The USDA Economic Research Service published a new report investigating the correlation between living in low-income, low-access (LILA) areas and the purchase of 14 major food groups in order to estimate the effect on diet quality of living in LILA areas. The report, Food Choices and Store Proximity, by Ilya Rahkovsky and Samantha Snyder, is summarized below:
In 2010, 9.7 percent of the U.S. population lived in low-income areas more than 1 mile from the nearest supermarket. The diet quality of these consumers may be compromised by their food environment. Some may be unable to reach supermarkets regularly or without effort, instead buying food from nearer stores that offer less healthy food products. Retailers may be discouraged from locating in low-income areas due to insufficient demand, and poverty can prevent the residents of these areas from obtaining lower priced and better quality products far (over 1 mile for urban consumers, 10 miles for rural) from their homes.
Understanding how access to supermarkets affects the healthfulness of food purchases may help policymakers determine the value of attracting supermarkets to underserved areas. USDA’s Economic Research Service conducted two large-scale studies to define low-food access areas and to identify the population living in those areas. This report investigates the correlation between living in low-income, low-access (LILA) areas and the purchase of 14 major food groups in order to estimate the effect on diet quality of living in LILA areas. The researchers accounted for the prices consumers face and their demographic characteristics.
The study found that living in a LILA area has only a modest negative effect on the healthfulness of food purchases—a difference too small to explain much of the national disparities in diet quality and obesity—and this effect is only slightly alleviated when LILA consumers travel farther from their homes to purchase food. Even after traveling to stores farther from their home, LILA area consumers tend to buy less healthy food. Thus, as the effect of living in LILA areas on diets is modest, improvements in dietary quality are likely only with a multipronged policy approach that addresses hardwired shopping and eating habits in addition to retail coverage. Among the report’s findings:
- Food prices paid by LILA and non-LILA consumers were very similar. There is no evidence that LILA consumers are paying more for healthful foods.
- Consumers living in LILA areas bought 4.5 percent less fruit, 2.7 percent fewer vegetables, and 10.8 percent fewer low-fat milk products than consumers not residing in LILA areas. At the same time, they bought 8.9 percent more red meat, 5.0 percent more diet (soda) drinks, and 3.3 percent more non-diet drinks.