ABSTRACT

This chapter argues that using a wider array of segregation measures, as well as engaging with critical race perspectives on segregation, would enrich and expand understanding of the effects of racial segregation on food access. It engages with different kinds of scholarship on obesity, without directly addressing the variance in perspectives on obesity as a reification of a complex set of sociocultural, biological, and economic processes. Food deserts might better be called nutrition deserts, because the term encapsulates a lack of access to nutritious food, and often an over-exposure to unhealthy foods that are high in fat and calories and low in nutritional value. The emphasis on environmental factors derives partly from policy considerations; it is potentially more feasible and cost effective to alter food and activity environments than it is to intervene effectively in the behavior of innumerable individuals.