Corner Shops
could bring Healthier Food to Inner Cities
By
Kurt Ullman, Contributing Writer
Health Behavior News Service
Bringing healthy food
programs to corner grocery stores in the
inner city might be a step toward improving
residents’ diet and reducing diet-related
illnesses, a new study suggests.
In Baltimore, corner storeowners increased
their stocking, promotion and sales of
healthier foods and customers showed a
tendency to buy and prepare more fruits and
vegetables through one such program.
“Inner-city Baltimore
is a ‘food desert” with many fast food
restaurants and corner stores, but few
supermarkets,” said lead author Hee-Jung
Song, Ph.D., a researcher in the School of
Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.
“These food environments result in less
availability of and accessibility to healthy
food and impact on the kinds of food
consumed by low-income residents.”
The study appears online in the
journal Health Promotion Practice.
The Baltimore Healthy
Store program provided monetary incentives
or free food to store owners, coordinated
education about nutrition and developed
guidelines for the owners to follow to help
overcome language and cultural barriers.
This is important, since most corner
storeowners in Baltimore are
Korean-American, while the customers largely
are African-American.
The project educated customers by sponsoring
in-store posters, displays and cooking
demonstrations; it also encouraged owners to
put food labels directly on the shelf,
distributed free samples and published
flyers for use in the stores.
Eight to 10 stores participated from both
East and West Baltimore. The east-side
stores received the interventions while the
west-side stores were comparison stores.
According to Song, the results suggest these
programs might be a feasible and effective
way to increase healthy food availability at
corner stores and to improve the dietary
pattern of customers. Healthy foods sold
well and did not hurt the stores
financially. In addition, questionnaires
filled out by customers indicated positive
dietary changes occurred.
“Creating a healthy food environment is
important to modifying diet patterns in a
positive way,” said Song. “Increased healthy
food availability and accessibility is a
factor in healthy diets at the household
level. Healthy diets help lower the
incidence of obesity, diabetes high blood
pressure and their complications.”
Milton Stokes, a dietician in private
practice in Connecticut, thinks the
uniqueness of this study is that most
nutrition interventions target large
supermarkets. However, many consumers rely
on corner stores or bodegas, especially in
urban areas.
“Health providers can teach about reading
food labels and making healthier choices,
but if those choices aren't available,
forget it,” he said. “To increase consumer
choices, give store owners financial support
to promote these types of programs and
customers can vote with their dollars. We
have to give the consumer a chance at
nutrition by giving store owners a chance at
financial viability.”
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