US hunger crisis persists, especially for kids, older adults

Re:US hunger crisis persists, especially for kids, older adults by nitrogen on Thursday April 01, 2021 @06:44PM (#26667193)

Supply/demand is a feedback system. Both are the cause. When trying to change a feedback system, you don't look for a root cause because it's literally an infinite loop. Instead you either look for a way to break the loop, or look for a variable you can change that has the best ROI.

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.

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Re:US hunger crisis persists, especially for kids, older adults by barry-cotter on Thursday April 01, 2021 @07:33PM (#26667602)

Thankfully the researchers considered that point. From the above abstract

> 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...

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