For roughly the past three decades, debate has ensued over the validity of climate change and the extent to which humans play a role in destroying our own environment. In America specifically, moral emphasis has increasingly been placed on regulating the consumption of specific resources that contribute to our capitalist wealth, such as timber, oil and petroleum, and other resources that humans strip from the earth. While trying to minimize our use of these resources is necessary to ensure the longevity of both human and environmental health, many citizens, legislators, and environmentalist groups fail to recognize that access to healthy food is a resource that is widely unavailable to people in both urban and rural areas.
I am from a rural area in northwest Georgia, and I lived in a food desert.
The United States Department of Agriculture has concluded that food deserts exist in rural areas whenever a significant amount of people live more than ten miles away from the nearest fresh produce seller. Similarly, food deserts can be found in urban areas if roughly 500 people live over ½ a mile away from an adequate grocery store.
Additionally, food deserts typically exist in low-income areas, where healthy fruits and vegetables are scarce, yet oftentimes foods with high sodium, sugar, and fat content can be found at a convenient store located on every block. My home was roughly twelve miles away from the nearest Kroger shopping center. Although I was easily able to go to the grocery store because my small hometown had adequate roadways, minimal traffic, and my family owned a car and could afford gas, oftentimes people are not granted the same privileges that I was given at birth. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, food deserts exist throughout the state of Georgia, with approximately “2 million Georgia residents, including about 500,000 children, liv[ing] in food deserts.” Food deserts are especially prevalent in the densely-populated Atlanta area, with over 35 food deserts existing within the Perimeter that I-285 encompasses (see USDA Food Access Research Atlas).
Food deserts exist as an unfortunate byproduct of racism and classism, and Atlanta, Georgia, is a melting pot of these aforementioned negative characteristics. Therefore, the gentrified communities that scatter the inner-city southern metropolis are plagued with a more complex notion of what it means to be hungry. Aside from the social structures that have enabled the spreading and flourishing of food deserts, capitalism is a large contributor to the perpetuation of these communities’ nutritional deficiency. Large grocery store chains consider a myriad of factors when choosing their next location,and although communities that comprise food deserts would benefit the most from a store that sells fresh fruits and vegetables, large grocery store chains that are looking to maximize profit are often reluctant to start a business in what is usually a low-income area.
Food deserts are typically not known in today’s society because many people fail to recognize that hunger is a legitimate problem within the United States. If Americans can begin to acknowledge that communities are suffering because of a lack of access to nutritious dietary options, then maybe steps can be taken to ensure that all humans have a right to adequate food.
