Is food deserts and how the lack of healthy foods in these (food desert) areas is either a cultural or a systemic problem?
I. Introduction
Hello friends, classmates,
My name is Jonah Makonnen, I’m a second year at San Francisco State University, trying to pursue a degree in Electrical Engineering, and the topic I am going to be talking about in this piece is food deserts and how the lack of healthy foods in these (food desert) areas is either a cultural or a systemic problem.
I’ve always kind of been interested in this topic because when I was in middle school my parents decided that we would move to Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, I’ve noticed that even in the more open and touristy spots there would never be a fast-food spot in sight, and even if there were (which I guess a couple were thinking back on it) no one would really go there because everyone in that society believed that you should be eating healthy food and not trying to poison your body with such “trash”. I was only there for a year, but when I moved back I could really see the difference in how people in Ethiopia compared to America.
Now when looking at that society and comparing it to our American society why is there such a lack of access to healthy foods for low-income communities in America, even though Ethiopia is a third-world country? And I guess when I pose this question you have to really think from one simple standpoint is this problem (in America) a cultural one or a systemic one.
When I think of these two countries side by side I see America as a more capitalist society, and what that means is they really value currency and the “dollar”. When it comes down to the dollar, people in these low-income communities see it and want to save every penny because that job that they may have might not make ends meet, or maybe taxes and other debt are sidelining them into paying it off, which then leads to living a very unhealthy lifestyle. And I guess to answer my own question I definitely see this issue as both a cultural and a systemic one, but it leads more to the systemic side because the low-income community is put into this cycle of oppression where they have to work their asses off to make ends meet and then that leaves them left with little money to buy food that can sustain them for a day or a week.
But the one thing that’s even worse than eating unhealthy is how these big corporations take advantage of these communities by putting these fast food spots there in the first place ….
Now to wrap this up if you want to read more about this topic and get my standpoint on these very crucial and important issues tune into my research paper to get the final answer.
II. Cultural Artifact
Hello, again my friends and classmates,
Thank you for reading my previous blog post about the topic of what my research paper will be on, continuing from that
I said previously, in the final paragraph of my blog post that these big corporations (aka fast food corporations) take advantage of these people in low-income communities and somewhat force them to eat such unhealthy food because it’s cheap and affordable. And I guess when I was approaching this topic and searching for cultural artifacts for this post I was kind of stuck. But when you look closer at these fast food corporations, how do you think they keep on getting customers back? ( not looking at affordability but for other reasons)
Now, from analyzing these low-income communities and the food deserts that consume them I found two cultural artifacts clearly depicting what it means to be stuck in this cycle of unhealthy food consumption. One thing noticed from fast food restaurants is that most of them have kids meals or happy meals, and when they provide some kind of incentive or toy it keeps on bringing these people back to buy more and more meals.
When looking at the “happy meal toys” from McDonald’s (image) you can tell that their main goal is to attract a younger audience to buy their food, thus making this cycle of unhealthy eating habits in these low-income communities a reality. An article called “Poverty and Obesity in the US” from the ADA (American Diabetes Association) asked the question of “Are poverty and obesity-associated?” and I guess when you think about how these food corporations have such a stronghold on the low-income community, I would definitely agree poverty and obesity are associated.
For my second artifact, I looked closely at the documentary called “Supersize me” where they documented a man eating at McDonald’s for a month straight, to demonstrate (to my understanding) what a person living in a low-income neighborhood (or in this case a food desert) has to go through. The man ate there for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and on average he ingested 2500 calories a day and by the end of the month, he gained about 25lbs. Though some people may see this as extreme, I see this as an accurate depiction of our society’s obesity rates and the effect of living in a “food desert”.
In my previous article I stated the question of “are food deserts and how the lack of healthy foods in these areas is either a cultural or a systemic problem?” and when I look at these artifacts I would definitely say that this is a systemic problem. When looking at only the first artifact one would definitely agree that the issue at hand is a cultural problem because when there is some kind of toy or incentive they are more attracted to the product, but when looking at a documentary of how it affects someone daily, to me it becomes a systemic problem. This is a systemic problem because the people who live in these environments are forced to eat this unhealthy food. After all, it is all they can afford.
III. The systemic problem
Hello, again my friends and classmates,
Thank you for reading my previous blog post about the topic of what my research paper will be on, continuing from that, I will be stating a source that I found that is directly addressing one side of my argument and I will be giving information and arguments to that specific side.
Just for a refresher, the topic and question that I am researching for my paper; “Is the lack of access to healthy foods in low-income communities a cultural problem, or a systemic one?”. From my understanding and from the sources I found that a cultural problem, in this case, is when caretakers don’t believe in certain nutritional values and then spread this misinformation to their kids or loved ones, thus creating a cycle of bad nutritional values for future generations in that specific community. And the systemic problem, from my understanding, is when these low-income communities are subject to eating unhealthy foods because they simply can not afford a healthier option, and both of these problems can lead to malnutrition, and in this case, I will be talking about today, Obesity.
