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“Food Deserts” not the Obesity Culprit
Center for Consumer Freedom ^ | March 9, 2012

Posted on 03/09/2012 8:07:01 PM PST by caldera599

Among the food-related bogeymen that activists blame for America’s bulging waistlines is the so-called “food desert,” an urban or rural area that has a shortage of supermarkets. At first blush, it might seem like living in one of these “deserts” would to reduce a person’s access to fresh fruits and vegetables. However, there’s little evidence that these conditions are actually preventing people from finding nutritious foods if they want them. Regardless, activists ask for “supermarket subsidies” and restaurant zoning prohibitions. But there’s now more evidence that “food deserts” aren’t causing America’s kids to get fat.

Researchers from the RAND Corporation investigated whether the closeness of various types of food sellers to schools and homes of California children was associated with purchases of various foods. Sure enough, the researchers found no robust correlations. The research team speculated that the absence of a relationship might have something to do with how even the food-desert dweller gets around. As Roland Sturm, an economist who co-authored the study, told The Washington Post:

(Excerpt) Read more at consumerfreedom.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: fooddeserts; foodpolice; liberallunacy; obesity
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1 posted on 03/09/2012 8:07:04 PM PST by caldera599
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To: caldera599
From personal experience as a kid if it came down to eating a carrot or having some candy guess what I'd go for the candy. surprise surprise!
2 posted on 03/09/2012 8:11:39 PM PST by guitarplayer1953 (Grammar & spelling maybe wrong, get over it, the world will not come to an end!)
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To: caldera599

Too much food is causing them to get fat. And they’re not just fat. Their feet and hands are enormous. I think it’s hormones in the milk.


3 posted on 03/09/2012 8:12:38 PM PST by La Lydia
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To: caldera599

why do banks and supermarkets avoid remaining in biz in hip-hop hoods...?

We ALL know the reason.


4 posted on 03/09/2012 8:13:30 PM PST by gaijin
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To: caldera599

I look around my neighborhood and it is empty. When my kids were young there were children everywhere. I live across the street from the park, most children only go there with their parents. The world is a different place when children have to wait to play outside until their parents have time to take them there. Why are they not all over their yards running and playing their hearts out? That’s a bigger problem than eating. Heck, an Amish family eats all wrong, yet are thin. They physically work hard, we don’t anymore.
There is far more to this than eating.


5 posted on 03/09/2012 8:17:00 PM PST by tioga
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To: caldera599

yawn - some day the nursing homes will be filled with liberals who did without good tasting food so they could sit in some nursing home hallway in their little wheel chairs - wishing they had taken those extra pieces of pizza....


6 posted on 03/09/2012 8:19:07 PM PST by GOPJ (Democrat-Media Complex - buried stories and distorted facts... freeper 'andrew' Breitbart)
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To: tioga
There is far more to this than eating.

You're right on this... but liberals have to have some 'moral' thing to make them feel superior - and since they've given up on virtue, honesty, the soul, religion, morals - what do they have left? Food. That's why they talk about it all the time. They are sooooooo boring.

7 posted on 03/09/2012 8:22:06 PM PST by GOPJ (Democrat-Media Complex - buried stories and distorted facts... freeper 'andrew' Breitbart)
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To: gaijin

Super-liberal places where they can’t legally defend themselves. Are they stupid or sumfin, NO.


8 posted on 03/09/2012 8:26:49 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Sometimes progressives find their scripture in the penumbra of sacred bathroom stall writings (Tzar))
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To: caldera599
>>The research team speculated that the absence of a relationship might have something to do with how even the food-desert dweller gets around.<<

Well that was solved in my desert. There is a vehicle to transport folks for free to and from the grocery.

I guess those who need it know the times for the pickup bus.

9 posted on 03/09/2012 8:27:50 PM PST by Bronzy (Send a NEWTron to Obama!)
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To: GOPJ

And if they are in nursing homes run by a bankrupt government, they won’t have to worry about eating too much. That will be a real ‘food desert.”


