A substantial part of the population of Trinidad & Tobago (T&T) may live in areas that are called Food Deserts. Food Deserts are typically urban neighbourhoods or rural towns without easy access to fresh, healthy and affordable food. Instead of supermarkets or grocery stores, these communities are usually served with fast-food or convenience stores.
It is characteristic that more than half of the population living in food deserts are considered low income. So it would seem that for many, low quality food is their only choice. This tsunami of low quality food is a concern, not only in T&T, but is a global issue. In an effort to stem the effects of some of some of the most harmful foods, countries like Denmark, Hungary and Mexico have instituted soda and junk food taxes. This has created issues that governments, corporations and individuals locked in a debate about who is responsible for deciding what and how much people should eat and drink. People’s choices about what to eat are severely limited by the options available to them and what they can afford—and many food deserts contain an overabundance of fast food chains selling cheap “meat” and dairy-based foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt. Processed foods (such as snack cakes, chips and soda) typically sold by corner delis, convenience stores and liquor stores are usually just as unhealthy.
Research has also revealed that our freedom of choice is not based solely on conscious thought. As humans, we are incredibly susceptible to the signals around us. Things like ambient lighting, music, portion size, even how many people we are eating with have an influence on our subconscious that affects our choices. Within the context of food deserts, such an influence is heavily invested on, in the marketing of things like fast-food, soda and other processed foods. Thus, despite the efforts of the health sector to promote a healthy diet through health promotion, so much more money is spend in marking unhealthy foods that, most of the time what they plant in our subconscious resulting in an unhealthy food choice rather than a healthy one. Public health experts are concerned that these food desert neighbourhoods are helping to fuel a rise in diet-related conditions such as obesity and diabetes, as well as driving food insecurity. If we take this perspective, then it begins to become clear that our approach to curbing such illnesses is not dealing with the problem from its source.
Food security is threatened by the existance of food deserts. For those living in a food desert, this can mean having to dedicate a portion of an already stretched budget toward transportation costs in order to secure food. A difficult task for the lower socio-economic groups that a prevalent in these areas. If you are in the poorest 20 percent of households you need to spend 4 2 percent of your disposable income after housing costs to afford the government’s recommended diet. Compound this with transport costs to get to a food shop and a healthy meal is even further out of reach. Studies in the UK have shown that people on low-incomes who live furthest from their supermarket were more likely to be obese that those who lived close by. It concluded that improving access to supermarkets for the least well-off – as well as raising their incomes – would help cut obesity. Some states in the US have experimented with so called “supermarket solutions” – offering loans and grants to big food stores to attract them into deprived areas as a way of increasing the availability of cheap, healthy foods. Some countries where food deserts have been determined to exist have introduced measures to improve access to healthy foods. These measures include finding ways to promote the establishment of healthy food retailers in food deserts and to connect consumers to outlets where fresh vegetables and fruits and other healthy foods are available at reasonable cost. The latter may be accomplished through farmers’ markets, exposure to healthy foods in schools, urban garden and agriculture projects, or even online supermarkets that offer healthy foods for order over the Internet and delivery to accessible locations. One of the first countries to attempt to make inroads into the problem of food deserts was the United Kingdom; however, its Food Poverty (Eradication) Bill of 2001 failed passage. The United States also took steps to improve access to healthy foods, introducing the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, which was followed by an evaluation of the prevalence of food deserts in the country. In 2010 U.S. Pres. Barack Obama proposed the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI), which encouraged retailers to bring healthy foods to impoverished urban and rural communities. A large share of subsequent funding for HFFI went to community-development financial institutions for lending to food retailers in food deserts.
Looking at T&T within terms of food deserts, there is much more research needed to be done before areas can be designated a food deserts. Despite this, we cannot assume they do not exist in T&T without the necessary reach. Identifying them will go a long way in necessary policy change that will in effect curb obesity and chronic disease like Diabetes Mellitus and Hypertension in our population this seeing a reduction in their incidence and prevalence thus bring much needed relief to our to our health problems.
It is very essential that the government of T&T start thinking in the investment such avenues to curb chronice disease rather than just patch holes by focusing on their complications in tertiary care institutions. Such investment would represent an overall redection in moderty and mortality finance burden that results from chronic diseases.
Dr. Visham Bhimull,
Family Physician
MBBS (UWI)
Diploma in Family Medicine(UWI)
vishambhimull@hotmail.com