The stance I am going to be talking about today is from the systemic problem side. So, in “Childhood Obesity: Is the Built Environment More Important Than the Food Environment?” (2020) by the author Wenes Pereira, he talks about how, depending on where you live, the food environment may affect childhood obesity rates to rise, and because of food deserts in low-income neighborhoods the access to healthy foods affects such problems. The main issue at hand that this article wants to tackle and investigate is; the contribution of parents’ education and level of income, food environment, and built environment on childhood obesity. From the article, a piece of evidence that stood to me and would be a great argument for this side was “Children living in poor social and built environments are 50% less likely to be physically active. Many studies and systematic reviews have revealed that various environmental barriers such as unsafe neighborhoods and lack of community parks and recreational centers impede a community’s ability to engage in physical activity” and to add on to this when there is some kind of barrier, in this case, an unsafe neighborhood, it gives more insight and value to the fact that this is a systemic problem. Those who support this argument believe that it’s not just the parents’ involvement in creating this cycle of bad nutrition or for the community that they live in, but it is a much bigger factor that is supporting the cycle of it, and in this case, children are less active and will stay inside more because of the environment they live in.
This is an important article that I will take into consideration for my research paper because it gives an accurate example as to why the lack of healthy foods in low-income neighborhoods is more of a systemic problem than a cultural problem. Then again I have no bias as to which side is better and am just learning from the articles I find.
IV. The cultural problem
I will be stating a source that I found that is directly addressing one side of my argument and I will be giving information and arguments to that specific side.
My topic is on food deserts and low-income community access to healthy foods in these areas.
Just for a refresher again, the topic and question that I am researching for my paper; “Is the lack of access to healthy foods in low-income communities a cultural problem, or a systemic one?”.
From analyzing my topic and my research question I have come to the conclusion that a cultural problem, in this case, is when caretakers don’t believe in certain nutritional values and then spread this misinformation to their kids or loved ones, thus creating a cycle of bad nutritional values for future generations in that specific community. The systemic problem, in this case, and from my understanding, is when these low-income communities are subject to eating unhealthy foods because they simply can not afford a healthier option or because of the area they live in, and both of these problems can lead to malnutrition.
The side that I will be going more into depth on for this piece is the cultural problem side. So, looking at the article from the last blog post “Childhood Obesity: Is the Built Environment More Important Than the Food Environment?” (2020) by the author Wenes Pereira, there are also claims and arguments to the cultural side of the problem within this article. “One study involving a multiethnic urban population showed that Hispanics, compared to Blacks, consumed twice as many fruits and vegetables when a large grocery store was available, versus half as much when only convenience stores were available.” Looking at this evidence one could maybe infer that this group might not like to eat healthily, or in this case, eating fruits and vegetables because of past influence on it. When this happens it can create a bad cycle of malnutrition for some groups.
Another source that kind of adds to the idea of a cycle of malnutrition in low-income neighborhoods is called “Fast food is harmful to people and the planet” (2015) by Authors from the Food Empowerment Project. In the article, they talk about how these fast-food restaurants made people think and chose ingredients like meat eggs, and milk over vegetables and fruits because most of these fast-food restaurants have ingredients containing those things. And when these people in the community are forced to eat such things it changes the pallets for the younger generations, to where they will only like to eat those things because it is so ingrained into their lifestyles. “Fast food in the U.S. has grown from a $6 billion-a-year industry in 1970 into a corporate juggernaut with more than $170 billion in annual revenues today. Especially because “meat,” dairy, and eggs are the main ingredients in fast food, the exponential increase in its consumption has engendered a wide range of negative social impacts — including rapidly rising diet-related disease rates, worker exploitation, systemic animal abuse, and environmental degradation.
These are important articles that I will take into consideration for my research paper because it gives an accurate example as to why the lack of healthy foods in low-income neighborhoods is more of a cultural problem than a systemic one. Then again I have no bias as to which side is better and am just learning from the articles I find.
V. My stance
Hello, again my friends and classmates,
Thank you for reading my two previous blog posts about the different sides and arguments to my research question. In this blog post, I will choose which side I believe with more and give my take on it.
As I stated previously, the question that I am trying to tackle with my research is “are food deserts and how the lack of healthy foods in these areas is either a cultural or a systemic problem?” and when I look at all the sources and artifacts I used for my other blog posts, I would definitely say that this is a systemic problem.
