Food Deserts in Memphis, TN

An analysis of food insecurity among children and seniors in Shelby County, Tennessee.

I. Abstract

I recently came across the term “food desert,” which describes an area where fresh foods are not easily accessible. Food deserts are a national issue, but I was interest in learning how my local community in Memphis, TN is impacted. Low access to supermarkets is influenced by several factors including the availability of public transportation, the local food environment, and health education. Additionally, food security is often interdependent on income so I was interested in knowing which group, between children and senior citizens (both of whom commonly do not work), was more affected my low access in our community.

II. Outline

1. Abstract
2. Outline
3. Food Deserts in Memphis, TN
4. Transportation
5. The Local Food Environment
6. Education
7. Age
8. Recommendations
9. Works Cited

III. Food Deserts in Memphis, TN

The term “food desert” first appeared in the 1990s to describe impoverished communities with limited access to the healthy foods that make up a balanced diet (Rogers 2015). Food deserts pose many concerning health risks to communities all around the United States, and the city of Memphis is no exception.

Memphis is a city on the Mississippi River in Shelby county Tennessee. The prevalence of food deserts in this diverse community cause certain neighborhoods to fall further behind. While the exact cause of food deserts is still debatable, the correlation between food insecurity and socioeconomic status is clear. This barrier to access is usually the result of a combination of environmental factors including one’s proximity to retailers carrying nutritious foods, the availability of transportation (public and personal), and the adequacy of one’s primary health education.

IV. Transportation

Food deserts impact the daily lives of millions of Americans in both urban and rural communities. According to the United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, nearly 2.3 million Americans live in food deserts and almost half of those individuals reside in low income household (USDA ERS, 2009). A commonly accepted measure for the status of a neighborhood’s food security is the proximity of retailers selling fresh produce and the ability of community members to travel to these destinations. In 2009 2.2 percent of all US households were located “more than a mile away from a supermarket” and did not have access to a car (Rogers 2015). If we look at the available data on the city of Memphis, we can observe that this trend has continued. The number of households in Memphis without a car has remained just under the national average between the years of 2013 and 2017 (Data USA).

Accessibility and availability are two major factors that determine diet. Most people choose to eat what is convenient, so it’s important to make healthy foods easily accessible if we want to address the costly health concerns associated with poor eating. Memphis ranks 16th in a national study comparing food accessibility in different US cities. In other words, 5.5 out of every 100,000 households in Memphis struggle with food security compared to just 2.3 households in Omaha, Nebraska, the lowest ranking city (Greater Louisville Project).

The availability of public transportation mitigates the issue of distance in some downtown and midtown neighborhoods, but in neighborhoods such as Whitehaven and Orange Mound, where routes are either limited or nonexistent, feelings of food insecurity persist (Smith, 2019). The problem of “[connecting] consumers to food retailers and transportation services” is one that can be solved with innovative urban planning (Rogers 2015). One way that city planners can actively work to increase accessibility is by expanding the city’s public transportation system. Something as simple as bolstering the current network of buses to include more undeserved neighborhoods could positively impact thousands of families in our community.

V. The Local Food Environment

While public transportation can resolve some issues posed by physical distance, socioeconomic factors require a more complex analysis. In addition to proximity, another key indicator that we can observe to learn more about an area’s food security is the local food environment. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines a food environment as the “physical presence of food that affects a person’s diet” (CDC, 2014). The research shows that many “food deserts have local food environments characterized by a relatively high number of convenience stores and few or no supermarkets” (Rogers, 2015).

This kind of local food environment can be observed in many neighborhoods around Memphis. Most neighborhoods in this city are supported by a network of convenience stores, fast food chain restaurants, and in the cases when an actual supermarket does exist, often times there is only one. An example of the effects of an unstable food environment can be observed in the 2018 closing of the Kroger supermarket off Lamar Avenue in the Orange Mound neighborhood after the company reported revenue losses (Weathersbee, 2018). The loss of another vital place to purchase fresh food has crippled the food security of Memphians in this community. A study released by the Shelby County Health Department showed that people who live in neighborhoods without supermarkets live shorter lives, so unfortunately residence of Orange Mound can now expect to live a shocking 10 to 13 years fewer than their more affluent counterparts (Weathersbee, 2018).

The CDC acknowledges that most families make dietary decisions based on their physical environment and recommends making it easier for affected communities to “engage in physical activity and eat a healthy diet” (CDC, 2014). Local governments can accomplish this by taking steps to keep their cities economically competitive which would encourage healthy food retailers to do business in the communities that need them the most. Cities can also organize farmer’s markets and urban gardening initiatives to further support neighborhoods without supermarkets.

VI. Education

While city officials may not be able to directly influence the economic forces that drive some grocery stores out of certain neighborhoods, they can improve the available education about basic nutrition and the habits of healthy living (Rogers 2015). We all know that eating well is an important component to living a long, healthy life but new research indicates that there is a “general lack of education about healthy food choices” whereby consumers “unknowingly choose unhealthy foods,” thus contributing to “the demand of those food products and perpetuating their availability” (Rogers 2015).

