NUTRITIONAL INEQUITIES
AND THE FOOD ENVIRONMENT
BY
MEGAN MCBRIDE
PROFESSOR ROBERT GOLDMAN
PROFESSOR JAMES PROCTOR
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts
Department of Environmental Studies, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon
APRIL 2007
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I:
Changing Conceptions of Malnutrition
2
II:
Current State of Food Insecurity
6
III: The Food Environment and Influences on Choice
9
IV: Access Challenges: Grocery Stores and Corner Stores
13
V:
21
Energy, Nutrients, and Prices
VI: Hidden Costs
24
VII: Multiple Rationalities
28
VIII: A Critical Look at Education
38
IX: Conclusions and Implications
34
Appendix I: The Farm Bill
37
Appendix II: Microeconomic Consumer Choice Models
40
References
41
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you for your contributions in the forms of advice, information, editing, and other
support: Bob Goldman, Jim Proctor, TJ Harrison, Hugh Gray, Irina Sharkova, Jordis Clark,
Lizzie Fussell, Emily Webb, Iris Hilburger, Samuel Crabtree, Alexa Schmidt, and Eleanor.
1
I: CHANGING CONCEPTIONS OF MALNUTRITION
Growing up, the idea of malnutrition conjured up images of black African children,
emaciated, standing on stick-thin legs with bloated bellies and large, sad eyes. For as long as I
can remember, I’ve known that children in far-off places were starving. My parents would
remind me of their suffering as motivation to eat all of the food on my dinner plate.
Somehow, scarcity for one person justified another’s (my) indulgence in excess. Eating all of
the food on my plate, even if it meant eating beyond fullness, often meant that I could have
ice cream for desert.
Through these associations, I learned that malnutrition meant hunger, meant not having
enough food. Famine and poverty seemed like similar experiences of scarcity. And all of
these things were happening to people I didn’t know. The hungry or malnourished people in
my community weren’t talked about at the dinner table.
Another staple from my childhood memories is of my mother standing in front of a mirror
with her hands on her stomach, sighing and disapprovingly calling herself fat. I learned early
on that fat is bad. It is something to be avoided, and it can easily sneak up on you, unless you
are diligent about eating the right formula of calories and nutrients, maximizing vitamins and
minimizing fats.
People who were fat were so because they lacked the self-discipline or the willpower not to
eat fatty foods. Becoming fat was an equal threat to everyone. Some people (like my mom
and I) managed to avoid being too fat. We were just fat enough to exist in a perpetual state
of “if only I lost 10 pounds....” Hunger was never a threat, and fatness was a sign of failure,
showing that we hadn’t been able to resist the temptations of the excess of riches around us.
I now see more complex stories behind hunger and obesity, and my definition of
malnutrition has broadened to encompass them both. There is a growing movement both in
academic research and in social organizations to explore the connections between traditional
conceptions of food insecurity, like hunger, and new manifestations of malnutrition, like
obesity. Director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, Joel Berg, explains these
connections. He says, “Hunger and obesity are often flip sides of the same malnutrition coin,
made worse when the most nutritious foods are unavailable, unaffordable, or both”
(Bakelaar et al. 2007). This new understanding of malnutrition is embraced by many in this
field, but there are still formidable challenges to bridging the conceptual gap between obesity
and hunger.
The idea of “food security” encompasses the current, more complex understanding of
nutritional health, beyond having enough food or not. The United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA) defines food security as “access at all times to enough food for healthy,
active living” (Nord et al. 2006). The Community Food Security Coalition defines food
security as the state when “all persons in a community have access to culturally acceptable,
nutritionally adequate food through non-emergency sources at all times” (2006). The USDA
specifies that food insecurity is connected to “a lack of money and other resources” (Nord et
al. 2006). Adam Drewnowski, a professor of epidemiology at University of Washington uses
2
this definition: “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally acceptable or safe foods”
(Drewnowski 2004). The USDA definitions emphasize the economic constraints that affect
food security. Both the USDA and Drewnowski connect food security to health or nutrition
and wellbeing. Only the USDA definition uses the word “enough,” which is what my
childhood definition of food insecurity was: not enough food.
Although some food insecure households are not hungry and may have “enough” food from
a caloric standpoint, their food insecurity is still tied to having “not enough” resources in
order to meet nutritional health needs. On a macro level too, food insecurity is more complex
than food scarcity. The United States produces and imports plenty of food. In 2004, US food
supply levels averaged 3,900 calories per capita per day1. This is a 15% increase from 100
years ago (Hiza and Bente 2007). One study by the USDA estimates that a quarter of food
produced in the United States goes to waste (Poppendieck 2000). Even on a global scale,
contrary to the claims of green revolution agribusinesses, insufficient quantities of food are
not the problem; unequal distribution and price barriers are (Rosset and Cunningham 1994).
As writes the director of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),
“Bluntly stated, the problem is not so much a lack of food as a lack of political will” (FAO
2003). Globally, from 1970 to 1990, total food available per person rose 11% and hunger
dropped by 16% (Rosset and Cunningham 1994). However, a closer look proves less
optimistic. If China – where during this time large-scale changes in access to land promoted
improved living conditions and better access to food – is taken out of the figures, while total
food available per person increased, global hunger rates rose by 11% (Rosset and
Cunningham 1994).
Though increasing quantities of food are not reducing hunger rates on the global scale, food
security at this level is still thought of as a problem of quantity, without as much emphasis
on the quality of food. There is some legitimacy to this focus. Famine and starvation
certainly have more compelling urgency than obesity does. Economist D.J. Shaw, longtime
associate of the United Nations’ World Food Programme and current board member of the
Food Policy journal, heeds caution to the shift away from food scarcity issues. He says, “It
would be grotesquely perverse if attention to world hunger and insecurity were to be
diverted by a focus on the obesity epidemic” (Shaw 2004). Coupled with that cautioning,
however, he states, “It is increasingly being realized that hunger and obesity are issues that
must be addressed holistically and not bit-by-bit like pieces of a puzzle that lie scattered and
unconnected. Both have personal, national, and global consequences that go well beyond
their nutritional significance” (Shaw 2004).
These new images of food insecurity – someone eating lunch at a fast food restaurant or
buying snacks for dinner at the corner store – are not as jarring as images of hunger. Though
hunger has a strong emotional pull, it cannot be sufficiently addressed in isolation from
broader food insecurity issues. In her essay Want Amid Plenty: From Hunger to Inequality, Janet
Poppendieck critiques the anti-hunger movement for failing to address larger structural
dynamics that result in hunger. She cautions, “The very emotional response that makes
hunger a good organizing issue, and the felt absurdity of such want amid massive waste,
makes our society vulnerable to token solutions—solutions that simply link together
These figures do not represent average food intake by Americans; they are calculated by the following
equation: production + imports + increase in food stocks - exports - farm and industrial food use (FAO 2007).
1
3
complementary symptoms without disturbing the underlying structural problems”
(Poppendieck 2000). America’s anti-hunger movement, including many of the governmental
relief programs, began as a response to the widespread hunger during the Great Depression.
In the 1930s, the severity of food insecurity in America was epitomized by the image of
hungry people waiting in breadlines, at the same time as farms were overproducing and
cheap grain was flooding the market. Journalist Walter Lippmann remarked on the absurdity
of this situation, calling it the “sensational and intolerable paradox of want in the midst of
abundance” (Lippmann as quoted by Poppendieck 2000). The imbalance of hunger amongst
excess continues to motivate many anti-hunger advocates today.
Hunger is perceived as being solvable because there’s enough food to go around. Soup
kitchens, food banks, canned food drives, and other forms of “emergency food,” are the
tools the anti-hunger movement uses to fight hunger. All of these are ways to distribute
surplus food to people who don’t have enough. As Poppendieck says, “They provide a sort
of moral relief from the discomfort that ensues when we are confronted with images of
hunger in our midst, or when we are reminded of the excesses of consumption that
characterize our culture” (Poppendieck 2000). These emergency food strategies don’t
address the underlying issues that lead to food insecurity. And this emotional response
provoked by “want amid plenty” doesn’t transfer to other expressions of nutritional
insecurity. Obesity, for example, does not evoke the same guilt in would be charity-givers.
Instead, middle-class America is likely to turn the guilt around and shame obese people for
their overindulgence.
During the recovery of the Great Depression, politician and social critic Norman Thomas
said,
We have not had a reorganization of production and a redistribution of income to end
near starvation in the midst of potential plenty. If we do not have such obvious
‘breadlines knee-deep in wheat’ as under the Hoover administration, it is because we
have done more to reduce the wheat and systematize the giving of crusts than to end
hunger (Thomas as quoted by Poppendieck 2000).
Today, farms are still overproducing commodity crops like wheat, corn, soy, and rice. Cheap
American grains flood the international market, and US producers receive subsidies to stay
profitable (Blumenauer 2007). USDA commodity crop surpluses are still distributed to food
banks, institutionalizing the anti-hunger movement in the “giving of crusts” from industrial
overproduction (Poppendieck 2000). With the advent of new food processing technologies,
corporations have gotten more creative with uses of surplus crops. Today, these commodity
crops are incorporated into processed foods. This practice has been the market’s solution to
“want in the midst of abundance.” Many of those who were hungry are now eating some
form of those surplus commodity crops in the form of processed foods, the “crusts” of our
corn and soy. This hasn’t solved the problem, however. New forms of nutritional insecurity,
resulting from consumption of processed, nutrient-poor foods are rooted in the same
paradoxical dynamic of overproduction and poverty that manifested as widespread hunger
during the 1930s. Today, instead of solving hunger, it is being replaced by nutritional
insecurity. Understanding these underlying links between hunger and nutritional insecurity
will allow for deeper changes directed at the core of the problem, which is ultimately the
poverty that results from inequality.
4
In this paper, I seek to explore and better understand the web of relationships that
contribute to food security and nutritional health in the United States. Although food
insecurity is widespread in both urban and rural areas, I have focused my research on urban
food insecurity; much of this discussion can be applied to rural areas as well. I see a
multitude of intersecting, dynamic factors that shape individuals and their choices within
cultural and structural contexts. To evaluate these factors, I explore the following question:
Why is food insecurity no longer correlated with emaciation as much as it is with being
overweight?
I believe that numerous constraints to accessing fresh, nutritionally adequate food (including
prices, convenience, distance, transportation, and cultural norms) are contributing to food
insecurity in the face of global and national food surpluses. The industrialization and
corporatization of the food supply is increasing the availability of low-priced food; however,
this food is often processed, nutrient-poor, energy dense, and contributes to poor nutrition
and weight gain. One result of this is that the historically rooted associations of food
insecurity with images of hunger and scarcity present significant challenges to addressing
new expressions of food insecurity like weight gain and obesity.
My analysis is rooted in sociological and economic frameworks, and is informed by research
from diverse sources, including epidemiological studies, government data sources,
microeconomic theories, sociological theories, and political economy. In this paper, I offer a
qualitative inter-disciplinary synthesis of ideas, supported by quantitative data when available.
I begin with an overview of who is affected by food insecurity. Then I introduce the food
environment and external factors that influence food consumption. I discuss in-depth the
roles of access to grocery stores and the price structures of food, including a brief discussion
of the hidden costs behind food prices. From here, I explore the construct of rational-choice
models and the role of education. I conclude with some suggestions for strategies to address
nutritional inequities.
5
II: CURRENT STATE OF FOOD INSECURITY
Food insecurity statistics for the United Sates are gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau as part
of the Current Population Survey sponsored by the USDA (2006). In 2005, 11% of
households in the United States were food insecure and about one-third of these had very
high food insecurity with hunger (Nord et al. 2006). Some of these people aren’t consuming
enough food, period. Others may be meeting their caloric requirements but are still failing to
meet their nutritional needs for healthy living. Others still, are exceeding their caloric
requirements, yet do not have consistent access to nutritionally adequate food. Each of these
scenarios may lead to malnutrition, when a person is not meeting their nutritional needs for
healthy living. “Nutritional insecurity” is another term used to emphasize insecurity in regard
to nutrient consumption rather than caloric, quantity-oriented insecurity.
