Download or read book The Public Health Effects of Food Deserts written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2009-07-02 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the United States, people living in low-income neighborhoods frequently do not have access to affordable healthy food venues, such as supermarkets. Instead, those living in "food deserts" must rely on convenience stores and small neighborhood stores that offer few, if any, healthy food choices, such as fruits and vegetables. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and National Research Council (NRC) convened a two-day workshop on January 26-27, 2009, to provide input into a Congressionally-mandated food deserts study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. The workshop, summarized in this volume, provided a forum in which to discuss the public health effects of food deserts.
Download or read book Local Foods and Low income Communities written by Megan Van de Mark and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The popularity of local foods and farmers markets has grown rapidly over the last decade, particularly in the last two to three years. As an increasing number of Americans are becoming concerned with where their food comes from 0́3 how it was produced and by whom, how far it has traveled from field to table, etc. 0́3 they are consequently changing their minds about what they want on their dinner table. However, while consumption of local food continues to increase, there remains a significant percentage of the American public who are simultaneously struggling to meet just their basic food needs and/or who lack a range of healthy, affordable food options (which most often includes local and organic foods) due to a myriad of limiting socioeconomic and physical/spatial factors. Unable to access healthy alternatives, many of these individuals are often forced to choose from cheap, easy, readily available, and therefore often unhealthy, alternatives. This disparity of food options has resulted in a growing food gap between affluent or food secure and low-income or food insecure individuals. Several food assistance programs have been enacted to specifically address this gap by increasing low-income consumers access to farmers markets, and thus, fresh, local, nutritious foods. These programs include the WIC Farmers0́9 Market Nutrition Program, Senior Farmers0́9 Market Nutrition Program, the Electronic Benefit Transfer cards Farmers0́9 Market Project, and matching funds programs. This paper analyzes the efficacy of these programs through a targeted analysis of the Silver Spring Farmers Market located in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Download or read book Building Community Food Webs written by Ken Meter and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2021-04-29 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our current food system has decimated rural communities and confined the choices of urban consumers. Even while America continues to ramp up farm production to astounding levels, net farm income is now lower than at the onset of the Great Depression, and one out of every eight Americans faces hunger. But a healthier and more equitable food system is possible. In Building Community Food Webs, Ken Meter shows how grassroots food and farming leaders across the U.S. are tackling these challenges by constructing civic networks. Overturning extractive economic structures, these inspired leaders are engaging low-income residents, farmers, and local organizations in their quest to build stronger communities. Community food webs strive to build health, wealth, capacity, and connection. Their essential element is building greater respect and mutual trust, so community members can more effectively empower themselves and address local challenges. Farmers and researchers may convene to improve farming practices collaboratively. Health clinics help clients grow food for themselves and attain better health. Food banks engage their customers to challenge the root causes of poverty. Municipalities invest large sums to protect farmland from development. Developers forge links among local businesses to strengthen economic trade. Leaders in communities marginalized by our current food system are charting a new path forward. Building Community Food Webs captures the essence of these efforts, underway in diverse places including Montana, Hawai‘i, Vermont, Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, and Minnesota. Addressing challenges as well as opportunities, Meter offers pragmatic insights for community food leaders and other grassroots activists alike.
Download or read book Access to Affordable and Nutritious Food Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequences written by Michele Ver Ploeg and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2010-02 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 directed the U.S. Dept. of Agr. to conduct a 1-year study to assess the extent of areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food, identify characteristics and causes of such areas, consider how limited access affects local populations, and outline recommend. to address the problem. This report presents the findings of the study, which include results from two conferences of national and internat. authorities on food deserts and a set of research studies. It also includes reviews of existing literature, a national-level assessment of access to large grocery stores and supermarkets, analysis of the economic and public health effects of limited access, and a discussion of existing policy interventions. Illus.
Download or read book Local Food Systems Concepts Impacts and Issues written by Steve Martinez and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2010-11 with total page 87 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive overview of local food systems explores alternative definitions of local food, estimates market size and reach, describes the characteristics of local consumers and producers, and examines early indications of the economic and health impacts of local food systems. Defining ¿local¿ based on marketing arrangements, such as farmers selling directly to consumers at regional farmers¿ markets or to schools, is well recognized. Statistics suggest that local food markets account for a small, but growing, share of U.S. agricultural production. For smaller farms, direct marketing to consumers accounts for a higher percentage of their sales than for larger farms. Charts and tables.
