> THE GEOGRAPHY OF POVERTY AND NUTRITION: FOOD DESERTS AND FOOD CHOICES ACROSS THE UNITED STATES
> We study the causes of “nutritional inequality”: why the wealthy tend to eat more healthfully than the poor in the U.S. Using two event study designs exploiting entry of new supermarkets and households’ moves to healthier neighborhoods, we reject that neighborhood environments have economically meaningful effects on healthy eating. Using a structural demand model, we find that exposing low-income households to the same food availability and prices experienced by high-income households would reduce nutritional inequality by only 9%, while the remaining 91% is driven by differences in demand. In turn, these income-related demand differences are partially explained by education, nutrition knowledge, and regional preferences. These findings contrast with discussions of nutritional inequality that emphasize supply-side issues such as food deserts.
In the case of a food desert within a residential area, it's probably a lot easier to boost demand by artificially increasing supply, rather than the other way around.
> Using a structural demand model, we find that exposing low-income households to the same food availability and prices experienced by high-income households would reduce nutritional inequality by only 9%, while the remaining 91% is driven by differences in demand.
On the topic more generally
> Dr. Sturm found no relationship between what type of food students said they ate, what they weighed, and the type of food within a mile and a half of their homes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/health/research/pairing-o...
Original study
> School and Residential Neighborhood Food Environment and Diet Among California Youth
> No robust relationship between food environment and consumption is found. A few significant results are sensitive to small modeling changes and more likely to reflect chance than true relationships.
https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797%2811%2900849-X...
* Food deserts. Many low income neighborhoods don't have grocery stores, so residents would need to take public transport both ways with all of their groceries.
* Building on above, it takes time to cook your own food. Especially if you're riding the bus to the store, and to work, and to pick up the kids, etc.
* Education. Many low income people are taught mcdonalds is the cheapest food, and so thats what they buy. Can you blame someone for something they do not know?
* Financial planning and decision making. Same as above.
Its difficult for us to understand the low income situation. A family member of mine is a counselor at a high school for kids who get expelled. All these kids want to be lawyers, police officers, or government workers when they grow up because they've literally never seen a white collar worker in real life. They don't know that data science exists, much less step 1 in getting there.