Food and nutritional insecurity are more prevalent in some demographic groups than in
others. Table 1 below shows the percentage of different demographic groups who are food
insecure according to the USDA’s 2005 Economic Research Service Report on Household
Food Insecurity. Certain demographic characteristics are strongly correlated with levels of
food insecurity (Nord et al. 2006 and Laraia 2004). The overall 11% of food insecure
households is weighted heavily towards Blacks and Hispanics. Income clearly plays a strong
role; only 5% of households with incomes greater than 185% of the poverty line are food
insecure, while 28% of households with lower incomes are food insecure. Although my
focus in this paper emphasizes urban food environments over rural, it’s important to note
that levels of food insecurity are higher in rural areas (12%) than in metropolitan areas (11%)
(Nord et al. 2006).
Table 1. Prevalence of food insecurity
by selected household characteristics
(Table copied from Nord et al. 2006)
Race/ethnicity of households:
White non-Hispanic
Black non-Hispanic
Hispanic
Other
8.2
22.4
17.9
9.6
Household income-to-poverty ratio:
Under 1.00
36.0
Under 1.30
33.2
Under 1.85
28.3
1.85 and Over
5.2
Income unknown
6.7
Area of residence
In metropolitan areas
In principle cities
Not in principle cities
Outside metropolitan areas
10.8
13.5
8.7
12.0
Because food insecurity is a general term, that
manifests in different ways for different people,
health effects from it are hard to generalize. Many
food insecure people aren’t consuming sufficient
levels of nutrients. Chronically low levels of
micronutrients are correlated with “cognitive,
academic, and behavioral deficits” (Wachs 2000).
People who are nutritionally insecure with diets high
in calories and low in nutrients are at risk for obesity.
Obesity is associated with many health conditions,
including coronary heart disease, high blood
cholesterol, gallstones, hypertension, arthritis, and
stroke. In addition, obesity can trigger diabetes
(Chaufan 2004).
Currently, two thirds of all adult Americans are
overweight or obese (CDC 2007); many people see
obesity as something that results from excess and
gluttony. The high prevalence of obesity in
disadvantaged demographic groups, however,
suggests that obesity is more complex than being a
6
simple result of prosperity and indulgence (Chang and Lauderdale 2005). One study found
that levels of food insecurity were twice as high among obese people than non-obese people
(Laraia et al. 2003). This study concluded that the “relationship between obesity and concern
about [having enough nutritious] food may in fact be very complex, involving the strong
interrelationship of both factors with important socioeconomic variables” (Laraia et al. 2003).
Table 2 below shows the prevalence of obesity in select demographic groups. This data is
from the a national health interview survey conducted by the Center for Disease Control and
Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, based on self-reported heights and
weights.
Male and female rates of obesity
within racial groups show even more
variation. Among adults, overweight
and obesity rates are highest for black
and Mexican-American women (77%
Race/ethnicity
and 71%, respectively), and among
White not-Hispanic
35.5
24.0
Native American and Mexican
Black not-Hispanic
35.0
32.4
American men (77% and 73%,
Hispanic or Latino
38.5
27.2
respectively) (Hedley et al. 2004). For
women, but not for men, low-income
Place of Residence
levels are significant indicators of
Large metropolitan areas
35.2
22.8
obesity. Obesity rates are 50% higher
Small metropolitan areas
35.4
25.4
among women with incomes below
Outside metropolitan areas 35.4
28.9
130% of the poverty line than among
women with higher incomes (CDC 2007). One study examined changing BMI levels2 over
the past three decades. They found that, while all groups had rising BMIs, the “near poor”
had the greatest increase in BMI levels and people in the highest income bracket had the
lowest increase (Chang and Lauderdale 2005). Obesity rates are significantly higher in states,
congressional districts, and neighborhoods with high rates of poverty (Drewnowski and
Darmon 2005). In the United States, obesity is a growing problem that affects people of all
demographics; the Center for Disease Control has characterized obesity as an epidemic
(CDC 2007). Though obesity is a threat to everyone, some marginalized groups are more at
risk than others, and it is clear that this is not simply a side effect of prosperity.
Table 2. Rates of overweight and obesity
among adults, by selected characteristics
(Table copied from Pleis and Lethbridge-Cejku 2007)
Selected Characteristics
Overweight Obesity
In as much as I want to clarify that obesity is not just a result of indulgence, I also want to
clarify that being obese does not mean that someone is nutritionally insecure, or even that
they eat unhealthy foods. Obesity is a complex issue that results from the interaction
between various structural, cultural, and biological factors. Nomy Lamm writes about her
experiences of being fat in an essay entitled “It’s a Big Fat Revolution.” She critiques social
conceptions of beauty and body size, drawing connections between societal ideas of beautyas-thin and how we understand fat-as-unhealthy. Lamm explains, “Some people are fat.”
And we need to realize that being fat is not “inherently bad” (Lamm 2006).
It is important to step away from the perception that obesity is the result of poor choices,
and from the idea that being obese is bad in itself. The connections between nutrient-poor
diets, obesity, and health problems are certain, and this causal chain does link obesity with
2
BMI stands for body-mass index, a height to weight ratio that is used to judge overweight and obesity levels.
7
negative physical ailments. I want to emphasize that for this paper, nutrient-poor diets are
my main concern and focus. Unfortunately, body image is tangled up in a web of judgment
and shame that influences our psychological food environments and skews how people
relate with food and food insecurity.
In this section, I have found that food insecurity and obesity are more prevalent in lowincome communities and in some racial groups. I have not answered why this is so.
Researchers Chang and Lauderdale highlight the importance of situated demographic
characteristics in an examination of environmental health. “Social conditions such as socioeconomic status can be thought of as ‘fundamental causes of disease’ that maintain
persistent and tenacious associations with health –despite changing contexts over time –
because they determine access to important resources, resources that ultimately modulate
exposures to a changing constellation of risk an protective factors” (Chang and Lauderdale
2005). In the following section, I explore more of the changing contexts that influence
people’s experiences with food, and I suggest that environmental conditions have
disproportionate affects on some disadvantaged groups.
8
III: THE FOOD ENVIRONMENT AND INFLUENCES ON CHOICE
“Eating behaviors are acquired over a lifetime” and reflect a combination of many forces,
including cultural, psychological, and economic (Nestle 1998). The multitude of external
factors that influence people’s relationships with food can be conceptualized as “the food
environment” (Nestle 1998, Drewnowski and Rolls 2005, French et al. 2001). Claudia
Chaufan, an endocrinologist and sociologist at University of California Santa Cruz, discusses
the food environment as “encompassing the principles underlying the distribution of social
resources, such as institutional arrangements, power relations, and formal and informal
normative structures” (Chaufan 2004). Exploring environmental3 factors shifts the focus
away from thinking of food consumption as just a result of individuals’ choices, to looking at
what forces shape and influence individuals’ choices. As nutrition researchers Adrianne
Bendich and Richard Deckelbaum explain, “Lifestyles, including food choices, tend to be
determined by the environment rather than by personal choices or individual will.
Much research explores the structural and cultural influences on individual food behaviors.
Different researchers characterize the external forces on individual choices in different ways.
The Department of Health and
Human Services encourages states
to use their Social-Ecological
Model to consider the multiple
levels of influence on diet and
lifestyle choices (CDC 2006).
Research published by the
USDA’s Economic Research
Service relates food security risk
to three broad factors: economic,
familial, and geographic (Nord et
al. 2006). The idea that external
factors shape individuals’ choices is well
Fig. 1 (CDC 2006)
acknowledged by these and other organizations.
In this section, I will explore some of these forces that shape individuals choices.
The food environment is not a static backdrop to individual lifestyles; it is a dynamic, everchanging, web of forces that influences different people in different ways. One of the most
concrete ways in which the food environment has changed is the availability of different
kinds of food. The makeup of the American food supply has changed significantly in the
past 100 years. From 1909-1919 to 2004, oils and fats and sugars have greatly increased in
their percentage share of calories in the US food supply. Oils and fats rose from 13% to 24%
and sugars rose from 13% to 17% (Hiza and Bente 2007). Per capita, we now have more
calories, more refined carbohydrates, and more fats available (Putnam 2002). There are
This definition of environment as the external forces that shape individuals relates more closely to old
definitions of environment as “that which surrounds” than to conservationist definitions of environment as
linked to nature in terms of the nature- culture dichotomy (Proctor 2005). Here, I am exploring the food
environment not just in the sense of the physical surroundings, but also in terms of the societal structures and
relationships that surround and influence us.
3
9
global ramifications to these shifts in the food supply. Developing nations are experiencing
dietary shifts towards more sugar, more fats, and less whole grains, starchy roots, and
vegetables (Nestle 1998). In the past, these “nutrition transitions” happened in nations that
had high levels of per capita GDP, but in recent years, even poor countries are transitioning
to sweeter, fattier diets (Drewnowski and Popkin 1997).
Within countries, these overall changes in food supply don’t reflect the changes in
everyone’s diets. While Americans of low socioeconomic status continue to consume low
levels of micronutrient intakes and high levels of sugar and fat (James et al. 1997), affluent
citizens of industrialized nations are reversing their dietary trends, consuming more whole
grains and vegetables and less fat and sugar. “In the current American diet, … higherincome and more educated groups are consuming diets more akin to those of lower-income
groups in the post-World War II period” (Drewnowski and Popkin 1997). Understanding
how external factors influence different groups of people can help explain the disparities in
food security across race and class lines. Some of the main influential components of food
environments are familial and cultural standards, advertising, convenience, cooking skills,
food costs, and access to foods. Some of these I will explore here, and others I will look at
in more detail in subsequent sections of this paper.
“Strong preferences for the kinds of food we eat are deeply rooted in the unexamined
practices of the families, communities, and cultural groups in which we grow up” (Duster
and Ransom 2006). Cultural values are important in shaping one’s food environment,
especially in groups with strong food cultures, for example ethnic groups that eat traditional
ethnic foods. Subcultures influence relationships with food too, in terms of which foods are
considered preferable, what combination of foods is appropriate, and what foods are
improper (Nestle 1998). Many ethnic cultures in the United States are loosing their food
cultures. Even if traditional ethnic cuisines don’t have fewer calories or more micronutrients,
cultural ties to food are vitally important. When food heritage is lost, young generations
loose their inheritance of culturally based food skills and knowledge. Being unfamiliar with
certain foods or certain preparation methods can be a huge barrier to changing consumption
patterns.
Convenience is another subjective influence on diet. For some people it might be more
convenient to walk to the corner store than to transport themselves to a far away grocery
store. For other people it might be more convenient to buy non-perishable food, so that it
will keep for a long time. Because of its subjectivity, convenience is hard to characterize, but
its influence affects how people evaluate other factors. Pre-packaged food and processed
foods generally require less preparation time and less effort and they store for longer than
fresh vegetables for example. In our commodified culture, people equate time with money,
so that saving time can be quantified and exchanged. In some circumstances, food
consumption becomes a trade-off between health and convenience. This does not affect
everyone in the same way. Working-class people’s lives are often more pressed for time than
the lives of people with more money. In addition, when familial and cultural relationships
with food are lost, the importance of convenience is accentuated. People who live alone or
people who live with large families are more likely to value convenient foods. It can seem
like a waste of time to cook a “real” meal for just yourself, and it can take more time than
you have to cook a “real” meal for a large family.
