Food deserts, food swamps and food insecurity are ravaging urban and rural areas across the United States. Food insecurity is when you don’t have enough money to buy the healthy foods you need or if you have to skip meals because you don’t have enough money to buy more food. In New York City alone, before COIVID-19, 1.4 million people living in NYC were food insecure. Now, it’s close to 2 million and one in every four is a child. What’s even more concerning, food deserts generally exist in urban areas— predominantly inhabited by nonwhite people— which is why Black people are disproportionately affected by diet related health conditions. During this episode we discuss how food deserts are created, it’s devastating impacts to brown communities and what can we do to help ensure no one goes hungry. “Many kids my age and younger do not know where their next meal is coming from, this is something no one should have to worry about. I know that with your help we can fight to end childhood hunger near us and all around America.” – Jocelyn Quinn (Generation No Kid Hungry – Hunger Hero)
Worrying about how to feed your family (or yourself) does not exist in isolation. People who are food-insecure struggle with poverty and often have to decide whether to pay their rent or their electricity, pay for medication, get a MetroCard—or pay for healthy food.
With little money to spend on food, you need to stretch the dollar on food as much as possible. But if you live in a food desert, which is an area that lacks access to healthy affordable food your cost effective options are limited to fast food restaurants, convenience stores and bodegas – all of which chock full of cheap, high calorie and unhealthy options. This is a food desert. And whenever there is a food desert there is a food swamp. A food swamp is a place where unhealthy foods are more readily available than healthy foods, which most always exists in food deserts where there are limited options for purchasing healthy foods. Food deserts generally exist in urban areas— predominantly inhabited by nonwhite people— which is why Black people are disproportionately affected by diet-related health conditions.
In NYC, the highest quantity of fast food chains is not where you would think. It’s not Times Square or even Midtown. It’s in the low income outskirts of Brooklyn, New York.
Let’s take a look at East New York, Brooklyn (specifically zip code 11207)
Population: 173,700
33% foreign born and mostly younger
50% Black
39% Latinx
34% of all residents are living below the poverty line
8% of residents over 25 have a college degree
The health of this community is abysmal
All higher than the rest of NYC
The average life expectancy in East New York is 78.6 years which is SHORTER than the rest NYC. But, this is not the shortest. If you live in the Morrisana/Cortona area of the Bronx, the average life expectancy is 76.2 years. Compared with the UES, Greenwich Village/Soho and UWS where the average life expectancy is 85.9 years, 85.8 years and 84.7 years respectively.