Download or read book Good Food Strong Communities written by Steve Ventura and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2017-12-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Americans are hungry, while others struggle to find healthy foods. What are communities doing to address this problem, and what should they be doing? Good Food, Strong Communities shares ideas and stories about efforts to improve food security in large urban areas of the United States by strengthening community food systems. It draws on five years of collaboration between a research team comprised of the University of Wisconsin, Growing Power, and the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, and more than thirty organizations on the front lines of this work in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Los Angeles, Madison, and Cedar Rapids. Here, activists and scholars talk about what’s working and what still needs to be done to ensure that everyone has access to readily available, affordable, appropriate, and acceptable food. The approach begins by laying out the basic principles of food security and food justice in light of the diversity of food system practices and innovations in America’s cities. The contributing authors address land access for urban agriculture, debates over city farming, new possibilities in food processing, and the marketing of healthy food. They put these basic elements—land, production, processing, and marketing—in the context of municipal policy, education, and food justice and sovereignty, particularly for people of color. While the path of a food product from its producer to its consumer may seem straightforward on the surface, the apparent simplicity hides the complex logistical—and value-laden—factors that create and maintain a food system. This book helps readers understand how a food system functions and how individual and community initiatives can lessen the problems associated with an industrialized food system.
Download or read book Food and Poverty written by Leslie Hossfeld and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Food insecurity rates, which skyrocketed with the Great Recession, have yet to fall to pre-recession levels. Food pantries are stretched thin, and states are imposing new restrictions on programs like SNAP that are preventing people from getting crucial government assistance. At the same time, we see an increase in obesity that results from lack of access to healthy foods. The poor face a daily choice between paying bills and paying for food.
Download or read book Growing Livelihoods written by Rhonda Phillips and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Community planning is starting to include a broader food systems focus, spanning topics such as nutrition and health outcomes, sustainable farming practices, economic and social implications of local food production, distribution, and consumption. Together, these issues are a driving force for the passions of those seeking positive change in their communities through healthy food. The purpose of this book is to explore how and where local food and farms, as part of a local or regional food system, can positively impact both economic development and overall well-being of communities. Across North America, there are good examples of the ways in which innovative local food systems provide opportunities for: increasing job growth and entrepreneurship; retaining local farmers on their land while nourishing their community; and providing communities places to congregate, bond, and become closer-knit. Six such examples are highlighted, each illustrating a novel model offering unique contributions to community economic health and well-being. These important cases offer practitioners, advocates, academics, and students insight into how applications can be built or studied in their own communities.
Download or read book Cultivating Food Justice written by Alison Hope Alkon and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Documents how racial and social inequalities are built into our food system, and how communities are creating environmentally sustainable and socially just alternatives.
Download or read book Public Use of Local Foods in the Tanana Valley written by Rachel Aleksandra Garcia and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis explores factors that affect local food use in the Tanana Valley region of Alaska. Alaskan public discourses increasingly link local food production to a more sustainable and secure state and community food supply. However, current local food system development in the United States is marked by signs of socially unequal distribution of the benefits of local food. In Spring 2011, semi - structured interviews and focus groups were conducted with agricultural producers and community members affiliated with the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and the Farmers' Market Nutrition Program (FMNP). Results show that local food use is complex and tied to livelihood and daily concerns of both producers and consumers. Producers highlighted challenges in food production, and characterized public use of local foods as limited by insufficient production. WIC employees and FMNP recipients viewed convenience and cost as important determinants of local food use. This exploratory study contributes to a more complex understanding of the local food system in the Tanana Valley through close examination of the perceptions and life experiences of human actors in this food system.
Download or read book Local Food Environments written by Kimberly B. Morland and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Local Food Environments: Food Access in America provides information on the complex nature of food delivery systems as well as the historical and political trends that have shaped them over time. The book presents the empirical evidence demonstrating disparities in access to healthy affordable foods across the United States and how these disparities may explain food consumption patterns for some Americans as well as potential risks for diet-related illness. The book describes the current body of research surrounding these associations and presents the methodological issues pertinent to this area of public health. Evidence from these studies is placed in context of current and past American food policies that have supported the existing food retail market including the production and retailing of foods and ways in which the consolidation of the food system has affected Americans. Research conducted regarding local food environments in Canada has also been included as a point of comparison. Methods are discussed as well as the current state of knowledge regarding factors associated with disparities between local food environments, the effect of these disparities on the diets of residents within those communities, and the impact that local food environments have on diet-related health outcomes, such as obesity. Also described are solutions garnered to minimize local food environment inequalities currently being conducted by federal, state, and local government agencies. Although this book focuses on US local food environments, similar issues regarding access to food are concurrently taking place outside of the US. In all chapters, readers are encouraged to critically consider the current research methods as well as recent programs and policies that aim to address local food environments.
Download or read book In Defense of Processed Food written by Robert L. Shewfelt and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-11-23 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has become popular to blame the American obesity epidemic and many other health-related problems on processed food. Many of these criticisms are valid for some processed-food items, but many statements are overgeneralizations that unfairly target a wide range products that contribute to our health and well-being. In addition, many of the proposed dangers allegedly posed by eating processed food are exaggerations based on highly selective views of experimental studies. We crave simple answers to our questions about food, but the science behind the proclamations of food pundits is not nearly as clear as they would have you believe. This book presents a more nuanced view of the benefits and limitations of food processing and exposes some of the tricks both Big Food and its critics use to manipulate us to adopt their point of view. Food is a source of enjoyment, a part of our cultural heritage, a vital ingredient in maintaining health, and an expression of personal choice. We need to make those choices based on credible information and not be beguiled by the sophisticated marketing tools of Big Food nor the ideological appeals and gut feelings of self-appointed food gurus who have little or no background in nutrition.