10
Advertising is a large part of many people’s food environments. In 1994, food companies
spent $30 billion on advertising for their products (Nestle 1998). Advertising influences
people’s beliefs and perceptions about products and, for many people, can change their
consumption patterns (Nestle 1998). Advertising the healthfulness of products is one
strategy that companies use, especially in ads targeted towards women. Some nutritionfocused advertising is done by health agencies mainly promoting fruits, vegetables, and dairy
products. Interestingly, studies have shown that nutrition messages do not have significant
long-term impacts on food consumption patterns (Nestle 1998). Advertising works by
encouraging emotional associations with food that aren’t about the function of the food in
our diet, but are about food as something with exogenous meaning. Because there is more
than twice as much food as needed to feed everyone in America, food companies face
competition in Americans’ purchases (Nestle 2002). People have been acculturated to the
practices of buying multiple cars, bigger homes, and more and more stuff, but with food,
there is a limit to how much people will consume. So rather than selling us more food, they
sell us more comfort or more taste.
A recent and comprehensive study on television advertising’s impacts on children by the
Kaiser Family Foundation found that children aged 2-7 see an average of 38 television ads
per day for all products and 12 ads for food and beverages. Children 8-12 years old see an
average of 83 total ads and 21 food ads; 13-17 year olds see an average of 79 ads, 17 of
which are for food. Of the 8,854 food ads reviewed in the study, there were no ads for fruits
or vegetables targeted at children or teens. (Gantz et al. 2007). The Institute of Medicine has
done studies on the influences of television advertising on children and advertising. They
conclude from their findings that “Television advertising influences the food preferences,
purchase requests, and diets, at least of children under age 12 years, and is associated with
the increased rates of obesity among children and youth” (Institute of Medicine 2006). These
findings are significant suggesting that the influence of television on children’s diets (as well
as their activity level) has harmful effects.
Advertising, cultural shifts, and our changing food skills are all intertwined in dynamic ways,
that interact with familial and community background. By introducing them here, I am not
stating anything revolutionary. These factors are commonly acknowledged in analyses of
food consumption. Most people understand that there is more involved in food
consumption patterns than simple volitional choices of individuals. These food environment
frameworks, like the Department of Health and Human Service’s Socio-Ecological Model,
are often discussed as peripheral forces influencing the individual. However, many of these
discussions do not go far enough in addressing environmental forces. After they
acknowledge external factors, many of these discussions return their focus to the individual,
who still bears ultimate responsibility for making the “right” choices, despite the constraints
he or she may face. In this way, external factors are introduced to inform strategies about
how to best influence individuals choices- not to address the structural constraints
themselves. Claudia Chaufan describes the result of this dynamic. “When the leading
assumption is that the ‘problem’ lies within individuals or communities ‘at risk’… accounts
may fall into victim blaming patterns” (Chaufan 2004). One consequence of emphasizing
the individual as the agent responsible for change is that other factors go unexamined and
unquestioned.
11
There are a lot of stigma and shame related to fat and obesity and many of the health
conditions associated with them. I think this is a result of the idea that these conditions are
induced by lifestyle choices, rather than shaped by environmental factors. (Chaufan 2004)
Health messages can contribute to this stigma, when they are targeted towards influencing
individuals’ consumption by promoting “nutritious” foods and demonize foods high in fat
or sugar. Rather than emphasizing the importance of willpower in resisting indulgent foods,
nutritional outreach must respond to the external forces that shape people’s diets. Personal
choices contribute to the rise in obesity, but they alone are not responsible for the current
epidemic. Claudia Chaufan writes about the impact of individual choices on health
outcomes, specifically diabetes. She says,
The causal role of lifestyle is an important truth only to the extent that people have
actual control over their lives. If lifestyles are constrained by larger structural and
political arrangements, as much as sociological theory suggests, then this fact … would
be a rather shallow truth (Chaufan 2004).
The groups that are most severely affected by nutritional insecurity and obesity are groups
with significant structural constraints on their volitional choices. Instead of imposing guilt
and shame for not making “better choices,” we should address the structural constraints
themselves.
12
IV: ACCESS CHALLENGES: GROCERY STORES AND CORNER STORES
A recent article in Michigan’s Critical Moment magazine describes the physical food
environment of a small city near Ann Arbor called Ypsilanti. There is more ethnic diversity
in Ypsilanti than in other parts of the region. There’s more poverty too; the town’s median
income is about half that of the county’s. Poor transportation and zero supermarkets leave
residents with significant barriers to accessing healthy food. Twenty-seven of the thirty-seven
food stores in Ypsilanti are convenience stores that sell mostly alcohol and snack food. The
article says that “only one of the six ‘grocery stores’ was full-service” with adequate amounts
of produce. This full-service store was located on the other side of a freeway, isolated from
the rest of the city (Bacalor et al. 2007). Low supermarket accessibility is a common problem
for many neighborhoods across the country, especially those with more low-income people
and more people of color (Inagami et al. 2006, Morland 2002, and Zenk et al. 2005). In Los
Angeles, for example, approximately one million people live in areas where access to
nutritious food is a problem (Mascarenhas 1997). For many people, the barriers to food
security are as concrete as the physical challenge of getting to a grocery store.
In the late 1930s, neighborhoods with high concentrations of black people or poor people
were assumed to have unstable property values and weren’t allowed access to mortgage
financing (Feldstein 2006). This process began with the 1934 National Housing Act, which
led to the creation of “residential security maps, delineating where banks could and could
not invest, based on the perceived risk of different neighborhoods” (Wikipedia 2007b). This
process is termed redlining in reference to red lines drawn around these neighborhoods on
maps. The results of these policies were declines in property value and stunted growth of
small businesses in many ethnic and poor neighborhoods (Feldstein 2006). With the fair
housing act of 1968, redlining became illegal and since then banks have been required to
ensure equal access to credit (Wikipedia 2007b). Despite considerable gains in the past four
decades, significant challenges in accessing credit and developing in these areas still exist
today (Feldstein 2006).
After WWII, suburbanization rapidly increased in the United States. As many affluent
citizens moved to the suburbs, the economic health of both urban centers and rural areas
suffered. The supermarket industry participated in the shift to the suburbs. In the past 40
years, supermarkets have been closing in urban areas and opening in suburban
neighborhoods (Shaffer 2002 and Eisenhauer 2001). Between 1975 and 1991, the inner city
lost 30% of its chain grocery stores (Shaffer 2002). Some have associated the trend of
supermarkets avoiding urban areas with de facto redlining (Eisenhauer 2001). These practices
have created “food deserts,” where residents lack access to nutritious food. In rural areas,
there can be farmland stretched to the horizon, but often the crops being grown are
commodity crops (like corn, soy, and wheat) rather than food crops, which could be eaten
by the local community (Meter and Rosales 2001). The “desertification” of rural areas’ local
food supplies is an important component of access to food. Because most of my research
explored urban food access, however, I am going to focus on urban food deserts in this
section.
13
A wave of current research is premised on the idea that closer proximity to grocery stores
will increase access to healthy foods for urban residents. Though proximity to grocery stores
is not a perfect indicator of food security, it is an important component of access to healthy
food. Many other food sources, such as convenience stores and fast food restaurants, do not
offer fresh produce and other nutrient-dense foods that are necessary for a nutritious diet
(Inagami et al. 2006). In the absence of convenient access to grocery stores, people will rely
on these other food sources which offer a limited selection of foods, often with less
nutritious options at significantly higher prices (Block 2006).
Research consistently shows that affluent and white neighborhoods tend to be closer to
grocery stores and that neighborhoods with less money or more people of color tend to be
further from grocery stores. One study, looking at food stores in four different states, found
four times more supermarkets in white neighborhoods than in predominantly black
neighborhoods, and over three times as many supermarkets in wealthier neighborhoods
compared to the poorest areas (Morland 2002). In Los Angeles, the average supermarket
serves about 18,600 people, while supermarkets in low-income communities serve on
average about 28,000 people (Shaffer 2002). The people that live furthest away from
nutritious foods also have barriers to accessing transportation. Driving a couple miles to a
store is different than walking or busing a couple miles there and a couple more back with
heavy bags of groceries. Though distance is a good proxy for access challenges, the challenge
of distance is exponentially greater when transportation challenges exist.
Preliminary research by a group of Lewis & Clark students last year explored the correlations
between demographics and the prevalence of different types of food stores in Portland’s
inner eastside. Although there are significant limitations to their cursory research, their
results are intriguing. The strongest relationships they found were between racial
characteristics and the number of natural food stores and fast food restaurants. Greater
proportions of white people are correlated with more natural food stores and fewer fast food
restaurants (Carothers et al. 2006). They also found an inverse relationship with the
prevalence of children and the number of natural food stores (Carothers et al. 2006).
Although much research has emphasized the role of fast food in children’s food
environments, their findings suggest that there may be an even stronger correlation between
corner stores and the prevalence of children (Carothers et al. 2006).
Most of the research examining the relationship between the size and type of food stores
and the healthfulness of the food they sell finds that convenience stores do not offer an
adequate selection of healthy foods. A study comparing supermarkets, small grocers, and
convenience stores in San Diego found that supermarkets offered twice as many “hearthealthy foods” compared with small grocers, and four times as many of these foods
compared to convenience stores (Sallis et al. 1986). As part of their Regional Equity Atlas
project, the Coalition for a Livable Future in Portland recently evaluated the city’s food
stores to evaluate access to stores that carry produce and other nutritious foods. Most of
Portland’s food stores were already categorized by the Yellow Pages as convenience stores
or grocery stores. Comparing the Yellow Pages categorization of stores with their surveying,
they found that convenience stores rarely meet the requirements for carrying nutritious
foods and that grocery stores generally do (Portland- Multnomah Food Policy Council
2003).
14
On top of all of the other challenges, the prices of food items at convenience stores are
more expensive than similar items at grocery stores. A study sponsored by the California
Department of Health Services did a market basket comparison of prices at small corner
stores and large super markets in the lowest income census tracks in Sanoville, California.
They found that the average prices of the basket at the corner stores were 142% more
expensive than at the supermarket. The actual difference in prices is even greater than this,
because the baskets at the corner stores were missing items that weren’t available from those
stores (Feldstein et al. 2006). Another market-basket survey looking at 25 stores in Los
Angeles and Sacramento found that many items were both harder to find at corner stores
and more expensive (Jetter and Cassady 2005).
Studies like these are sparking a wave of interest by community groups in mapping their own
food store distribution. The Coalition Against Hunger in New York City recently undertook
a mapping study to evaluate the distribution of access to food in relation to neighborhood
demographics. Their findings were similar to other studies. “In low income neighborhoods,
fresh produce and other nutritious foods are often more difficult to physically access than
more fattening junk foods and restaurant foods” (Bacalor et al. 2007). They have published
online an interactive GIS map that allows viewers to zoom in to view different
neighborhoods, inviting anyone with internet access to explore and interact with the access
challenges of the city.4
Some research has been done to evaluate the effects of these access barriers on people’s
actual diets and health. Inagami et al. evaluated the relationship between body mass index
and neighborhood grocery store characteristics in Los Angeles. They found that people who
live in poor neighborhoods have higher body mass indexes and eat less healthfully. They also
found independent associations between body mass index and the characteristics of
neighborhood food stores (Inagami et al. 2006).
Understanding the important role that grocery stores play in access to nutritious foods, leads
me to ask why grocery locate where they do. What factors influence their decisions? Are
owners of grocery stores prejudiced against people of color? Is that why there aren’t more
grocery stores in black neighborhoods? Do poor neighborhoods not have enough buying
power to sustain large stores? Are food deserts the result of discrimination or market
efficiency? Or both?
The Center for Food and Justice in Los Angeles created a report of the city’s grocery store
distribution across different neighborhoods and explored the obstacles to grocery stores
locating closer to low-income residents and people of color (Shaffer 2002). This report
identifies several characteristics cited by supermarkets as barriers to locating in low-income
communities: supermarkets expect low-income areas to be less profitable because spending
per person is likely to be less. They expect higher crime rates in low-income neighborhoods
and therefore higher security costs. Large spaces for big stores with big parking lots are
harder to find in dense urban areas. The “mixed-market” is another challenge. More diverse
neighborhoods have varied desires for different products, unlike the “homogeneous
suburban consumer” (Shaffer 2002). This report also highlights the obstacle of “cultural
biases,” or racism in how storeowners and managers relate with different ethnic populations.
