{"id":27218,"date":"2022-10-20T14:31:40","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T18:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/goebt.com\/food-deserts-and-how-you-can-increase-access-to-foods\/"},"modified":"2025-04-01T09:31:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T13:31:38","slug":"food-deserts-and-how-you-can-increase-access-to-foods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goebt.com\/food-deserts-and-how-you-can-increase-access-to-foods\/","title":{"rendered":"Food Deserts and How You Can Increase Access to Foods"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Food deserts are defined by the USDA as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ers.usda.gov\/amber-waves\/2011\/december\/data-feature-mapping-food-deserts-in-the-us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ee8723;\">\u201clow-income census tracts with a substantial number or share of residents with low levels of access to retail outlets selling healthy and affordable foods.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/a><strong><span style=\"color: #ee8723;\"> In <\/span><\/strong><span style=\"color: #57575b;\">food deserts it is extremely difficult for kids, families, and communities to access foods that promote health and strength. There are many ways to prevent food deserts, but the first step is increasing access to c-stores, grocery stores, supermarkets, bodegas, farmers markets, etc. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #57575b;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #57575b;\">According to the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aecf.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ee8723;\">Annie E. Casey Foundation<\/span><\/strong><\/a><strong><span style=\"color: #ee8723;\">,<\/span><\/strong><span style=\"color: #57575b;\"> food deserts are commonly found in areas with\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff9902;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ff9902;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aecf.org\/blog\/exploring-americas-food-deserts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Smaller populations<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff9902;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: none;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9902;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aecf.org\/blog\/exploring-americas-food-deserts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Higher rates of abandoned\/vacant home<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff9902;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: none;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9902;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aecf.org\/blog\/exploring-americas-food-deserts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Residents who have lower incomes, lower levels of education, and higher rates of unemployment<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #57575b;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #57575b;\">Nearly<\/span> <strong><span style=\"color: #ee8723;\">39.5 <\/span><\/strong><strong><span style=\"color: #ee8723;\">million <\/span><\/strong><strong><span style=\"color: #ee8723;\">people in the United States are living in low-income or low-access areas,<\/span><\/strong><span style=\"color: #57575b;\"> according to USDA research. <\/span><strong><span style=\"color: #ee8723;\">There are approximately 6,500 food deserts in the United States that are impacting 13.5 million people that live directly in these food deserts.<\/span><\/strong> <span style=\"color: #57575b;\">That is a large number of people living with limited access to nutritious foods that are crucial to proper health and development.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #57575b;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aecf.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ee8723;\">Annie E. Casey Foundation,<\/span><\/strong><\/a> Researchers identify food deserts by factoring in a variety of things including\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff9902;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ff9902;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aecf.org\/blog\/exploring-americas-food-deserts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"text-decoration: none;\">Access to food, as measured by distance to a store or by the number of stores in an area <\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff9902;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: none;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9902;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aecf.org\/blog\/exploring-americas-food-deserts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Household resources, including family income and vehicle availability <\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff9902;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: none;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9902;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aecf.org\/blog\/exploring-americas-food-deserts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Neighborhood resources, such as average neighborhood income and access to public transportation<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 0.2in;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ee8723;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 0.2in;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #002060;\">How can you help?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #57575b;\">If you are a store owner, apply to accept <span style=\"color: #ff9902;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9902;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.goebt.com\/ebt-resources\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">EBT benefits <\/a><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #57575b;\">Try to increase access to stores in these areas by encouraging improved public transportation systems<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #57575b;\">If you are a c-store owner in a food desert,<span style=\"color: #ff9902;\"> <a style=\"color: #ff9902;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.goebt.com\/fns-ebt-stocking-requirements-category-a-and-b\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">add more fresh foods to your inventory <\/a><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #57575b;\">If you are a <span style=\"color: #ff9902;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9902;\" href=\"\/ebt-for-farmers-markets-is-a-snap\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">farmer, consider setting up a market<\/a><\/span> or pop-up stand in these areas several times a month <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #57575b;\">Get involved with your community to promote increased access to healthy foods in these areas and work to add more stores in the area and educate community leaders on the importance of access to healthy foods<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff9902;\"><a style=\"text-decoration: none; color: #ff9902;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ers.usda.gov\/amber-waves\/2011\/december\/data-feature-mapping-food-deserts-in-the-us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Learn More About Food Deserts<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Food deserts are defined by the USDA as \u201clow-income census tracts with a substantial number or share of residents with low levels of access to retail outlets selling healthy and affordable foods.\u201d In food deserts it is extremely difficult for kids, families, and communities to access foods that promote health and strength. There are many [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":244,"featured_media":27219,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[197,208,202,201,206,196],"class_list":["post-27218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-announcement","tag-featured","tag-industry-news-usda-fns","tag-retailer-trends","tag-retailer-trends-c-stores-convenience-stores","tag-retailer-trends-for-farmers-markets","tag-retailer-trends-for-grocers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goebt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goebt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goebt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goebt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/244"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goebt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27218"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/goebt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31091,"href":"https:\/\/goebt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27218\/revisions\/31091"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goebt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goebt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goebt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goebt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}