|
A food desert is a geographic area where affordable and nutritious food is difficult to obtain, particularly for those without access to an automobile.〔(USDA Defines Food Deserts | American Nutrition Association )〕 Some research links food deserts to diet-related health problems and health disparities in affected populations, but this phenomenon has been disputed.〔http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/health/research/pairing-of-food-deserts-and-obesity-challenged-in-studies.html〕〔Ford, E.B. & Dzewaltowski, D. A. (2008). Disparities in obesity prevalence due to variation in the retail food environment: three testable hypotheses. Nutrition Review 66(4).〕 Due to varied definitions, researchers have employed a variety of methods to assess food access including: directories and census data, focus groups, food store assessments, food use inventories, GIS technology, interviews, questionnaires and surveys measuring consumers food access perceptions.〔Walker, R.E., Keane, C.R., & Burke, J.G. (2010). Disparities and access to healthy food in the United States: A review of food deserts literature. Health and Place. 16:876-884.〕 The U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Access Research Atlas provides an interactive map that identifies areas of low food access in low income urban and rural areas.〔USDA ERS - Go to the Atlas. From: http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/go-to-the-atlas.aspx〕 == Definitions == The term was first documented in a 1995 report by the Nutrition Task Force Low Income Project Team of the United Kingdom Department of Health. It is defined as “areas of relative exclusion where people experience physical and economic barriers to accessing healthy foods”. To meet the criteria to be considered a food desert by the USDA standards are a “low-access community,” at least 500 people and/or at least 33 percent of the census tract's population must reside more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (for rural census tracts, the distance is more than 10 miles). The concept behind this is its reasonable for a shopper to be able to carry groceries one walking mile.〔https://apps.ams.usda.gov/fooddeserts/foodDeserts.aspx 〕 Some measures of food desertification factor in the type and quality of foods available for purchase and the ability or inability of residents to purchase them.〔 Others focus on a community's proximity to supermarkets or other sources of low-cost wide-variety foods. Research studies have employed varying empirical criteria for identifying food deserts; one study counted food deserts as "urban areas with 10 or fewer (grocery) stores and no stores with more than 20 employees". In Canada, food desert researchers evaluates the average cost of the "Ontario Nutritious Food Basket", 66 items from each four food groups, to evaluate the accessibility and affordability of healthy foods. The multitude of definitions which vary by country have fueled controversy over the existence of food deserts.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Food desert」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|