4
Check it out: www.nyccah.org/maps/index.php
15
The report goes on to highlight potential benefits of locating in low-income neighborhoods
and offers some case studies of supermarkets that have been successful. Another report by
the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), titled “The Changing Models of Inner City
Grocery Retailing” offers similar insights into the benefits of locating in inner city
neighborhoods. Both reports find that high population density in many low-income areas
translates to higher buying power per square mile than in many suburban areas. Therefore,
lower household incomes may not equate with low demand (ICIC 2002 and Shaffer 2002).
These reports also argue that inner city neighborhoods are a growing market with great
opportunities for profitable economic development. They cite some advantages that lowincome areas have to offer grocery stores, such as “central locations, lower land costs, and
less competition” (Feldstein et al. 2006). They highlight examples of several supermarket
locations in inner-city neighborhoods that have higher profits than other locations of the
same chain (ICIC 2002). Not all supermarkets that have located in inner-city neighborhoods
have found success, however. In order to do well, the ICIC recommends that stores must
work to meet customers needs by adopting to the mixed market demand of diverse
neighborhoods, and they must “construct cultural change” to form relationships with the
community. Engaging in this work will integrate the store into the community and address
cultural misperceptions, thereby building trust, easing the store’s adaptation to the mixed
market, and reducing theft (ICIC 2002).
Whole Foods is a national chain grocery store that sells lots of organic produce and caters to
“environmentally mindful” consumers. On their website, they encourage people to suggest
locations for where they should open new stores, and they list the following guidelines that
they use for assessing sites:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
200,000 people or more in a 20 minute drive time
40,000–75,000 Square Feet
Large number of college-educated residents
Abundant parking available for our exclusive use
Stand alone preferred, would consider complementary
Easy access from roadways, lighted intersection
Excellent visibility, directly off of the street
Must be located in a high traffic area (foot and/or vehicle) (Whole Foods 2007)
These characteristics highlight some of the same barriers that are discussed by LA’s Center
for Food and Justice and the ICIC. Whole Foods’ stipulations for stand-alone buildings,
abundant parking, and over 40,000 square feet of space are more easily met in suburban
settings than in inner city neighborhoods. By targeting “college-educated” neighborhoods,
they are in effect targeting high-income areas, while avoiding discussing income.
I conducted a phone interview with a representative from a small chain grocery store called
New Seasons. Like whole foods, New Seasons caters more to “environmentally mindful”
consumers; they carry a lot of organic food and local produce. They may not be
representative of more conventional grocery stores,5 but they can provide an interesting
comparison to the national chain Whole Foods.
5 I wanted to learn more about the practices of more “conventional” grocery stores but was unable to make
contact with any. In Portland, most independent or locally owned full-size grocery stores cater to
“environmentally minded” consumers.
16
New Seasons also invites customers to suggest new store locations and considers location
suggestions as indicators of neighborhood demand (Knotek 2007). Claudia Knotek, the
public relations representative whom I spoke with, said that population density and finding a
space large enough for the store and for parking are two main factors that New Seasons
considers when assessing potential sites. She said that inexpensive land was less important
than being a part of a community, explaining why they have stores located in vibrant
neighborhoods rather than out in the surrounding suburbs. Knotek emphasized the efforts
the store takes to integrate itself into the surrounding communities. They hold job fairs in
area where new stores are located so that both the employees and the consumers will be
from the same neighborhood (Knotek 2007).
Contrary to the impression I got from Knotek, New Seasons has more stores in Portland’s
suburbs than within the city proper, however their suburban stores are in the white suburbs,
not the ethnic edges of town6 (New Seasons 2007). Two of their stores are located in more
ethnically diverse and less economically vibrant areas of town: in North and Northeast
Portland,7 suggesting that New Seasons is contributing to food access for lower income
neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color. New Seasons locating practices may be better
than many stores in many cities, but, despite their progressive rhetoric, I would argue that
New Seasons is not consistently redressing nutritional insecurities of underserved
populations. If their intentions are in-line with their rhetoric, this suggests that Portland
needs to address the barriers to grocery store development in underserved areas.
Though the argument from food suppliers for not locating in certain neighborhoods is
rooted in a sense that there isn’t enough demand to support their stores, some stores have
been successful in inner city and low-income areas. If grocery stores were more evenly
distributed, would there be enough demand to keep the stores in low-income
neighborhoods? Would people buy produce if they were available nearby?
In many cases, analyses of low-income areas suggest that there is unmet demand for
nutritious food. In Los Angeles, low income areas “were found capable of supporting an
additional 750,000 square feet of supermarket floor space, or the equivalent of 15 to 20
average sized stores” (Fischer 2002). Other studies show that people benefit from having
accessible produce move in to their food desert neighborhoods. One study in a low-income
neighborhood in Pennsylvania showed that consumption rates for fresh produce increased
when a supermarket moved into town. Another study evaluated the impact of a new farmers’
market on neighborhood diets and found that consumption of fruits and vegetables rose
(Freedman 2006). These increases were not statistically significant, but this was limited by
the small size of the survey. These findings suggest that consumption of nutritious foods
would increase if there was a greater supply and if the cost of accessing the food was not so
high.
6 New Seasons has stores located in Orenco Station, Cedar Hills, Raleigh Hills (all in Beaverton) and Lake
Oswego. They do not have any stores located on the outer east side of Portland. Their inner city stores are
located in Sellwood and in SE near Ladd’s Edition.
7 The store in North Portland is on Interstate and 64th. The store in NE is on 33rd and Killingsworth.
17
A conversation with Eleanor Jones, the produce buyer for Portland’s Alberta Cooperative
Grocery (“the Co-op”), offered me some perspective on negotiating neighborhood demand.
She explained that the Co-op struggles with whom to target as its consumer base. It is
located in Northeast Portland, in a predominately black neighborhood that is in the midst of
gentrification/ revitalization. On their website, they list their mission statement “Owned By
Our Neighbors, Serving Our Neighborhood.” However, the membership base of the Co-op
is mostly white and there is a strong pull for the Co-op to cater to its member base (Jones
2007). Part of the challenge in this is that the Co-op provides organic, local, sustainablygrown products, their prices (and quality) are higher than at other grocery stores, and they
don’t have as many “junk-food” options. Many of the neighborhood residents who come in
to the Co-op, says Eleanor, do so while waiting for the bus. They come in and grab some
chips and a soda, treating the Co-op like a convenience store rather than a grocery store. The
Co-op probably would attract more neighborhood residents if they sold more chips and
soda. They are trying to be an open, welcoming space for all people, and they are hoping to
contribute to the food security of their neighborhood, but these challenges aren’t simple.
The Co-op is caught in a clash of cultures: health food and sustainable food against culturally
appropriate, community-desired food.
Having healthy food in one’s neighborhood doesn’t necessary increase consumption. It is an
essential part of increasing consumption (because you can’t eat it if its not there), but it is not
enough on its own. There are other barriers to accessing food than proximity. Bringing
stores in to food desert areas, especially health food stores, can create friction with the
community and stimulate cultural challenges. One way to avoid this class of cultures is for
produce to be sold in the food retailers that already exist in these communities. Why don’t
convenience stores sell more produce?
Although many researchers feel comfortable using access to grocery stores as a proxy for
access to food, this was not always so clear. Grocery stores have not always been where
neighborhood residents bought nutritious foods. In the past, corner stores were run by
neighborhood grocers, and they carried neighborhood-specific foods that related to the
culture and the diets of the local population. Even today, there are still some exceptions to
the rule that corner stores don’t sell produce. Big City Produce, located in a predominantly
black and lower-income neighborhood in Portland8, is a quintessential convenience store
with one exception: it has a produce section that rivals many health food stores’.
Big City Produce was started 10 years ago by longtime resident Hugh Gray. He had worked
in grocery stores and convenience stores his whole life, and he was frustrated that healthy
food wasn’t more accessible for his community. Gray partnered-up with a friend who owned
a building; they started a “fruit-stand in the city,” which grew to be a full-scale convenience
store with the same chips and soda and canned foods that you would expect to find at any
other corner store. “We don’t sell any alcohol or cigarettes, but we’re not the food police,”
says Gray. Their mission is to “provide culturally appropriate foods to underserved
populations” (Gray 2007). There are quite a few other convenience stores within walking
distance of Big City, but no grocery stores. They are successfully selling a lot of produce to
neighborhood residents. Sixty-five percent of Big City’s sales are from fresh produce (Gray
2007). In 2004, they received Portland’s Office of Sustainability BEST Business Award for
8
Big City Produce is located in North Portland near Commercial Ave .and Killingsworth St.
18
Sustainable Food. “Big City Produce was chosen for its commitment and success in
providing local, quality, culturally appropriate food to a previously underserved population in
North Portland” (Portland-Multnomah Food Policy Council 2004).
Fig. 2 Big City Produce (Chinook Book 2007)
Big City Produce is forging a new path, but there are significant barriers for other Mom-andPop’s to incorporate produce into their stores. Commonly cited reasons for why
convenience stores don’t sell produce include spoilage, high prices, low profit margins, low
neighborhood demand, and difficulty in forming relationships with distributors (Feldstein et
al. 2006). Gray believes that the largest constraint is in the culture of corner stores, which has
what he calls a “phobia of perishables” (Gray 2007). Produce inherently has a “shrink
factor” due to spoilage. Grocery stores factor this into their accounting, but corner store
owners aren’t used to throwing away products, and this practice is hard to accept. “It has to
look good and be presentable,” says Gray. If food stays on the shelves after it starts to spoil,
no one will buy it.
New York City’s Coalition Against Hunger also finds spoilage to be one of the main barriers
to selling produce in convenience stores. “Since produce has a low profit margin and tends
to spoil quicker than other packaged items, the small retail outlets that populate these
neighborhoods have little incentive to stock fresh produce, opting instead for preservativeladen, processed foods” (NYC Coalition Against Hunger 2006). Gray said that he is able to
get a good profit margin from produce and hasn’t had problems with low neighborhood
demand. His biggest challenges have been typical of most small businesses. He says he can’t
afford to pay good wages or to offer health care benefits. To make up for this, he offers very
flexible schedules, and hires mostly students and musicians who are able to work for lower
wages in return for flexibility.
Another challenge for many small stores is working with distributors. Most produce retailers
work with large distributors (Pierson 2003). Economies of scale9 predict that larger
9
Economies of scale are the “cost advantages of large-scale production,” based on the idea that a firm’s costs
19
operations will have lower prices, when buying from big distributors; however, getting a low
price often requires buying large quantities. For small retailers, they can’t sell produce at such
fast rates. Gray has worked around this dilemma by forming relationships with 20 different
small farms in the region to order produce direct. This works well for him because he is able
to make specific requests for varieties that his customers want.
Given the constraints facing corner stores from selling fresh produce, it is understandable
that many studies use proximity to supermarkets as a proxy for access to nutritious foods. By
narrowing the discussion to proximity to large chain supermarkets rather than keeping the
focus on access to nutritious foods, however, the policy implications of these studies exclude
or ignore the potential for neighborhood grocers, farmers markets, or other food sources to
be a source of nutritious food to community members. Shannon Zenk et al. observe, “The
presence of supermarkets may not always be beneficial for neighborhood residents” (2005).
Smaller stores, owned by local residents provide important benefits to neighborhood
communities and economies. Rather than relying on large, chain supermarkets for food
security, I believe there ought to be more exploration of how to develop local food systems
and economies through neighborhood grocers.