Download or read book Local Food Environments written by Kimberly B. Morland and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this book, Morland, Lehmann, and Karpyn discuss the critical need for healthy food financing programs as a vehicle to improve food access for all Americans. In my career as a public servant, there are very few legislative achievements that I’m prouder of than the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, which started in my home state of Pennsylvania. The program gained status as a proven and economically sustainable federal program that is helping to improve the quality of life in our neighborhoods: by allowing millions access to healthy, affordable food." – Congressman Dwight Evans United States House of Representatives, Pennsylvania, District 3 "If we work together, we can create a healthy food system that is equitable and accessible to all. This book highlights the importance of healthy food projects like grocery stores, farmers markets, co-ops, and other healthy food retail in revitalizing local communities across the country. Without basic nourishment, kids and families simply won’t be successful – which is why this book is a must read." – Sam Kass President Obama’s Senior Nutrition Policy Advisor and Executive Director of Let’s Move! "Morland and colleagues’ new second edition provides an excellent foundation for courses in food policy and community nutrition. Their detailed review of the economics of local and national food financing will open students’ minds to the complexity inherent in measuring and interpreting outcomes." – Robert S. Lawrence, MD, MACP Founder and Former Director of the Center for a Livable Future Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health Features ● Describes how disparities in food access formed in the United States ● Includes federal policies and programs aimed at addressing food access in underserved areas, including the Healthy Food Financing Initiative ● Features examples of state initiatives that address poor access to food retailers ● Provides methods for program evaluation utilizing principals of implementation and dissemination science ● Includes critical thinking questions and embedded videos aimed to generate discussions on how restricted local food environments in the United States are rooted in economic disparities that impact food access as well as housing, education, and job opportunities
Download or read book Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-01-10 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The prevalence of childhood obesity is so high in the United States that it may reduce the life expectancy of today's generation of children. While parents and other adult caregivers play a fundamental role in teaching children about healthy behaviors, even the most positive efforts can be undermined by local environments that are poorly suited to supporting healthy behaviors. For example, many communities lack ready sources of healthy food choices, such as supermarkets and grocery stores. Or they may not provide safe places for children to walk or play. In such communities, even the most motivated child or adolescent may find it difficult to act in healthy ways. Local governments-with jurisdiction over many aspects of land use, food marketing, community planning, transportation, health and nutrition programs, and other community issues-are ideally positioned to promote behaviors that will help children and adolescents reach and maintain healthy weights. Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity presents a number of recommendations that touch on the vital role of government actions on all levels-federal, state, and local-in childhood obesity prevention. The book offers healthy eating and physical activity strategies for local governments to consider, making it an excellent resource for mayors, managers, commissioners, council members, county board members, and administrators.
Download or read book Supersizing Urban America written by Chin Jou and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-03-15 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Supersizing Urban America reveals how the US government has been, and remains, a major contributor to America s obesity epidemic. Government policies, targeted food industry advertising, and other factors helped create and reinforce fast food consumption in America s urban communities. Historian Chin Jou uncovers how predominantly African-American neighborhoods went from having no fast food chains to being deluged. She lays bare the federal policies that helped to subsidize the expansion of the fast food industry in America s cities and explains how fast food companies have deliberately and relentlessly marketed to urban, African-American consumers. These developments are a significant factor in why Americans, especially those in urban, low-income, minority communities, have become disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic."
Download or read book Characteristics and Influential Factors of Food Deserts written by Paula Dutko and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introd. -- Literature -- Method for defining and measuring food deserts -- Descriptive analyses -- Results: comparing food desert tracts with all other tracts -- Changes in food desert tract characteristics over time -- Regression analysis: methodology -- Conclusion -- References.
Download or read book Families and Food in Hard Times written by Rebecca O’Connell and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2021-05-24 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Food is fundamental to health and social participation, yet food poverty has increased in the global North. Adopting a realist ontology and taking a comparative case approach, Families and Food in Hard Times addresses the global problem of economic retrenchment and how those most affected are those with the least resources. Based on research carried out with low-income families with children aged 11-15, this timely book examines food poverty in the UK, Portugal and Norway in the decade following the 2008 financial crisis. It examines the resources to which families have access in relation to public policies, local institutions and kinship and friendship networks, and how they intersect. Through ‘thick description’ of families’ everyday lives, it explores the ways in which low income impacts upon practices of household food provisioning, the types of formal and informal support on which families draw to get by, the provision and role of school meals in children’s lives, and the constraints upon families’ social participation involving food. Providing extensive and intensive knowledge concerning the conditions and experiences of low-income parents as they endeavour to feed their families, as well as children’s perspectives of food and eating in the context of low income, the book also draws on the European social science literature on food and families to shed light on the causes and consequences of food poverty in austerity Europe.
