Dessert in the desert: food policy myth.

• Author: Mangu-Ward, Katherine
• Position: Citings - Food desert concept - Brief article

ACCORDING TO the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), about 23.5 million Americans live in "food deserts"--areas with limited access to fresh food. But a 2011 study in the Archives of Internal Medicine finds that government policies designed to eliminate food deserts by encouraging grocery stores to open in poor neighborhoods or expand their produce offerings won't amount to a hill of beans.

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The study, led by epidemiologist Janne Boone-Heinonen, followed 5,000 young and middle-aged adults for 15 years and found that proximity to a grocery store or supermarket did not increase consumption of healthy food. Boone-Heinonen and her five co-authors say these results "suggest that adding...