Exploring creative solutions to bring nutritious foods to food desert communities is the only
way to address the injustices that plague the food environments of many nutritionally
insecure neighborhoods. Creating policies to encourage corner stores to sell produce as well
as regional distribution networks, targeted towards linking farms with storeowners could
greatly facilitate the availability of produce in neighborhood food stores. In addition, policies
providing incentives for grocery stores to locate in food desert areas will assist in
overcoming the barriers to development in food deserts. In some places, it will be essential
to improve public transportation as well as the walkability and bikeability of communities in
order for people to access these food stores. Together, these tactics have the potential to
decrease the current unequal distribution of food and support everyone’s ability to access
nutritious food.
per unit fall as more units of goods are produced (Stilwell 2002). Some industries are more suited for large
economies of scale than others are, depending on their long-run average cost curves. The most efficient scale is
influenced by indivisible inputs and labor specialization (O’Sullivan and Sheffrin 2002).
20
V: ENERGY NUTRIENTS AND PRICES
Clearly, there’s more to the consumption of produce and other nutrient-rich foods than how
close (or far) someone lives from a store that sells produce. Price is a large factor in
consumer food choices for many people – especially for people on lower budgets. In
addition to price discrepancies between grocery stores and convenience stores, there are
price discrepancies between different kinds of foods. Low-income people have the strongest
incentives to buy cheaper foods. In this section, I will explore the price differences between
nutrient-rich and energy-dense foods.
Despite many pleas as a kid, my mom rarely bought us food from convenience stores or
vending machines. Her explanation was two fold: nutrition and cost. Those pre-packaged,
processed, sugar- and fat-filled foods were unhealthy and too expensive. These were special
treats that I mostly missed out on. Later in life, when I would find myself hungry while out
with friends, my mom’s explanations didn’t quite hold up. Well, I was pretty sure she was
right about the nutrition component. Depending on whether I was in a health-conscious
phase or a phase of rebelling against such rules, the healthfulness of snacks sometimes
mattered to me and sometimes didn’t. Even when I was in health-conscious phases,
however, if I only had a couple dollars in hand and was hungry, I never ended up in the
produce section of a grocery store. I might get a fast food meal, a candy bar, a bag of chips,
or maybe a muffin. Not a salad. I needed something filling and cheap.
My mom isn’t the only one who claims that “junk-food” is expensive. A recent article in the
Boston Globe titled “High Prices, Unhealthy Foods,” explores this idea. The author finds
that processed foods are more expensive than simpler foods. He uses the example that plain
rolled oats are 75 cents per pound, while instant oatmeal with apple and cinnamon flavor are
$5 per pound (Kimbal 2006). Many of these price discrepancies can be attributed to a
process of adding value. I would argue that this phenomenon isn’t just characteristic of
processed foods. Bagged salads are more expensive per pound than unprocessed vegetables.
The cost of flour and yeast to make a loaf of homemade bread is significantly less expensive
than the price of a loaf in the store. These price differences reflect the “added value” of
convenience that makes the product worth more than its raw ingredients. Depending on
how people value this added convenience, they may be willing to pay more for these kinds of
foods. This mark-up applies equally to nutrient-rich and energy-dense foods, although
typically value-added products are made with more energy-dense ingredients.
A new wave of nutrition research explores food costs by the cost per unit of energy. This
approach is connected to how low-income consumers evaluate their food choices. Food
Stamp Program participants say their main concern is being able to feel full at a low cost
(Drewnowski 2004). When exploring the cost of food from this perspective, researchers
have consistently concluded that refined grains, added sugars, and added fats are the
cheapest forms of dietary energy –the cheapest way to feel full (Andrieu 2006, Drewnowski
et al. 2004, and Jetter and Cassady 2005).
There are multiple reasons for why low-income people might value fullness over nutrition.
Many people on low budgets don’t have the savings to buy food in bulk. If people only have
21
enough money to buy food one week at a time, for example, it will be harder to “stock up”
on large quantities of staples, which can be less expensive per unit. In more severe cases, this
dynamic can manifest as eating day-to-day or even meal-to-meal. It is certainly possible to
eat a nutritious $2 meal of dried grains, dried legumes, and fresh vegetables. But, because
they don’t come in single-servings, you have to have more than $2 to get rice, beans, and
vegetables. Whether it’s more economical or not, if all you have is $2, the fast food 99¢
menu is more feasible.
Another reason is that the sensation of hunger is more immediate than the need for
micronutrients. When you’re hungry, you first want to feel full. If nutrition and fullness can
go together, that’s great. But very few people will sacrifice satiety for nutrients unless they
are restraining from consuming food, aka “dieting,” which is a very different relationship
with fullness. For people who have material constraints, this is not an issue of willpower and
restraint; they are trying to maximize meeting their needs within their budget constraints
Reorienting nutrition research to evaluate the cost of food per unit of energy changes how
we understand food costs. In the past, there was a strong consensus among nutritionist that
healthy food could be less expensive than unhealthy food. Their response was to promote
nutrition education and to encourage people to make better choices. This sentiment still
holds strong today. “Some nutritionists believe – incorrectly – that potatoes and carrots are
cheaper than chocolate or potato chips” (Drewnowski 2004). This doesn’t hold true if the
cost of food is measured by unit of energy (kcal or MJ), rather than by unit of weight (grams
or ounces). Under this framework, potato chips cost around $2.00/10 MJ10 and fresh carrots
cost about $9.50/10 MJ (Drewnowski 2003). “Calorie for calorie, fresh spinach is more
expensive than luxury chocolates or foie gras” (Drewnowski 2004). If chocolate and potato
chips are cheaper than potatoes and carrots, there are big nutritional implications for people
on tight-budgets.
This model of food costs is consistent with a study based on the French national food
consumption survey to estimate the energy costs associated with different “freely chosen”
diets (Drewnowski et al. 2004). Many other studies don’t look at consumption surveys –
national consumption surveys in the US don’t have enough detailed data – instead, they look
at individual food items. This study from the French consumption survey found that the
people who spent the most money on food were eating more nutrient-dense foods. These
nutrient-dense diets cost 165% more than the least expensive diets and consisted of 10% less
energy (Drewnowski et al. 2004). Higher levels of fat and sweets consumption were
correlated with lower costs of food on a per energy basis and lower total costs of people’s
overall diets. The authors contend that these findings are likely to hold true for the United
States, based on the pricing structure of fats, sugars, and other foods here.
Another study calculated the dietary energy density in diets of US children and evaluated
correlations with demographics and total energy intake. They looked at the total number of
calories (dietary energy) consumed and divided that by the amount of food consumed,
measured in grams to calculate the “density” of energy in people’s diets. This study found a
positive correlation between dietary energy density and total energy intake, meaning that
many people who eat more energy-dense foods also consume more energy in their overall
10
Mega-jewel (MJ) is a quantity of energy. 10 MJ is equivalent to 2500 Calories (kcal).
22
diet. The study found significantly higher levels of dietary energy density consumption
among blacks and whites compared to other racial groups11 (Mendoza et al. 2006).
Despite this shift towards evaluating food prices on a per energy basis and recognizing the
low costs of energy dense foods, there is some discrepancy about the cost-prohibitiveness of
nutrient-dense foods. A report by the USDA’s Economic Research Service entitled, “How
much do Americans pay for fruits and vegetables?” finds that there are inexpensive ways for
Americans to meet the daily-recommended portions of fruits and vegetables. This report
estimates that this amount of produce can cost “as little as 12%” of average consumer
expenditures on food (Reed et al. 2004). Much research that asserts the cost effectiveness of
nutritional food does so by estimating the prices of healthy “baskets” of food and concludes,
based on their prices, that they ought to be affordable for low-income people. Many
researchers draw on statistics that show the relatively low percentage of income that
Americans spend on food, suggesting that we ought to be able to spend more.
In 2005, the USDA estimates that people in the United States spent on average less than 6%
of their disposable income on food consumed at home, and less than 10% on total food
consumed (USDA 2005). In most countries, as incomes rise, share of income spent on food
falls. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, the average per capita food
expenditures – of the 76 countries for which there is data – is 39% of incomes (FAO 2007,
Share of Food). Some people believe that this discrepancy shows that people in the US could
spend more money on food to eat healthier if they were making better, more frugal choices
about how to spend the rest of their money.
I have a different take on this data. When people budget money for food they’re not
comparing themselves with people abroad, their standard of living is rooted in the United
States and in their local communities. Rather than comparing the U.S. with other countries
to evaluate living standards of our poor against their poor, we can use U.S. food expenditure
levels as a benchmark for evaluating the prices of diets. Using this framework, Drewnowski
concludes, “Mean daily spending on foods and beverages is estimated at approximately $8
per person per day… To meet daily energy rations at this cost is feasible with grains, fats,
and sweets, but not with fresh fruits and vegetables” (Drewnowski 2004). In short, when
using the frameworks that are appropriate to low-income consumers, it is clear that nutrient
rich foods are prohibitively expensive for many people. Trying to impose decision-making
frameworks that are relevant to people with more money is problematic and ineffective.
11
The other categories of race included Hispanic, Asian, and Other.
23
VI: HIDDEN COSTS
My conclusion after exploring the pricing incentives between different kinds of foods is that,
given the current price structure, energy-dense foods, heavy in fats and added-sugars, are less
expensive than nutrient-rich foods. In this section, I will explore deeper questions behind
these prices. Why are energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods less expensive? What do I mean by
the phrase “given the current price structure”? Aren’t the prices of foods based on what they
cost to produce and how much consumer demand there is for them? What other forces are
shaping the prices of foods?
It doesn’t really make sense how a bag of chips could be less expensive to the consumer and
more profitable to the producer than, say, a bunch of local, organic spinach. Chips have a
paragraph long list of ingredients from all across the world, brightly colored petroleum-based
packaging, and synthetic flavoring. Local, organic spinach is grown in the dirt without any
laboratory-derived inputs and with a much shorter fossil-fueled trip to the store. What is
going on here?
Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, explores this quandary of counter intuitive
pricing. He reveals that a large percentage of the inputs in processed food are derived from
corn and soy. “Most of the processed food in your supermarket consists of clever
arrangements of corn and soybeans- the corn providing the added sugars, the soy providing
the added fat, and both providing the feed for the animals” (Pollan 2006 Forum). Corn and
soy are mostly grown as commodity crops- they’re not grown to be sold directly to the
consumer; they’re inputs in to the food industry. They come out on the other side, arranged
as fats and sugars in processed, energy-dense foods.
Commodity crops are generally grown on industrial, mechanized, large-scale farms, owned
by just a handful of companies (Pollan 2007). “Between 57%-76% of US grown corn, wheat,
and soy were grown by four firms (Heffernan 2000). The trend towards fewer, bigger farms,
reflects the economic principle of “economies of scale,” based on the idea that larger frims
are able to maintain lower costs. This reasoning is used to justify the spinach and chips
quandary: small-scale, organic spinach costs more because its farm was more efficient than
the industry that produced and distributed the chips.
Pollan disagrees. He argues that the harmful practices of industrial agriculture and the
governmental subsidy structure skew the costs of production, providing incentives for
agriculture to produce unhealthy industrial processed food that benefits corporate agriculture
more than it benefits the rest of us. Others have made similar arguments: agri-business isn’t
paying the costs of its harmful practices and that is why its prices are so low. Economists
have a term for this; it’s the concept of “externalities12.” Negative externalities occur when
firms don’t have to pay a market price equivalent to costs created by their production
12 Extra-market costs or benefits result in externalities. Pollution is a classic externality example, because
pollution has costs for the environment and for society. Since polluters do not have to pay those costs, they
don’t have an incentive to pollute less. Economic theory argues that incentives can be created to improve
market outcomes by “internalizing externalities,” that is, creating prices for under priced goods, “forcing the
source of the externality to bear the external cost imposed on others” (Goodstein 1999, 43).
24
(Goodstein 1999). In this section, I will offer a cursory overview of some of the externalities
that support the artificially low prices of industrially processed foods.
Environmental pollution and degradation are widespread effects of large-scale agricultural
production. Fertilizer runoff contributes to eutrophication and oceanic “dead-zones.” Water
pollution is further accentuated by pesticide runoff and petroleum runoff from machinery.
Draining, tilling, and high irrigation levels contribute to disappearing wetlands. Livestock
ranching can cause air pollution from methane (Bierzychudek 2006 and Pretty 2001). Finally,
the practice of selecting for certain species, exacerbated by genetic engineering, contributes
to biodiversity loss (Shiva 2000).
