08 August 2011

Food deserts in NJ

The federal government has identified 134 food deserts in NJ, reports the Star-Ledger.  Not only do these neighborhoods, lacking sufficient healthy food availability, increase a risk for malnourishment but they also increase the risk for obesity.  The article does a really good job of showing how dependent some residents are on external help for getting access to food.  But solutions like community gardens and better planning need their day too.


2 comments:

Puk said...

Nice maps.

Bill Wolfe said...

Thanks for posting this David.

I was going to write about it -

I was wondering why the Star Ledger waited for and wrote about a federal study, adn why they left some majro issues incompeltely addressed.

Rutgers has done similar work, that looks at not only at food locations, but spatially probes environmental justice and obesity link to food and recreational opportunity.

I read the studies but need to dig up the links.

Maybe Rutgers isn't promoting this work?

The Rutgers work sounded a lot like Prof. Bullard's take I heard presented recently at Drew. See:
http://www.wolfenotes.com/2010/02/father-of-environmental-justice-movement-speaks-at-drew/