One source that I found that really ingrained this systemic problem idea into my head was an article called “Fighting back: Inner-city community responses to food insecurity.” by Xu, Xiaowen, and in this Journal article, the authors analyze and investigate perceptions of stigma stemming from food insecurity experienced by residents of an inner-city community described as a food desert. They interviewed 60 different residents in inner cities about their difficulty in providing healthy food for their families. I thought that this source was valid for my argument, that food deserts are more of a systemic problem in low-income communities because it specifically talks about how these people in these communities have this food insecurity because of the lack of healthy foods and neglect from supermarkets that moved out of these areas.
Another source/ artifact that I would like to include is the happy meal toy and the documentary “ Supersize me”. In the documentary, they talked about a man eating at McDonald’s for a month straight, to demonstrate (to my understanding) what a person living in a low-income neighborhood (or in this case a food desert) has to go through. The man ate there for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and on average he ingested 2500 calories a day and by the end of the month, he gained about 25lbs. Though some people may see this as extreme, I see this as an accurate depiction of our society’s obesity rates and the effect of living in a “food desert”. When looking at only the happy meal toy one would definitely agree that the issue at hand is a cultural problem because when there is some kind of toy or incentive they are more attracted to the product, but when looking at a documentary of how it affects someone daily, to me it becomes a systemic problem. This is a systemic problem because the people who live in these environments are forced to eat this unhealthy food. After all, it is all they can afford.
Lastly, another article that made me believe that this is a systemic problem was called “Childhood Obesity: Is the Built Environment More Important Than the Food Environment?” (2020) by the author Wenes Pereira. He talks about how, depending on where you live, the food environment may affect childhood obesity rates to rise, and because of food deserts in low-income neighborhoods the access to healthy foods affects such problems. The main issue at hand that this article wants to tackle and investigate is; the contribution of parents’ education and level of income, food environment, and built environment on childhood obesity.
From the article, a piece of evidence that stood to me and would be a great argument for this side was “Children living in poor social and built environments are 50% less likely to be physically active. Many studies and systematic reviews have revealed that various environmental barriers such as unsafe neighborhoods and lack of community parks and recreational centers impede a community’s ability to engage in physical activity” and to add on to this when there is some kind of barrier, in this case, an unsafe neighborhood, it gives more insight and value to the fact that this is a systemic problem. Those who support this argument believe that it’s not just the parents’ involvement in creating this cycle of bad nutrition or for the community that they live in, but it is a much bigger factor that is supporting the cycle of it, and in this case, children are less active and will stay inside more because of the environment they live in.
VI. Reflection
When I started this writing assignment I was a little unsure as to what I was going to do, I thought about past projects that I did, that was somewhat related to this one and instead of going down that route, I guess I learned that I wanted to do something new and go into this project completely blind. Because I didn’t have any previous knowledge on food deserts finding information and sources was pretty hard, I couldn’t really decipher, at first, what was the difference between a bad piece of evidence to an outstanding one and when originally looking for sources and evidence that I could use for this paper I was really stuck, but I guess all I had to do was ask my peers and my professor for guidance. I think one of the most challenging parts for me in this project was when I was writing my blog post 2, the artifact one. Actually, when writing that one I waited till the last minute because the idea for an artifact in a food desert didn’t really hit me, I thought to look at cartoons and memes, but when my professor suggested the happy meal toy I completely had an “ ah-hah” moment in my head and I questioned myself “ why didn’t I think of that” and went on with it. I began to think about these toys and how they are just a marketing ploy into attracting young kids into buying their products, and I realized how sick and terrible this was. This was what I was completely looking for and it showed me how I could refine my research question from just looking at “why are there only food deserts in low-income communities”, to “is malnutrition and bad eating habits in low-income communities a systemic or a cultural problem” giving me something I could find multiple perspectives on.
Now with the actual writing process throughout this project, I believe I could’ve gone smoother but, I was a bit distracted from all the work I was doing this year, nonetheless, I got through it. When drafting all my blog posts up until this final portfolio, the feedback I got from my peers and professor was really helpful and amazing. They helped me realize all the things I was missing because when writing, a lot of things tend to go over my head and all their assistance helped me grasp what I needed to do to make this paper the best that I could. Before I joined this class I believed my process in peer feedback, drafting, and refining my stance in a paper was pretty limited and low quality. When drafting I would only skim over whatever I wrote for my first draft and look for grammar mistakes, but in this class, I learned it’s much more than that. Sometimes there needs to be refining in ideas or an overall restructuring of the paper, and this class helped me realize that. Even though I’m still learning and am not a complete “master” at refining a paper, this class definitely helped me in improving my stance as a writer.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/133ZBpxFAlj-af3YtdHzYMRzdQcc06nfdBGDD9VIcWvI/edit?usp=sharing