Food deserts are areas where people have limited access to fresh produce and healthy, affordable food choices. Many of those living in food deserts are poor and their food budget is limited. This is why they return to fast food and cheap processed foods. The root of the problem lies in issues of race and poverty, as the gap grows between wealthy white people in power and poor people of color. Some offer simple solutions to the problem, such as planting a vegetable garden, while others consider alternative food programs, but for lasting change, lawmakers will have to address the issue. Examining the Impacts of Food Deserts and Dietary Imbalances on Public Health: Mari Gallagher Mari Gallagher, a former technology company president, has shifted her focus to public health and urban planning, focusing on food deserts in the United States to provide feasible solutions. He uses his background in business and development to address food access issues in a sustainable way. Her qualitative and quantitative research projects in urban areas across the United States have led to her current method of block-by-block planning, as she states, “the vitality and health of any urban community is a block-by-block phenomenon” (5 ). Use information collected directly from these blocks along with the census tract to construct maps and color code them to demonstrate the large amount of areas living in an area of food imbalance. The balance score given to the cities you research is calculated based on the number of fringe versus health food stores that are close to and accessible to each city block. Gallagher defines a food desert as "a large, continuous area with little access to traditional grocery stores" and a food imbalance as a food desert where...... at the center of the paper ......issues of food justice particularly with food deserts. While they all mention poverty as the primary and deepest problem, they also recognize race, culture, and class as other systemic issues that attribute to the inequalities of today's food system. Gallagher's block-by-block methodology is innovative and successful, as seen in both his research and some of Winne's stories. Winne's book aligns with Gallagher's article in that they both promote food alternatives and programs to assist people living in food deserts. While Winne warns readers to be wary of some programs, Guthman dismisses most, arguing that these programs tend not to the wants and needs of the community, but to those of outsiders, white people. Winne and Gallagher's more promising accounts offer more small- and large-scale solutions, but Guthman's analysis of such programs must be taken into account.
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