Energy costs form another large contribution to agriculture’s externalities. Large-scale
industrial agriculture is very energy intensive. Most farms do not rely on renewable wind or
solar, or hydroelectric. Instead, their energy comes from fossil fuels. “We currently produce
most of our nitrogen (fertilizer) from natural gas and most of our pesticides from petroleum;
our farm equipment is largely produced with petroleum resources. And, of course,
petroleum fuels all of our farm equipment” (Imhoff 2007). Although there is a market price
for energy, it is well below its “true cost” (Stilwell 2002). If energy resources were being used
at renewable rates, there would be a lot less to go around and prices would be significantly
higher. Or, in terms of an intergenerational sustainability framework point of view, if we
considered the cost to future generations as a result of current society’s unsustainable energy
use (we’re using our share and theirs too), the cost of this rate of use is greater than the
current price of oil and gas (Goodstein 1999).
The price of labor that many farms pay is below a living wage. The average wage of a “twoearner farmworker family” is well below the federal poverty level (Human Rights Watch
2000). In fact, many farmworkers are exempt from minimum wage regulations (NIC
Farmworker Institute 2007). In addition to low wages, farmworkers must deal with
hazardous and exploitive working conditions. They live with greater health risks from
exposure to pesticides and other toxic chemicals, and they face barriers to accessing health
care and education. Perhaps because farm workers are in general a vulnerable population –
many being immigrants or otherwise politically disempowered – their rights have not made
significant headway in the political sphere (NIC Farmworker Institute 2007). They are not
covered by the National Labor Relations Act, which protects union organizing. The societal
costs of poverty, inequality, and oppression would be ameliorated if employers provided
healthy working conditions and paid living wages to their employees.13
In addition, the industrialization and corporatization of agriculture has squeezed out most
small-scale farmers, depressing rural economies and imposing large societal costs on rural
society. These changes are marked by the transition of agriculture to larger farms, each
growing fewer types of crops, and the growing portion of “farmers” who supplement their
farm income with other work. Table 3 below, copied from the USDA’s Amber Waves
journal, quantifies this transition.
13 Living-wage policies are most effective in reducing poverty when they are part of general social welfare and
job training programs. In isolation, they can increase unemployment in the low-wage sector and they can
contribute to inflation.
25
Table 3: 100 years of structural change in U.S. Agriculture (Dimitri and Effland 2005)
1900
1930
1945
1970
Number of Farms (millions) 5.7
6.3
5.9
2.9
Avg. Farm Size (acres)
146
151
195
376
Avg. num of crops per farm
5.1
4.5
4.6
2.7
Farm share of population (%) 39
25
17
5
Rural share of population (%) 60
44
3914
26
15
Off-farm labor
na
100 days 27 %
54%
2000/02
2.1
441
1.3
1
21
93%
These widespread transformations in agriculture have significant consequences for our
relationship to the land, and our cultural identity. These costs are perhaps more amorphous,
but vitally important nonetheless. “At one point ‘agriculture’ was about the culture of food.
Losing that culture--in favor of an American cultural monocrop, joined with an agricultural
monocrop--puts us in a perilous state, threatening sustainability and our relationship to the
natural world” (LaDuke 2006).
Not all farms have comparable impact on their ecological and social surroundings. Larger
farms, those with more industrialized processes, those with more synthetic chemicals, those
that rely on under-compensated laborers, and those that are more energy intensive have
greater impact on the environment. These things do not all go together. There are organic
farms – both large and small – that do not pay fair wages. There are small farms that rely
heavily on chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Current government support programs provide
incentives for harmful farm practices. Commodity crops used as inputs in processed foods
are heavily subsidized. Five crops – wheat, rice, corn, and soy – receive 80% of all
commodity subsidies (Imhoff 2007). If all farms were forced to internalize the
environmental and social costs of their practices, this would drastically change their
incentives in terms of which practices are the most profitable. Because government policies
are in place supporting many of these unsustainable, market-distorting practices, these
farming practices have advantages over more sustainable practices.
The Farm Bill – which Michael Pollan suggests we rename “the Food Bill” – is an omnibus
bill that legislates a wide range of programs, including food stamps, nutrition programs,
income, and price supports for commodity crops, rural development assistance, forestry,
research, energy, and conservation. Daniel Imhoff, author of Food Fight: a Citizen’s Guide to a
Food and Farm Bill, sums it up like this: “This law writes the rules and sets the playing field
for our contemporary food system, determining what we eat, how much it costs, and where
and how it is grown” (2007). The intent of the farm bill originally was to “provide stability in
one of humankind’s most insecure and tempestuous professions and thereby strengthen
rural communities” (Imhoff 2007). During the 1930’s, a surplus of crops drove down prices
and drove farmers into poverty. The Farm Bill was a response to this crisis, an attempt to
encourage farmers to produce less, while maintaining a surplus safety net of grain. In
addition, the farm bill was to ensure a livelihood for family farmers and to provide
affordable food to all Americans (USDA 2006a).
Figure from 1950
The percentages are as follows: 1930, average number of days worked off-farm; 1945, percent of farmers
working off-farm; 1970 and 2000/02, percent of households with off-farm income.
14
15
26
This stated original intent is out of alignment with some components of the current
agricultural situation. One indicator of misalignment is the state of family farms. Today,
there are 2 million farmers in the U.S., but only 350,000 work as full-time farmers. The rest
supplement their farm income with other work (Imhoff 2007 and McMichael 2000). Large
commercial farms make up less than 10% percent of all farms, yet they received about 60%
percent of government payments in 2005 (USDA 2006b). According to the USDA, “This is
a direct result of commodity programs targeting certain types of commodities, which are
often grown on large farms and in large volumes” (USDAb).
Another significant indicator that the farm bill is failing is the discrepancy between what is
being grown and what the nutritional guidelines of the USDA say we should be eating.
Considering that a main component of the USDA’s mission is to expand markets for
agricultural products (USDA 2002), their nutritional guidelines may even be slanted towards
what is being produced. The subsidy structure of the Farm Bill is complicated. (See
Appendix I for further explanation.) In addition to subsidies targeted at specific crops –
which favor commodity crops used as inputs into industrially processed foods – a significant
amount of federal support goes to general programs. According to OECD, about 31% of
total government support to agriculture is through general services support (2005).16 These
subsidies have indirect effects on what is grown. They mainly go to large-scale farms that
grow commodity crops, rather than farms that grow what are referred to as “specialty
crops,” fruits and vegetables (Blumenauer 2007). Subsidizing these general services is a way
to avoid international trade regulation, which claim to be reducing market distortions and
leveling the playing field. Although these subsidies are not considered trade distorting, the
money is still going to the same corporations; the result is that we are not subsidizing the
crops that we ought to be eating; but rather, the ones that corporate agriculture reaps the
most profit from.
Daniel Imhoff offers a critical overview of problems with the Farm Bill:
The Farm Bill matters because it makes some big corporations scandalously rich and
drives other farmers out of rural areas – not just here, but in other countries too. The
Farm Bill makes us fat and produces a vulnerable food system. The Farm Bill legalizes
and supports polluting and destructive practices, then spends millions trying to put
bandages on damage inflicted by past and present programs. The Farm Bill artificially
sets prices and interferes with fair markets, while officials tout the virtues of ‘free
market’ and ‘fair trade.’ Its consequences include poverty, rural exodus, and famine
(Imhoff 2007).
The skewed prices that result from unpaid externalities and subsidized production are
targeted towards certain kids of farms that produce inputs to unhealthy foods. This political
decision to support agri-business and processed foods creates incentives for those farm
practices that result in harm to the environment, to laborers, and to society at large. The
reasoning behind these political decisions are not rational based on the values of healthy
communities, healthy people, and healthy local economies. Instead, they reveal that
politicians’ values are more in line with corporate profit than with supporting family farms,
rural communities, and the healthfulness of the American food supply.
Most of this goes to marketing and promotion. Support for infrastructure and research and development also
make up significant portions of general support.
16
27
VII: MULTIPLE RATIONALITIES
The first assumption of economics that I learned in my 11th grade high school econ class is
this: people are rational. On that first day of class, only 5 minutes into the lesson, I raised my
hand with a head-full of objections. People don’t always act rationally, I tried to explain to
my teacher. I had a hard time arguing that people would act irrationally, so I ended up
conceding that people’s decision-making processes were rational. My underlying hesitations
remained; I was concerned that the premise of rational decision-making would lead
economists to predict rational outcomes, and even if people were rational in some sense, I
didn’t think their rationality was objective or predicable. I started thinking about the idea of
multiple rationalities.
Drewnowski and Darmon critique the educational response to nutrient poor consumption.
They say, “There is a persistent belief that low income consumer have made wrong or
inappropriate food choices and need to be educated, taught, or motivated to behave
otherwise. In reality their food choices are quite rational from an economic standpoint and
are confirmed by computer modeling of diets, once food costs are taken into account”
(2005). Evaluating the different factors that influence different people’s decisions is an
important component to expanding our understanding of rationality. This is only the first
step, however. It is also necessary to incorporate other factors, beyond the economic or the
quantifiable.
Even people like me – relatively well informed about nutritional information, who grew up
with healthy models of food choices, and lives with others who eat nutrient-dense food –
will eat industrially processed, energy-dense, nutrient poor food. On those days when that’s
what I buy at the store or when that’s what I pull out of the cupboard for a snack, there’s
not a very good rational explanation to explain my choice; it’s not because it’s cheaper.
Today I ate three Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies. I don’t think that they are healthy in the
sense of nutrients and energy; they’re pre-packaged, sold by a weird organization that I have
more negative than positive feelings about. Why did I eat them? Not because I don’t have
access to other choices- even other sweet choices if I wanted something sweet. The answer
is hard to quantify, and can’t really be explained by rational decision-making models.
This decision-making model based on rationality is very convenient for an academic analysis.
But, choices made by people don’t always fit into theses models. I ate those Girl Scout
cookies because they tasted good. They reminded me of times in childhood when I ate those
cookies. These other (perhaps non-rational) factors that influenced my decision are rooted in
desire and emotion. The food industry is well aware of these factors in consumption
decisions. In grocery stores, goods that are more likely to be “impulse buys” and less likely
to be “planned buys” are located at the ends of isles, near the entrance, and at the checkout
line. Locating these items here increases the chance that shoppers will pass by them and
decide on impulse to purchase them. Advertising is an important component in this
dynamic. It affects our associations with different foods and changes our emotional
relationships with them.
28
When I’m stressed out or upset, chocolate and other sweet foods are comforting. Some of
these associations are rooted in learned experiences from my family and community. Others
were shaped more by broader cultural influences and advertising. Mashed potatoes, for
example, are an instinctual remedy for homesickness, but I didn’t even grow up eating
mashed potatoes that often. My dad always stuck with baked potatoes. Impulse buys and
comfort foods aren’t irrational consumption, they are just informed by other factors that
aren’t counted in rational-choice models. Because different people have different food
environments and different experiences, their choices cannot be evaluated as right or wrong,
rational or not. Different cultures have different priorities for factors in decision-making.
While convenience is important in some cultures, the ritual of a shared meal is more
important in others. There isn’t one universal rational-choice model for examining people’s
decisions about what to eat.
Emotional associations are about what we eat and what we don’t eat, aren’t constrained to
cookies, chocolate, or mashed potatoes. Health food is rooted in emotional and desire-based
associations with foods, too. Salads are often associated with losing weight and “healthy”
(thin) women. For many people, I would argue, “healthy food” is less about nutritional
wellbeing and is more about not being fat. Nutritional education has taught people that
nutrient-rich foods are “good” and energy-dense foods are “bad.” And then it becomes a
test of will power to see how well one can resist the temptation of bad foods and eat the
good ones instead, thereby proving to be a good person. As someone who thoroughly
enjoys eating vegetables and whole grains, I have some hesitation in saying that the health
food movement is entirely rooted in fat-phobia. So I won’t say, “rooted-in.” How about,
“supported by,” instead?
