Among the wacky ideas held by many urban planners is the notion that “food deserts”–that is, areas of cities without supermarkets–contribute to obesity. According to this theory, people who lack access to supermarkets eat many unhealthy meals at fast food restaurants. This reasoning is used to justify subsidies to supermarkets–often financed through TIF–in those areas.
However, the Los Angeles Times reports that a new study from the University of North Carolina Nutrition Transition program finds that merely putting a supermarket in the middle of a food desert won’t change people’s eating habits.
The Antiplanner checked the home page for Barry Popkin, the author of the UNC study. He’s found that the entire world is getting fat, not just those “auto-dependent” Americans. The average body-mass index (BMI for an American six-year-old is 22.2; the average for a six-year-old in China–which has one-sixth as many cars per capita as the United States–is 24.8. So much for the idea that rebuilding America to look more like Europe or Asia will cure us of our obesity. Continue reading
