User:CindyGutierrezCal/sandbox

Race and Nutrition Poor dietary patterns and obesity, have established high risks for chronic diseases, and have been found to be linked to neighborhood deprivation, neighborhood minority composition, and low area population density in result of the lack of food accessibility to such residents. As stated by Nicole Larson in "Neighborhood Environments Disparities in Access to Healthy Foods in The U.S.", research suggests that neighborhood residents who have better access to supermarkets and limited access to small groceries or liquor stores tend to have healthier diets and lower levels of obesity. Meanwhile, the deprived neighborhoods that have less access to grocery stores prove to have higher chance of diseases such as high cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity. Such diseases which can be prevented if allowed reaching the right resources and a healthy diet.

Racial, Ethnic, and Socioeconomic Disparities Researchers have proven that individuals with low socioeconomic status who for the most part tend to be African American or of hispanic descent are the most affected by food deserts. According to the West Oakland Demographic Profile, more than three-fourths of its population are African American while another 15% are of Hispanic descent and about of third of the residents live below the poverty line and are victims of food desert in their communities.

The poor dietary intake of a population is a result of the lack of supermarkets available to its residents. Meaning that better access to supermarkets has a direct positive effect to healthier diets. In which case automatically puts their dietary intake and health in danger when consuming unhealthy fats. In consequence, individuals are at higher risk of diseases such as high blood pressure, obesity, asthma, and are more probable to heart attacks. Living in a low socio economic status community is an important contributor to an individual’s health. As claimed by Sapolsky, poor people are less likely to have access to clean water, healthy food and health clubs. Furthermore, it is proven that these inequalities exist especially within racial low income communities. A lot of evidence supports the fact that victims of food deserts are individuals who come from low incomes households, high unemployment rate neighborhoods, little or no educational background, and have no vehicle transportation. Vasts amounts of research have proved that food deserts tend to have a trend in locations where the residents usually receive low income, little education, and high unemployment which also move into lands that are a lot more affordable. Hence, these flat lands turn into low profitable lands that push grocery stores away into more affluent neighborhoods. Grocery stores do not want to invest time and money and run the risk of not having clients who cannot afford their products so they decide to flee elsewhere. In consequence, such neighborhoods become characterized by small, limited, local markets, vasts amounts of fast food restaurants and liquor stores surrounding individuals with limited unhealthy choices.

Overall, studies suggest that for both urban and rural regressions, racial minority populations, and high poverty rates are consistently significant predictors of food desert status, predominantly focusing on vacant housing units.

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