The myth of the food desert...

Pie!

Today, as is my wont when I've a time to spend in Bradford without meetings, I wandered round John Street Market. It is a little sad to see some of the gaps appearing in the market - partly because some of the rag trade and fancy goods stalls have decanted to the emerging Asian bazaars and partly because it's a pretty tough time right now for retailers. However, there's still the food to marvel at - the row of butchers (now joined by a halal butcher to meet that demand), the fishmonger, the greengrocers, the spice stall and the stalls selling produce for the East European, African and Caribbean customers.

Yet we - by which I mean the well-off, middle classes - tell ourselves that there is something called a 'food desert'. A place peopled with the poor where there is inadequate access to fresh food and especially fruit and vegetables. It would appear that, in the nation where this idea was first invented, the USA, it is revealed to be a myth - especially the myth that this lack of 'good' food leads to obesity:

Such neighborhoods not only have more fast food restaurants and convenience stores than more affluent ones, but more grocery stores, supermarkets and full-service restaurants, too. And there is no relationship between the type of food being sold in a neighborhood and obesity among its children and adolescents.

Indeed this research tells us that:

Within a couple of miles of almost any urban neighborhood, “you can get basically any type of food"

Perhaps it's different here in Bradford? Somehow I doubt it - most of the City's poorest districts are within a short walk of the city centre where the wonderful John Street Market sits. And there are any number of corner shops, mini-markets and such - almost all selling fresh fruit and vegetables in abundance.

If people aren't eating fresh fruit and vegetables it isn't for lack of availability! And it certainly looks like there's not much of a link with obesity (although it defeats any logic for there to be such a link). Truth be told, the obesity problem is overstated by the assorted nannying fussbuckets who campaign on these things but such as it is, obesity is caused by choices people make rather than dysfunction within the market or the unfairness of society.

Rather than blaming society or seeking for a convenient business scapegoat, we should perhaps ask why it is that some people get so very fat. And try to help them with their problem rather than making up myths about obesity and its causes. To be pretty blunt, this study shows once again that obesity is not a public health problem but something that relates to the health (or ill-health) of individuals and the choices they make in their lives.

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It's all Peppa Pig's fault isn't it?

Fruit & Veg shop in Radda in Chianti - featuring porcini, of course!

It seem that, in the European "eat up your greens now dear" league, us Brits are languishing near the bottom (or so the European Commission - green scoffers all - tell us):

Britons are not eating enough fruit and vegetables despite nutritional advice being widely available, a study suggests. A review of eating habits in 19 EU countries put the UK in 14th place*.

And, we're told that this is a problem - not eating up our greens puts us at risk:

The EUFIC said that high intakes of fruit and vegetables were associated with a lower risk of chronic diseases, particularly cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers.

Apparently the Poles are top (not surprising as the Polish diet does seem to consist largely of cabbage and potato). Which means that they're living longer of course? It would seem not - the average Briton (even with all those Glaswegians keeling over at 55) lives just over 79 years whereas the average Pole only makes it to his or her 76th year.

What about heart attacks then - eating up our greens means we don't get these doesn't it?

According to the latest WHO data published in April 2011 Coronary Heart Disease Deaths in Poland reached 79,036 or 26.93% of total deaths. The age adjusted Death Rate is 122.40 per 100,000 of population ranks Poland #78 in the world

..and the UK? The same source gives our age adjusted death rate as 68.8 per 100,000. More to the point, that is better that three of the four top green scoffers in Europe (Germany and Austria being the other two).

Maybe eating greens is good for us (certainly a diet without fruit and veg would be unbearably dull) but blandly reporting data - it seems pretty dodgy data - on eating greens seems to miss the point. Our life expectancy is rising, our rates of coronary heart disease are falling and yet we don't eat as much green stuff as places with a cultural predilection for cabbage.

Any way it's all Peppa Pig's fault isn't it?


*Most football supporters would prefer to characterise this position in the league as "mid-table" unless, of course, it is the team they hate, in which case it is "risking relegation".

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