There are many concerning health risks associated with this knowledge gap. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have established two key factors contributing to obesity: inactivity and unhealthy eating habits (Mayo Clinic, 2015). A substantial number of Memphians primarily shop at convenience stores, where the majority of available food items offered are high in calories and low in nutrients “at relatively high prices” (Mayo Clinic, 2015). As a result, overall public health is diminished in areas where there are more convenience stores than supermarkets. You can find entire communities struggling with physiological issues such as obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, sleep apnea, and even some cancers. Associated mental illnesses include depression, anxiety, and eating disorders such as binge eating.

Local governments can update health education courses to include topics that directly address the challenges of being a consumer in a food desert. An excellent example of government making an effort to improve public health awareness would be “Let’s Move!” a national campaign led by former First Lady Michelle Obama in 2010 with the goal of reducing childhood obesity. This initiative promoted healthy eating by emphasizing nutrition information, with easy-to-follow guidelines (Wikipedia, 2019). Governments can also establish community gardens in public spaces, which would serve to educate community members about how to recognize nutritious foods while providing a local source for sustenance.

VII. Age

After conducting much of the research needed to complete this project, I still had some unanswered questions about how food deserts impact the lives of two of the most vulnerable populations in our community, children and senior citizens. Food security is often linked to income, as we have discussed earlier. Many children and seniors do not work for wages or have individual income, making them particularly vulnerable to food insecurity. I was not able to find any data comparing these two specific subsets of the local population, so I performed an analytical data analysis with the purpose of examining the connection between age and food insecurity, and to determine which population between children and seniors is most affected.

I began by downloading the most recent metadata from the Economic Resource Service website (USDA ERS). This opensource dataset is the same used by researchers to produce and derive much of the information we currently have on the study of food deserts in America. The dataset uses the 2010 Census to gather food access information for each county in the US. Since I was only interested in comparing children and seniors in Memphis, I processed the data to limit it to only include numbers for overall population, low access kids, and low access seniors in Shelby county Tennessee. The original dataset contained 72865 Rows and 147 Columns which was limited to 222 Rows and 7 Columns after processing. For the purpose of my analysis I excluded children and seniors who do not suffer from low access, and adults age 18–64. No major defects were detected in the analysis of this data.

I used a combination of Alteryx, an advanced analytics tool, and Microsoft Excel to create a new spreadsheet in which I calculated the sum for each variable and rounded to the nearest whole number for readability. These were the numbers that I used for the rest of my analysis.

My findings were as such: low access children are 20.6% of the overall population, while low access seniors are only 7.6% These two populations alone make up more than a quarter (28.2%) of people suffering from food deserts in Shelby county.

VIII. Recommendations

Professional researchers on the topic have voiced concerns about the connection between food deserts and other disparities. In their findings it was observed that “…wealthy neighborhoods were found to have more supermarkets than poor neighborhoods, and the same was true for predominantly white versus predominantly black neighborhoods” (Rogers 2015). Food deserts have always existed in America and the communities struggling with food insecurity have often been poor, minority neighborhoods. These disparities can be linked directly to the larger issue of structural inequality in our country.

Since its founding, the United States has had to struggle with issues of inequality and injustice. With our country taking such big strides in closing the gap between unfair differences in fields such as education and employment, it is time that we take the issue of food accessibility seriously as well. Everyone deserves equal opportunity to feed themselves and their families with the healthy, nutritious foods that support a long, healthy life. If we want to be a truly equitable country, we need to make greater efforts to increase equality for food accessibility. The most recent data on the subject supports the position that governments can have a great influence on a community’s food security, so it is my recommendation that we introduce initiatives and programs that can improve local food environments in our community. Local governments should particularly focus on making greater efforts to bolster public transportation networks, taking steps to make cities more economically competitive, improving primary health education, and organizing alternative food sources such as farmer’s markets in affected communities.

IX. Works Cited

“Advanced Science-Based Nutrition.” American Nutrition Association, americannutritionassociation.org/.

“Food Access Research Atlas.” USDA ERS — Food Access Research Atlas, www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/.

“Food Deserts.” Greater Louisville Project, greaterlouisvilleproject.org/factors/food-desert/.

“General Food Environment Resources.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 6 Mar. 2014, www.cdc.gov/healthyplaces/healthtopics/healthyfood/general.htm.

Hernandez, Victor Barajas. Personal Interview. 27 April 2019.

“Lets Move!” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Apr. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lets_Move!

“Memphis, TN.” Data USA, datausa.io/profile/geo/memphis-tn/.

“Obesity.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 10 June 2015, www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/obesity/symptoms-causes/syc-20375742.

Rogers, Kara. “Food Desert.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 6 Dec. 2015, www.britannica.com/topic/food-desert.

Smith, Maya. “Food Fight: The Battle to Eliminate Memphis’ Food Deserts.” Memphis Flyer, Memphis Flyer, 2 May 2019, www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/food-fight-the-battle-to-eliminate-memphis-food-deserts/Content?oid=14127169.

Weathersbee, Tonyaa. “Places Don’t Thrive without Fresh Food. Orange Mound Doesn’t Plan to Be One of Them.” The Commercial Appeal, The Commercial Appeal, 16 Mar. 2018, www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/2018/03/16/weathersbee-places-dont-thrive-without-fresh-food-orange-mound-doesnt-plan-one-them/422637002/.