First Lady Michelle Obama has called on Congress to create a $400 million-a-year program to encourage the establishment of supermarkets in places she calls “food deserts.”
The situation in these “food deserts,” as Mrs. Obama describes it, is quite dire indeed. American children are growing fat because their parents cannot get to a supermarket—to buy fruits and vegetables—without undergoing the hardship of boarding a bus or riding a taxi. As a consequence, food-desert-dwelling children are forced to eat fast food and junk procured at chain restaurants and convenience stores.
In a March 10 speech, the first lady painted a sad picture of their plight. “Right now, 23.5 million Americans, including 6.5 million kids, live in what we call ‘food deserts’—these are areas without a supermarket,” she explained. “And as a result these families wind up buying their groceries at the local gas station or convenience store, places that offer few, if any, healthy options.”
She offered a solution. “Let’s move to ensure that all families have access to healthy, affordable foods in their community,” she said. “(W)e’ve set an ambitious goal here: to eliminate food deserts in America within seven years.
“To do that,” she said, “we’re creating a Healthy Food Financing Initiative that’s going to invest $400 million a year—and leverage hundreds of millions more from the private sector—to bring grocery stores to underserved areas and help places like convenience stores carry healthier options.”
Pushing this $400 million food-desert-eradication plan became a standard part of Mrs. Obama’s stump speech.
But does it deserve a single penny?
In the 2008 farm bill, Congress mandated that the department conduct a $500,000 study of “food deserts.” The study—“Access to Affordable and Nutritious Food: Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequences”—was published in June 2009.
The report demonstrates that Mrs. Obama’s depiction of American “food deserts” is fatuous at best. Lower-income Americans live closer to supermarkets than higher-income Americans.
“Overall, median distance to the nearest supermarket is 0.85 miles,” said the Agriculture Department report. “Median distance for low-income individuals is about 0.1 of a mile less than for those with higher income, and a greater share of low-income individuals (61.8 percent) have high or medium access to supermarkets than those with higher income (56.1 percent).”
There are 23.5 million people who live in “low income” areas that are more than a mile from the nearest supermarket. But more than half of these people are not low-income, and almost everyone in these areas--93.3 percent—drive their cars to the supermarket. On average, they spend 4.5 minutes more than the typical American traveling to the supermarket.
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While we're building these doomed grocery stores in rural America, we need to build money losing Home Depots so these deprived homeowners can do improvements without undergoing the hardship of boarding a bus. Next we need to give them new malls so their deprived children can wear designer clothes. I am sure Obamacare will build large, fully equipped and fully staffed hospitals in these deserts. All problems canbe solved simply by throwing taxpayer money at them.
ReplyDeleteHurried lifestyles, lazy parents, and lack of planning causes kids to eat unhealthy not distances to grocery stores! I guess this is one of those theories related to our governments serious lack of common sense.
ReplyDeletethere used to be many mor elittle local crocery stores, shops ect
ReplyDeleteguess what, they couldnt make money, so they closed
why dont we just offer free delivery for those poor folks.
hey that would give them jobs too
where exactly are these 'food deserts'? There is a Wal*Mart supercenter on almost every street corner; possibly none in the Appalachian Mt. regions. Why can't the folks in these 'food deserts' plant vegetables? Isn't that what everyone was doing during the depression?
ReplyDeletei grew up in inner city baltimore.closest grocery store was about 3 miles away.we didnt have a car so my mom and i walked there.we put groceries in a cart she purchased and we pushed it all the way home.
ReplyDeleteWhen I grew up, my mother always had a home cooked very hearty healthy meal which included a calm enviroment with candle light. She made healthy eating a priority in our family although we did not have alot of money because she chose to be at home. She was a very savy food shopping woman. We had many acres of vegetables owned by a local cannery surrounding our town. After combine time, there was so much vegetables left laying around, we would make it a game to go glean the fields. We also grew some of our own vegetables. She taught me so much about nutrition and the importance of it in your value system. This is a lost art. That is the problem in this country. You can preach this stuff all you want, but it starts at home. My children used to complain that I did not keep junk food in the house except for homemade baked goods, when all of their friends mom did. As adults, they now thank me for it since they see the results of the fast food lifestyle in their work with kids. Now, they choose to take the time to prepare home cooked meals on a regular basis versus running by the store and picking up quick fixes. They are a rarity at their age.
ReplyDeleteShe is truly an IDIOT! Since when is it a hardship to get on public transportation to get food you need to survive. The problem is these people who are fat are eating too much Mcdonalds because somehow getting to Mcdonalds on the bus is not a hardship!
ReplyDeleteThanks to the direct correlation between the Great (Welfare) Society and the rise in inner city crime it has driven out many grocery stores. Social programs have ruined cities.
ReplyDeleteGovernment policy does little to help encourage businesses. For example, Wal-Mart has tried for years to build supercenters in the city and the city government has always stopped it. This prevents needed jobs from being available and a place to shop for groceries and other goods.
If the government would stop interfering with business and stop social engineering it would improve the lives of everybody.