10 posted on 03/09/2012 8:28:52 PM PST by txrefugee
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To: GOPJ

Speaking of liberals and children’s safety. The reason the kids can’t play outside all day on their own is that the pervs are out there, even in the smallest of towns.....the same pervs the left defend. But, that is another debate for another day.


11 posted on 03/09/2012 8:29:35 PM PST by tioga
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To: caldera599

With liberals, no matter what the issue, it is never the responsiblity of the individual.

It is always someone else or society or some unexplained cosmic force that causes problems.

And there is only one form of matter in the entire universe that can correct all the ills that plague liberals so much - and that is TAXPAYERS MONEY!


12 posted on 03/09/2012 8:34:10 PM PST by Iron Munro ("Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight he'll just kill you." John Steinbeck)
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To: caldera599

I consider MSG (google MSG-rats and obesity) and high fructose corn syrup to be major contributors to obesity. I ate plenty of fast food as a kid and drank Coke made with sugar, as did all my friends. None of us were fat. My 16 year old daughter is a couch potato geek. She can eat pretty much anything she wants including a fair amount of candy, but I keep MSG and HFC out of the house as much as possible. She’s skinny as a rail. Every once in a while she gets a fast food burger or pizza so she doesn’t feel deprived, otherwise, it’s real food. I don’t think my diet as a kid had near as much MSG as today’s diet. Couple MSG with HFC and (IMHO) it’s a fast track to obesity. (I’ve actually had nutrition classes as an RN and have followed diet theories over the years.)


13 posted on 03/09/2012 8:38:17 PM PST by pops88 (Geek chick over 50)
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To: caldera599

If they’d get off their asses and get a job, their diet would take care of itself. You can’t sit on the sofa all day watching TV, texting on the cell phone or playing video games and expect to be thin.


14 posted on 03/09/2012 8:40:04 PM PST by FlingWingFlyer (It's time for Americans to WEAN the government off of OUR money!!!)
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To: txrefugee

Good point! If the 11 months of ‘extra life’ could be added on in the 20’s - and a person could be 29 for two years - it’d be great. But to get those extra 11 months at 85 or 90? And to get them by eating cardboard? Yuck.


15 posted on 03/09/2012 8:45:18 PM PST by GOPJ (Democrat-Media Complex - buried stories and distorted facts... freeper 'andrew' Breitbart)
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To: caldera599

So let me see if I got this. Obesity is caused by lack of readily available food...</liberal logic>


16 posted on 03/09/2012 9:12:52 PM PST by null and void (Day 1144 of America's ObamaVacation from reality [Heroes aren't made, Frank, they're cornered...])
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To: null and void

“Food deserts” are closely correlated with “hardware store deserts” and “liquor store floods.” Demand drives the market. People want merchants who sell $500 tennis shoes or open nail salons. If the demand was not there the businesses would go belly up. If the people in the “deserts” wanted healthy food and were willing to pay for it some enterprising Asian would be there to provide it.


17 posted on 03/09/2012 9:31:50 PM PST by Vehmgericht
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To: Vehmgericht

Well, I’ve often heard that you can tell a lot about a neighborhood by the types of businesses there.

Yes there are people in the ghetto, and of course they need to eat. But chain supermarkets avoid the ghetto areas for reasons we can’t mention, due to political correctness. But, these retailers have their business reasons to avoid certain areas, even though there is population to support their business.

So the ghetto ends up with far too many liquor stores per capita, and too few supermarkets.

Some of those ghetto liquor stores are nasty. Was in one once on the South Side of Chicago. The dude sits behind bullet proof glass, and slides your booze to you through a trap door.


18 posted on 03/09/2012 9:43:31 PM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: caldera599
Well...if they live too far from a Supermarket they should grow their own veggies....

When laid off a while back I came home and announced..."dig up the lawn and plat potatos and fafa beens....I just got laid off."

19 posted on 03/09/2012 10:32:55 PM PST by spokeshave (Dole/McCain/Romney losers all....NEWT is da Man)
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To: caldera599

Not “deserts”...desserts! ;-)


20 posted on 03/09/2012 10:37:02 PM PST by familyop (We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of rotten politics smelled around the planet.)
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