June 10th, 2012
The June 10th Washington Post has an insightful article on the federally-funded food desert initiative in Philadelphia. The article describes how an hypothesis (lack of access to healthy foods leads to eating unhealthy foods which leads to obesity) becomes a large experiment before research is done to determine if it is going to work. WaPo: Will Philadepphia’s experiment in eradicating food deserts
Last month, at the Weight of the Nation conference, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took the hypothesis one step further elevating food deserts into a cause of obesity. She said, “Obesity can be caused by any combination of factors. For some it’s an addiction like smoking. For others it’s a lack of fresh fruits or vegetables near their home. “ This is pretty sloppy work for a conference so highly organized by the CDC and HHS. An addiction? Still being researched I believe. People are looking at whether certain foods may be “addictive” not whether excess adipose tissue itself is addictive. When a national health leader elevates putative causes like addiction and food deserts to actual causes, a disservice is done and real progress is delayed.
Is there a robust relationship between neighborhood food environments and childhood obesity? That is the question Roland Sturm and colleagues Victoria Shier and Ruopeng An set out to answer in a new paper in the journal, Public Health. Using standard definitions and a large database of 5th and 8th graders, they found “no consistent evidence across (counts of a particular type of food outlets per population, food environment indices and indicators for the presence of specific combinations of types of food stores) and outcomes to support the hypothesis that improved access to large supermarkets results in lower youth BMI, or greater exposure to fast food restaurants, convenience stores, and small food stores increases BMI.” See PubMed: Is There a Robust Relationship between Neighborhood food environment