Is Your City a Food Desert?

To put it simply, a food desert is a neighborhood far removed from grocery stores that sell healthy food.  

Subsequently, foods high in fat, calories and sugar are too abundant, which encourages unhealthy eating that can lead to obesity, diabetes and heart disease, according to a newly published Walk Score blog.  

To help you avoid such locales, Walk Score has developed an online program that helps people find the right neighborhoods where good food is within walking distance. 

In addition, the online database has developed a new ranking of the best and worst U.S. cities in terms of healthy food access.

The Best Cities for Food Access

The rankings measure access to healthy food by calculating the percent of people in a city who can walk to a grocery store in five minutes:

Rank           City (500,000-plus pop.)     People with Food Access

1
New York
72 percent

2
San Francisco
59 percent

3
Philadelphia
57 percent

4
Boston
45 percent

5
Washington, D.C.
41 percent

The Worst Cities for Food Access

The following cities have the lowest percentage of people who can walk to a grocery store within five minutes:

Rank        City (500,000-plus pop.)     People with Food Access

1
Indianapolis
5 percent

2
Oklahoma City
5 percent

3
Charlotte
6 percent

4
Tucscon
6 percent

5
Albuquerque
7 percent

[source: http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/29/your-city-a-food-desert/]