IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i5p2675-d512146.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evaluating Consumer Nutrition Environment in Food Deserts and Food Swamps

Author

Listed:
  • He Jin

    (School of Geosciences, University of South Florida, 4202 E Fowler Ave, Tampa, FL 33620, USA)

  • Yongmei Lu

    (Department of Geography, Texas State University, 601 University Dr., San Marcos, TX 78666, USA)

Abstract

This research examines the consumer nutrition environment in the selected neighborhoods identified as food deserts, food swamps, and food oases in Austin, Texas, by considering food availability, food price, food quality, and food labeling. A food auditing instrument M-TxNEA-S (He Jin, San Marcos, TX, USA) was developed to capture the unique dietary culture and food preferences in Texas. A total of 93 food items in 14 grocery stores and supermarkets (GS) and 32 convenience stores (CS) were surveyed. The GS in food swamps and food oases were found to offer significantly more healthy foods than the CS. The availability of healthy food in the GS in the food swamps and food oases is significantly higher than that of the GS from the food deserts; CS in the three neighborhoods did not exhibit a significant difference in healthy food availability. There was no significant difference between the price for the healthy items (lower fat, lower calorie, and whole grain) and that for the regular food options. No significant difference was found for food quality or food labeling between the stores from the different types of neighborhoods. The GS in food deserts are small grocery stores carrying limited ranges of foods. The establishment of larger food stores in the food deserts might not be very rewarding, but opening more small grocery stores with healthier options may alleviate food issues.

