Assessing the Impact of Improved Retail Access on Diet in a 'Food Desert': A Preliminary Report
- 1 October 2002
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Urban Studies
- Vol. 39 (11), 2061-2082
- https://doi.org/10.1080/0042098022000011362
Abstract
If poor food retail access in deprived areas of British cities is linked, as suggested in many of the policy debates of the late 1990s, via compromised diets/undernutrition to poor health and widening health inequalities, what is the impact of a sudden and significant improvement in food retail access likely to be on the food consumption patterns of residents? In this paper, we describe and provide preliminary results from the first-ever UK study of a major retail provision on diet in a 'food desert'—a 'before/after' study of food consumption patterns in the highly deprived, previously poor food retail access area of Seacroft, Leeds, experiencing a sudden and significant change in its food retail access as a result of the opening of a large superstore by the UK's leading food retailer. We suggest that this study has the potential to provide some of the missing links between poor food retail access, compromised diets/undernutrition, poor health and compound social exclusion that characterised statements on the topic of 'food deserts' in the health inequalities and social exclusion debates of the late 1990s, and that its findings may have significant implications for policy debate.Keywords
This publication has 12 references indexed in Scilit:
- Deriving Indicators of Access to Food Retail Provision in British Cities: Studies of Cardiff, Leeds and BradfordUrban Studies, 2002
- Urban Regeneration, Social Inclusion and Large Store Development: The Seacroft Development in ContextUrban Studies, 2002
- The Health Education Authority's health and lifestyle survey 1993: who are the low fruit and vegetable consumers?Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 1999
- Factors which influence ‘healthy’ eating patterns: results from the 1993 Health Education Authority health and lifestyle survey in EnglandPublic Health Nutrition, 1998
- The cost and availability of healthy food choices in southern DerbyshireJournal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, 1997
- Structural change in grocery retailing in Great Britain: a discount reorientation?The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 1994
- A note on a general definition of the coefficient of determinationBiometrika, 1991
- Construction of a modest-but-adequate food budget for households with two adults and one pre-school child: a preliminary investigationJournal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, 1990
- Graphical procedures for identifying functional form in binary discrete choice models: A Case Study of Revealed Tenure ChoiceRegional Science and Urban Economics, 1987
- The Cardiff Consumer Panel: Methodological Aspects of the Conduct of a Long-Term Panel SurveyTransactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 1985