To start off, what are food deserts? The official definition of food deserts are the areas where people have limited access to healthful and affordable food due to low income or having to travel far to find healthful food options. To be a food desert, 33% or more of the population has to live more than 1 mile from the nearest large grocery store. Food deserts is also tied to food insecurity. Food insecurity is defined as limited or insecure access to food because of financial constraints.

Food deserts aren't just located in urban areas. Food deserts also include rural areas where inhabitants do not have access to healthful foods, driving far to find sustainable food sources. Food Deserts stem from transportation problems. Inhabitants of urban food deserts usually don't have a car or any private transportation method while rural food deserts are usually due to long distances.

Food Deserts are also characterized by many fast food franchises. These fast food franchises heavily benefit off of malnourished populations whereas other businesses are forced to close. These factors topple like Domino's © ; nutrition is a core human need, so why does it have to be so hard for people to come by?

Food Deserts, as touched upon above, cause sizeable negative effects to the people in it. These disadvantages pile up as in some areas in the United States, a person living in a higher-end neighborhood, on average, may live up to 13 years longer than another person in a food desert. 13 years.

Another problematic effect of food deserts is obesity. Due to the large distance between the customer and the grocery store, the customer is inclined to buy frozen foods, canned items, and processed foods instead of fresh fruits, vegetables, and more. There's a reason why the obesity map (bottom) lines up perfectly with the food desert map (top).

Overall, Food Deserts are a small part of a bigger picture. These food deserts are the same areas that lack adequate healthcare, high rates of homelessness and poverty, and more. Solving food deserts won't solve the bigger picture, but it's a step in the right direction.

A solution to food deserts isn't as clear as one might expect. Just one solution won't do the trick, but many solutions, working together, may bring prosperity to those in need. The solutions include education, increased availability of healthy foods, increased transportation, and affordability.

Education: To start off, educating the people of food deserts is essential for the rest of the methods to work. By educating them about the benefits of healthy foods, the people of food deserts will start to seek out healthy foods on their own, whether that be through a home garden or simply making the effort to receive it. By educating people on healthy foods, newly inserted grocery stores in the area will become more effective as more people will purchase items from the store, whether that be fresh produce or the deli.

Increasing the Availability of Healthful Foods : For education and affordability to be accomplished, healthy foods have to become widespread first. Implementing grocery stores into food deserts will eliminate the food desert ONLY if the people start using the grocery store; this is where the other factors come in.

Increased Transportation: Keep in mind that food deserts in urban and rural areas are when the grocery store is over 15 minutes away. By improving access to the grocery store, the citizens of food deserts are more inclined to visit the grocery store, leading to the purchases of healthy food. Increased transportation can serve multiple purposes as well, such as job access, and a faster path to essential services.

Affordability: Throughout modern times, healthy food has always been more expensive than other types of foods, primarily processed foods. By improving the affordability of healthy foods, the likelihood of the citizens in malnourished areas to buy healthy food greatly increases. Affordability is the greatest obstacle to the solution of food deserts as if the people of food deserts can't afford to buy the foods in the first place, the rest of the solutions are virtually useless.

Overall, if all these factors are used together, the impacts of food deserts will be greatly reduced. Affordability, leading the way, followed by education and transportation will lead to substantial results, shown through the newly implemented grocery stores!

One major problem of food deserts is actually getting established businesses into food deserts. At the end of the day, why would a business want to be placed in an area that would make less profit than other?

Solutions to this problem aren't proven, but could put the problem well on its way to being solved. Solutions to introduce businesses to the area could be:

• The solutions listed above - these solutions can improve access to healthy food and at the same time, businesses as well

• Incentives from the government - incentives to start up the business can lead to more and more businesses to be introduced to the area

• By employing the people of the community and appealing to the local population, businesses can act as much more than just a business, bringing people together and also bringing success to the business

Overall, the problem of food deserts is much more than just access to healthy foods; it stems from access to jobs, living conditions, healthcare problems and more. Solving a food desert is only one step in giving the people in worse-off areas a chance to succeed.