Suggested Citation

  • He Jin & Yongmei Lu, 2021. "Evaluating Consumer Nutrition Environment in Food Deserts and Food Swamps," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-16, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:5:p:2675-:d:512146
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/5/2675/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/5/2675/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Elizabeth Howlett & Cassandra Davis & Scot Burton, 2016. "From Food Desert to Food Oasis: The Potential Influence of Food Retailers on Childhood Obesity Rates," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 139(2), pages 215-224, December.
    2. Farah, Hodan A. & Buzby, Jean C., 2005. "U.S. Food Consumption Up 16 Percent Since 1970," Amber Waves:The Economics of Food, Farming, Natural Resources, and Rural America, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, pages 1-2, November.
    3. Kristen Cooksey-Stowers & Marlene B. Schwartz & Kelly D. Brownell, 2017. "Food Swamps Predict Obesity Rates Better Than Food Deserts in the United States," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-20, November.
    4. Bryan Bollinger & Phillip Leslie & Alan Sorensen, 2011. "Calorie Posting in Chain Restaurants," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 91-128, February.
    5. Jonnell A. Robinson & Evan Weissman & Susan Adair & Matthew Potteiger & Joaquin Villanueva, 2016. "An oasis in the desert? The benefits and constraints of mobile markets operating in Syracuse, New York food deserts," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 33(4), pages 877-893, December.
    6. Horowitz, C.R. & Colson, K.A. & Hebert, P.L. & Lancaster, K., 2004. "Barriers to buying healthy foods for people with diabetes: Evidence of environmental disparities," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 94(9), pages 1549-1554.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jacqueline Araneda-Flores & Patricio Oliva Moresco & Gladys Quezada-Figueroa & Luz Lobos-Fernandez & Barbara Leyton & Anna Christina Pinheiro, 2022. "Development and Validation of a Set of Instruments to Measure Food Environments," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-10, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Courtemanche, Charles & Tchernis, Rusty & Zhou, Xilin, 2017. "Parental Work Hours and Childhood Obesity: Evidence Using Instrumental Variables Related to Sibling School Eligibility," IZA Discussion Papers 10739, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Wong, Woei Chyuan & Batten, Jonathan A. & Ahmad, Abd Halim & Mohamed-Arshad, Shamsul Bahrain & Nordin, Sabariah & Adzis, Azira Abdul, 2021. "Does ESG certification add firm value?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    3. Chen, Duan-Rung & Wen, Tzai-Hung, 2010. "Socio-spatial patterns of neighborhood effects on adult obesity in Taiwan: A multi-level model," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(6), pages 823-833, March.
    4. Thomas Mariotti & Nikolaus Schweizer & Nora Szech & Jonas von Wangenheim, 2023. "Information Nudges and Self-Control," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(4), pages 2182-2197, April.
    5. Huse, Cristian & Lucinda, Claudio & Cardoso, Andre Ribeiro, 2020. "Consumer response to energy label policies: Evidence from the Brazilian energy label program," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    6. Marc A. Ragin & Benjamin L. Collier & Johannes G. Jaspersen, 2021. "The effect of information disclosure on demand for high‐load insurance," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 88(1), pages 161-193, March.
    7. Huseynov, Samir & Palma, Marco A. & Ahmad, Ghufran, 2021. "Does the magnitude of relative calorie distance affect food consumption?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 530-551.
    8. Giorgio Brunello & Maria De Paola & Giovanna Labartino, 2012. "More Apples Less Chips? The Effect of School Fruit Schemes on the Consumption of Junk Food," ISER Discussion Paper 0840, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    9. Michael Luca & Georgios Zervas, 2013. "Fake It Till You Make It: Reputation, Competition, and Yelp Review Fraud," Harvard Business School Working Papers 14-006, Harvard Business School, revised May 2015.
    10. Nano Barahona & Cristóbal Otero & Sebastián Otero, 2023. "Equilibrium Effects of Food Labeling Policies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(3), pages 839-868, May.
    11. Goddard, Ellen W. & Drescher, Larissa S. & Fernando, Jeewani, 2012. "The potential impact of the Health Check™ on diet quality of food away from home purchases," 2012 AAEA/EAAE Food Environment Symposium 123523, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Kee, Jennifer Y. & Segovia, Michelle S. & Palma, Marco A., 2023. "Slim or Plus-Size Burrito? A natural experiment of consumers’ restaurant choice," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    13. Aranza Valenzuela & Leandro Zambrano & Rocío Velásquez & Catalina Groff & Tania Apablaza & Cecilia Riffo & Sandra Moldenhauer & Pamela Brisso & Marcell Leonario-Rodriguez, 2022. "Discrepancy between Food Classification Systems: Evaluation of Nutri-Score, NOVA Classification and Chilean Front-of-Package Food Warning Labels," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(22), pages 1-13, November.
    14. repec:cie:wpaper:1408 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Mishra, Sabyasachee & Sharma, Ishant & Pani, Agnivesh, 2023. "Analyzing autonomous delivery acceptance in food deserts based on shopping travel patterns," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    16. Caryn N. Bell & Jordan Kerr & Jessica L. Young, 2019. "Associations between Obesity, Obesogenic Environments, and Structural Racism Vary by County-Level Racial Composition," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-17, March.
    17. Ilya Ilyankou & Andy Newing & Nick Hood, 2023. "Supermarket Store Locations as a Proxy for Neighbourhood Health, Wellbeing, and Wealth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-12, July.
    18. Houde, Sébastien & Myers, Erica, 2021. "Are consumers attentive to local energy costs? Evidence from the appliance market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    19. Chandrayee Chatterjee & James C. Cox & Michael K. Price & Florian Rundhammer, 2020. "Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: Understanding How State Tax Credits Impact Charitable Giving," NBER Working Papers 27163, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Daniel Carpenter, 2014. "Accounting for Financial Innovation and Borrower Confidence in Financial Rule Making: Analogies from Health Policy," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(S2), pages 331-349.
    21. Abrahamsson, Sara & Bütikofer, Aline & Karbownik, Krzysztof, 2023. "Swallow This: Childhood and Adolescent Exposure to Fast Food Restaurants, BMI, and Cognitive Ability," CEPR Discussion Papers 18213, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:5:p:2675-:d:512146. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.