Emotional associations with food complicate rational-choice models. In microeconomic
theory, individual decisions are modeled by evaluating budget constraints and the utility or
benefit one receives from consuming different goods. (See Appendix II for a more detailed
explanation). Goods have value associated with their functionality and society’s practical
need for them. “Use-value,” Marx’s term for this concept, is related to the utility and benefit
one receives from consuming them. Another trait goods have is “exchange-value”; the value
of a good represented by what it can be traded-for or sold-for. Price is an expression of
exchange value (Giddens 1971). A rational person will maximize their utility or
individualized use-value from consumption given their budget constraint and the exchange
value of the goods they’re consuming. Food is more than its use-value in terms of nutrients
and energy. Many goods – especially food – also have meaning value. Comfort foods are
commonly talked about in terms of the emotional relationships people have with them.
Mashed potatoes, chocolate, and chicken noodle soup are some of my comfort foods (not all
together). When I eat them, it’s rarely for the energy or the nutrients – the utility17 – they
provide, they do have use-value, but they also have strong meaning-value for me. The
meanings that foods hold for different people are a result of their individual experiences with
those foods and the messages they’ve heard from the multiplicity of forces that inform our
understanding of food and eating.
17 Economists would argue that the concept of utility includes all of the value that a consumer derives from
consumption, therefore meaning value is implied. I disagree. Although their qualitative definitions of utility may
incorporate such benefits, there is not enough attention paid to the complexity of meaning value.
29
Considering the significance of nutrition to some people, the urgency of fullness to others,
and the varied importance of emotional food associations, there is not a universal consumerchoice model that can asses the rationality of people’s decisions. A qualitative, individualized
rational choice model will show that there is a class divide between which foods are
“rational” for different people to consume. In general, middle class people chose nutrientrich foods and working-class people chose energy-dense foods. The idea that it is important
for one to “take responsibility for her choices” is rooted in the notion that there are right
and wrong choices, which hinges on a universal framework of rational factors. There are
“more nutritious” and “less nutritious” food choices, but rarely is this a ceteris paribus18
decision. People are not just choosing between more or less nutrition. They choice is
something more like this: food A, which is nutrient-rich, but low in energy, emotionally
associated with skinny white women, and more expensive, or food B, which is energy-dense,
but low in nutrients, and less expensive. My choice will depend on how hungry I am, how I
related to skinny white women, how much money I have, and how relevant nutrition seems.
Common thinking about food choices doesn’t recognize this complexity. Instead, people’s
diets are judged based on certain conditions, which presume particular outcomes. In the
above example, it is assumed that everyone values nutrition over fullness, desires (to be or to
have) skinny white women, and has enough money to afford both options. Given these
conditions (of a standard white, middle-class rationality structure), food A is clearly the
rational choice. For people that chose food B, then, dominant society blames them for
making poor choices. Saying, in effect, that it’s their fault they couldn’t restrain themselves
from indulging. While restraint and guilt may be the dynamics that shape middle-class
associations with the food Bs of the world, this is not everyone’s experience, and it is not for
lack of willpower that people eat energy-dense foods.
Our education and our culture, give us the knowledge to feel guilty about choices that we
make. And then we impose our rationalities onto working class people and people of color,
and judge them for making the “wrong” choice on a daily basis. To better understand why
people eat what they do, all of the factors that influence their eating patterns should be
included in any “rational-choice model.” This means expanding utility to incorporate both
use-value and meaning-value. It’s essential to recognize the emotional associations that
different people have with food and how they intersect with their economic constraints.
Furthermore, the tendency to apply one set of factors – specifically those common to white,
middle-class food experiences – to all people is detrimental and promotes classism and
racism. The objective must not be to spread guilt-associations with certain foods, but to
respectfully understand the constraints limiting people’s diets and hindering their wellbeing
in order to address these issues on a broad scale.
Ceteris paribus is a Latin term, which means “all else equal,” and is used in economics to evaluate changes to
one factor in isolation. It is analogous to the scientific method’s isolation of one independent variable, except
that in economics, other variables are just hypothetically assumed to stay constant; there is no control.
18
30
VIII: A CRITICAL LOOK AT EDUCATION
There is a strong sense that if people only knew better, they would make better choices. Knowing
that “fat is bad” or that “vegetables are good” doesn’t change people’s food consumption on
its own. Over the past 50 years, there has been widespread nutrition education, and most
people “know” about fat and vegetables, but – depending on other factors (especially socioeconomic status), a lot of people are eating more fat and fewer vegetables (Nestle 1998).
Education ignores the meaningfulness of food. It is focused mainly on lecturing about
nutrition. Energy-dense foods are about taste, and feeling full for not many dollars. It is not
as though people thought they were eating nutrient-rich foods. Telling people that these
foods aren’t nutritious won’t change their relationship with them.
Although I believe that focusing on individuals’ choices without examining and critiquing
the structures that surround their choices is shallow an ineffective, I do not entirely dismiss
educational efforts. Many forces that make-up one’s food environment do so indirectly,
though influencing perceptions, values, and emotional relationships with foods. Educational
efforts can redress skewed understandings of food and nutrition, can promote familiarity
with new foods, and can provide food preparation skills. In addition, education can give
people tools to think critically about the forces that shape their food environments by
teaching people to examine on advertising and cultural norms.
From several different people I’ve heard a similar anecdote about food pantries. After giving
out baskets of free food, filled with food charity donations and USDA surplus foods, at the
end of the night the food pantry worker heads out back to find items of food piled up by the
dumpster. The mom left behind the food she didn’t think her kids would eat; the Chicano
man left behind the bag of flour, not knowing how to cook from scratch; the immigrant who
doesn’t read English or the illiterate person left behind any canned foods that didn’t have
pictures of the food on the front. In these example it’s not access barriers that are inhibiting
food consumption, but a lack of knowledge or skills. Education can’t solve all of the
problems with food banks’ distribution practices, but it has the potential to make a
significant difference with some.
Though improving food skills and nutrition knowledge is not enough in itself to change
food consumption and food insecurities, food skills and nutrition knowledge are important
pieces of this change. Even in economic theory, consumer education is considered an
important part of optimizing markets. When consumers have imperfect information, they
are not able to accurately judge the costs and benefits of different choices and the market
outcome will be sub-optimal. This is one form of market failure (Goodstein 1999).
Food insecure people are usually from marginalized groups and don’t have as much control
over their lives as the people who might be educating them; the power dynamic in this
relationship is challenging. Many people respond defensively to nutritional education,
because it is likely to come off as patronizing, especially when educators are not sensitive to
external forces that are influencing people’s current food patterns. For example, telling
someone that vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet is going to be less effective if
that person doesn’t have access to vegetables at their neighborhood food store. “Unhealthy
31
eating habits are not a question of ignorance but are often determined by societal and
economic constraints, education, and income” (Drewnowski 2002). When education
acknowledges and responds to these factors and how they influence food consumption, it
has more potential to be effective. Education is most powerful when it avoids victim
blaming; when it is culturally appropriate; and when it is relevant to what people want to
know and relates to actions that are feasible for them to take. If it is used appropriately, it
has the potential to be a very powerful grassroots, community-building method of redressing
some components of food environment injustices.
Environmental Justice leader, Robert Bullard sees education as part of a strategy to effect
broad structural change. He says,
If all the politically disenfranchised and vulnerable members of society – impoverished
people, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, women, children – had access to
environmental information and could exercise their right to free speech, then potential
polluters and profligate consumers would no longer be able to treat them as expendable
and would have to seek alternatives to polluting activities and overconsumption (Bullard
2005).
This relates to our interaction with food environments, too. If everyone had knowledge and
skills necessary to eat healthy foods, it’s likely that there would be more challenges levied
against the structures that currently constrain food access.
Ashlee Kleinhammer, a graduate of Lewis & Clark’s Environmental Studies Program,
researched food educational efforts in the Portland area. She found that many people who
are currently involved in sustainable food advocacy or local food systems work, their
awareness of food issues “stemmed from their upbringing. Influenced at an early age by
gardening, or instilled with a general environmental ethic, people who grew up with such
awareness ended up playing an active part in food security later in life” (Kleinhammer 2006).
Many programs in Portland seek to instill a connection to homegrown food in young people.
School gardens can be a great avenue for food education. Students learn to grow their own
food, which has great potential for combating food and nutritional insecurities19. They can
gain familiarity with different vegetables in a non-judgmental context. If food gardens are
incorporated into schooling over long periods of time, these lessons can be incorporated
into food patterns and associations. One of the main problems with nutritional awareness
today is that it is disconnected from people’s actions. “The level of nutrition knowledge
today is relatively high, but many people do not know how to apply it nor are they motivated
to change” (Nestle 1998). If learning about nutrition comes through interactions with food
and the experience of producing food for oneself, the awareness is more likely to affect
change.
Many people in the health food or sustainable-food movements use food education as a tool
to create more allies. They often use methods that evoke guilt and impose one set of
rationalities onto people with different factors influencing their decisions. Education is
important. Knowing about the nutrition and health effects of different foods, and knowing
what’s in our food and where it comes from allow people to make more informed decisions,
19 One example of individual gardens combating widespread food insecurity is the significant role they played
in Cubans’ survival during the Special Period’s near-famine after the collapse of their trading partner, the Soviet
Union.
32
but knowing about them doesn’t change any of the other factors that influence people’s
decisions. And if the other constraints are still in place, education might not produce much
more than guilt and shame for eating the "wrong" foods. Unless educational efforts respect
the class and racial differences in rationalities, they aren’t going to motivate any changes in
consumption behaviors
Another important consideration concerning nutrition education is that there is no one
formulaic nutritious diet that everyone should eat. Nutritional information is often cited
from the USDA’s dietary guidelines, but these guidelines are not based on nutrition science
alone. “Dietary guidelines necessarily are political compromises between with science tells us
about nutrition and health and what is good for the food industry” (Nestle 2002). In
addition to working within the political constraints of the food industry’s interests, the
physical constraints of what food is available, food education must relate to the cultural and
social contexts that shape how people evaluate nutrition.
In order for this alliance between the health-conscious, the environmentally conscious, and
the food insecure to be successful, the “food movement” has to undertake some changes.
Research shows that providing information about health risks of certain foods doesn’t have
large impacts on food consumption behaviors unless it overcomes “counteracting
physiological, behavioral, and environmental barriers” (Nestle 1998). The food movement
cannot just educate and inform food-insecure people demanding that they make better
choices and expecting their support and alliance. The movement has a greater responsibility
to redefine itself and its priorities to address the multitude of barriers – beyond
informational – that prevent people from healthy and nourishing diets. Not only will this
shift in priorities strengthen the movement and allow it to address the core issues of food
insecurity, it will also be more effective in changing people’s diets. When educational efforts
do not reinforce the structural power dynamics that cause food insecurity, they can be
powerful tools for change.
33
IV: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
Throughout my research for this paper, I ran into a countless number of questions, many of
them I raised and explored here, others I will leave to further explorations at a later time. In
this paper, I discussed the food environment in the United States- in terms of the physical,
financial, and emotional constraints to accessing nutritious foods that many people face. In
addition, I have considered some of the broader structural forces shaping these
environmental factors, including governmental policies and dominant cultural norms. In the
sections on rationalities and education, I consider some of the obstacles that reinforce the
divide between the food insecure and the health food movement. To conclude, I return to
my original questions: Why is food insecurity no longer correlated with emaciation as much
as it is with being overweight? Why are some groups disproportionately affected? And, what
forces shape our food environments?
Food environments affect different people in different ways, and disadvantaged groups are
overall more susceptible to environmental pressures to eat energy-dense foods.
• The distribution of grocery stores according to neighborhood characteristics of poverty
and race, and the absence of nutritious foods from other food retailers is a major
component in disparate access challenges to different groups.
