etc. being labeled "problematic" by presumably white scientists. Surely we can address that without erasing the real, documented issue of food deserts tho!

[owlectomy]

I've just been doing some reading on it, and I've found out a lot of stuff I never knew about how the USDA definition of food desert is constructed in a way that is biased towards giant corporate grocery stores at the expense of small locally-owned groceries, and how talking about food deserts can be a justification for big corporate grocery stores with awful labor practices to get tax breaks and corporate welfare for setting up stores in urban areas, and it's all... ugh.

No matter how legitimate the issue, you can count that somebody slimy is going to try to work it to their own advantage, basically. :/