• The price structure of filling, processed foods provides economic incentives for people
to have energy-dense, nutrient diets, major contributing factors to nutritional insecurity
and obesity.
• Nutritional education is framed in a white, middle-class perspective on food. So these
messages are more easily received by white, middle-class people. A lot of food
consumption “restraint” and “will power” are based in guilt relating to the perceived
paradox of “want amid plenty.” Privileged people are more likely to identify with this
idea of “plenty”; they are more connect to this guilt, and these messages resonate with
them most.
• I have not done a thorough enough analysis to form conclusions about the differences in
food insecurity and obesity levels among different disadvantaged groups. I can’t answer
the question, why do black women and Hispanic men have higher rates of obesity than
black men do. What I can conclude from these differences is that race, ethnicity, gender,
location, and many other demographic characteristics interact with food environments in
unique ways. Socio-economic characteristics are strongly correlated with food security
levels; there are important, if not transparent, relationships between these characteristics
and food.
I now offer a new question: what can be done to shape our food environments to encourage
healthily lifestyles for everyone? How can we address the shifting paradox – from “want
amid plenty” to “overfed but undernourished”? What can be done to reduce the
disproportionate impacts on select groups? These are big questions, and really, it’s quite late
in my paper to be bringing them up now. I cannot answer them satisfactorily, but what
follows are my ideas about where to start.
I’ll begin with the political systems that provide incentives for the agricultural practices that
underwrite the pricing structure and incentives for the financial constraints to accessing
34
nutritious foods for many people. The programs outlined by the Farm Bill are more
supportive of profit-minded corporations than struggling working-class people, farmers or
otherwise. Many people push for ending the subsidies on commodity crops. They argue that
we should stop using taxpayer money to pay corporations to grow crops like corn, soy,
cotton, wheat, and rice. These commodity crops mostly aren’t feeding Americans, and to the
extent that they are incorporated into foods we eat, they’re often in the form of added sugars
and fats- foods that are contributing to poor nutrition. Is ending subsidies the way to align
the prices of processed foods with the “real cost” of growing and processing all of its
ingredients?
Many groups across the political spectrum call for restructuring the subsidy system; a good
number of them call for eliminating it. Economist Joseph Stiglitz explains the harm in
agricultural subsidies. He says, “When subsidies lead to increased production with little
increase in consumption, as is typical with agricultural commodities, higher output translates
directly into higher exports. Higher exports translate directly into lower prices for producers.
And lower prices for producers translate directly into lower incomes for farmers and more
poverty among poor farmers in the Third World” (Stiglitz 2006).
I don't think that ending subsidies is the best solution, but I do believe that government
support to agriculture should be fundamentally restructured. Subsidies should be supporting
farming practices that do not have excessive negative externalities on the air, water, land, or
people. Our policies should support low-input farms that pollute less, compensate workers
fairly, and contribute positively to communities. Crop specific policies should be designed to
support nutritious foods. Perhaps the USDA could reorient its policies so that its nutrition
guidelines are not influenced by the agriculture industries political motivations, and instead,
the nutrition guidelines could influence the agriculture industry. As Farm Bill critic Daniel
Imhoff says, “Our challenge is not to abolish subsidies altogether, but to ensure that the
subsidies we do choose to legislate actually serve as valuable investments in the country’s
future and allow us to live up to our obligations in the global community” (2007).
A restructuring like this will have huge ramifications for industrialized agriculture. The
The foods that are the most nutritious and the foods that are grown by small farms for local
communities are not the ones the US exports. The importance of international trade and
countries’ balance of payments is an unavoidable influence on domestic economic policy.
Perhaps, however, if US production shifted away from export-oriented crops, other
countries would be able to adopt similar policies aimed at feeding themselves. In the current
international trade environment, rich-countries’ subsidized grains flood the world market
and undermine agricultural industries for developing nations.
There would also be huge implications for the diets of Americans. Processed food, exotic
food, food made from corn and soy, would be more expensive. This would have huge
ramifications on the incentive structure for consumers purchasing decisions. What if energydense foods were more expensive than nutrient-rich foods? People with significant budget
constraints would have incentives to buy nutrient-rich foods. Is this the promise to ending
malnutrition, obesity, heart disease, and diabetes?
In my opinion, addressing the constraints facing nutritionally insecure people is the best way
to move towards food security for all. Because pricing structures currently impose a barrier
35
on nutrient-rich diets, restructuring the government support programs in such a way that
lowers the prices of nutrient rich foods is indeed a promising tactic to address nutritional
inequities.
Incentive structure shifts should not just be limited to the quantifiable or the market-based.
Shifts must also be made in education and in our cultural relationship to food and with
eating. The health-food movement and the sustainable food movement must be more
inclusive and respectful of people’s different life experiences and different relationships to
food. There needs to be increased awareness about the dynamics of food security and the
factors that influence food consumption patterns for different people. It is imperative to
reduce the stigma around obesity. The current conceptions of obesity are harmful and
disabling, leaving people divided and disempowered.
More attention should be paid to unpacking our emotional associations with foods. In what
ways does eating ice cream provide comfort when I’m feeling lonely, and to what extent
does it leave me feeling unsatisfied? Exploring the roots of food guilt and shame will provide
space to uncover the assumptions and associations that we have with different foods.
Knowing this, allows people to better asses their own food consumption as well as their
presumptions about others’ diets. In addition to uncovering the biases and assumptions that
shape our stigmas and associations with foods and with body size, this work must be taken a
step further. We must respond to the classism and racism and other prejudices that shape
these biases. This takes hard work, but I believe that it is an essential component of a new
food movement, rooted in justice.
The effects of the current food environment are affecting all of us. People of color, people
in poverty, people with less education, and others with fewer privileges are more likely to
suffer ill effects from these environmental conditions. The goal, however, is not just to
provide salad bars alongside vending machines in inner city high schools or to teach
consumers about the value of nutrients; the goal must be to fundamentally change the
structure of this system which disconnects price from cost from value and disconnects food
from nourishment from satiety. From here we can move forward to a more equitable, secure
food environment for everyone.
36
APPENDIX I: THE FARM BILL
Historically, government support to agriculture was based in price supports, where the
government agreed to buy grains from farmers at a certain price. If the market price fell
below that level, the government would buy up the surplus and store the grain to be
distributed in times of shortages. Today’s farm bill – the Farm Security and Rural Investment
Act of 2002 – continues price support programs for some “traditional” commodities, such
as dairy, sugar, and field crops, but “specialty crops,” such as fruits and vegetables, receive
very limited price supports (USDA 2006b). Price supports are not the only form of
subsidies, however. Other subsidies include the following:
•
Income support, which is made up of these programs (USDA 2006a):
o Direct payments to farmers who historically produced certain crops.20 The
payments are based on historical yields and are not connected to current farming
practices.
o Counter-cyclical payments (CCPs), which are related to historical yields of certain
crops21, like direct payments. Unlike direct payments, they are paid only when
prices for the historic commodity falls below a certain level. Because CCPs are
unrelated to current production, farmers will receive them even if they are not
currently producing these crops.
o “Milk income loss contract” is an income support for dairy producers that are
paid when dairy prices fall below a certain level.
o Marketing assistance loans and loan deficiency payments for specified crops.22
• Commodity Trade Measures
o Tariffs to lower the prices of certain imported goods23 in order to keep
domestically produced goods competitively priced.
o Export subsidies to keep export prices of dairy and low to be competitive in
international trade
Fig. 3 (USDA 2006b)
The average payments received by farms
depend greatly on their size. Figure 3 to
the right shows the average payments to
different sized farms. Direct payments
make up the largest portion of subsidies
to commercial and intermediate farms.
Small farms’ government payments are
mostly from the conservation program
(USDA 2006b).
Wheat, feed grains (corn, barley, oats, and sorghum),
rice, cotton, oilseeds (soy, sunflower, canola, crambe, rape, safflower, sesame, mustard, and flax), or peanuts
21 Same crops as listed above
22 Wheat, rice, corn, grain sorghum, barley, oats, upland cotton, soybeans, sunflower seed, canola, rapeseed,
safflower, mustard seed, flaxseed, peanuts, mohair, wool, honey, small chickpeas, lentils, and dry peas
23 Mostly peanuts, tobacco, beef, dairy, sugar, cotton, and some of their related products
20
37
Fig. 4 (USDA 2006b)
Figure 4 to the left shows levels of
direct payments for some of the more
heavily subsidized crops.
Agricultural subsidies are divided into three categories based on their relationship to
international trade regulations. The categories are amber, blue, and green.
• Amber subsidies are considered trade distorting; they include market price support,
direct payments, and input subsidies because these programs are considered to affect
production quantities. Most “developing” nations rely heavily on amber subsidies
because they are easy to implement and they give the government more control over the
outcome of production (WTO 2002 and USDA 2007).
• Blue subsidies include those that limit production. European nations rely on blue
subsidies more than many other regions (Oxfam 2005 and USDA 2000).
• Green subsidies are defined as those that are “minimally trade distorting.” This includes
research support, environmental and conservation programs, crop insurance, domestic
food assistance, and direct payments. Most of US support programs are in this category.
These programs are “decoupled” from production, which means that they should not
provide incentives for overproduction (USDA 2007).
Fig. 5 (USDA 2000)
Counter-cyclical payments are decoupled
from current production levels, but they are
connected to current prices, so they are
potentially trade distorting, despite being
categorized in the green box. The price floor
for these payments is set higher than average
prices for many crops, which results in
continual payments, not just in the offseason (Oxfam 2005).
Currently, blue and green subsidies are not
limited by international trade agreements. In
industrialized countries, Amber subsidies are
limited to 5% of agricultural, and in poor
countries, they’re limited to 10% of their agricultural production (WTO 2002). Amber
38
subsidies are easier for poor countries to implement because they do not require as much
infrastructure as green box subsidies do. So these trade policies are unfairly disadvantaging
poor countries.
Rhetoric around trade policies emphasizes the problems with subsidy structures that
promote overproduction, leading to dumping of cheap grains on the international market.
Policies are supposed to prevent dumping and to promote market access to developing
nations (WTO 2002). They are not quite living up to this standard. Current policies are trade
distorting, favoring large-scale producers over small, commodity growers over specialty crop,
and rich nations over poor ones.
39
APPENDIX II: MICROECONOMIC CONSUMER CHOICE MODELS
Indifference curves are represented below in Fig. 6 as curves 11, 12, and 13. Each
indifference curve represents a level of utility that is received by a combination of goods X
and Y. Movement along an indifference curve, by changing the combination of goods
consumed, retains a constant level of utility. Moving from one indifference curve to another
indifference curve reflects a changed level of utility: moving outward is related to greater
consumption and greater utility.
A budget constraint is depicted by line BC. According to consumer-choice theory, as
depicted in figure 6, a person will maximize their utility buy consuming the particular
combination of goods X and Y, where their budget constraint reaches the highest utility
curve. In this graph they consume X* and Y* where BC intersects U12.
Fig. 6
(Wikipedia 2007 Consumer Theory)
The assumption with this model is that more X and more Y equate to more utility or
satisfaction. Although many people do believe that more clothes, more cars, and more stuff
contributes to more happiness, this tenuous and problematic assumption has an especially
difficult time transferring to food consumption. At a certain point, the diminishing marginal
utility of “more food” diminishes fast. Instead of buying more food, people are buying
fullness- to a certain point, then nutrition, comfort, health, tastiness, skinniness, family and
all of the other things that people associate with food.
Rational consumer-choice analysis incorporates the exchange value of goods- in terms of its
price by where the budget line intersection is, and it incorporates the relative use-value of
goods by the position and slope of the utility curves. But it has a hard time assuming the
meaning-value of foods for different people. More nutrition and more skinniness don’t
always look like more food, certainly not in the same way that more fullness and more
tastiness do. In addition, because each person’s experiences are unique, they cannot be well
generalized or quantified for mapping on these consumer-choice graphs.
40
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