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WMD FOUND!! Located in Inner-City Restaurants. (Update #2)
14 Oct2004
…For example, look at supermarkets, one key aspect of neighborhood commercial activity. Many low-income communities of color do not have full- service supermarkets and therefore residents have limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Not surprisingly, the diets of many of these neighborhood residents tend to be unhealthy, with more calories and fat.
Further, lack of access to healthy foods translates into greater problems with being overweight or obese, which leads to a host of health problems and diseases, such as diabetes and high blood pressure. (full article)
The writer of this article is hitting on something that I have been thinking about for years. I used to always say, “You know what type of people live in a community by looking at the restaurant choices.” When I was living in the ATL a few years ago, you could really see the contrast. Restaurants ( especially in the malls) outside the Perimeter on the northern side tend to offer many healthy choices. Getting a salad and a smoothie was no problem. However on the southside (well), just about everything is fried. I remember going into the mall near Morehouse and smelling fried chicken all throughout the mall. I am chuckling about it even as I type, but what is not funny is the damage that these foods are making on our health. You want to find the WMD? Go to most restaurants in the hood. If you are Black, you can point to at least 2 people in your family that either has high blood pressure, overweight, or both.
I recommend that you read the book “Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal” by Eric Schlosser. I also did a little research on my own as to why there were so many fast food restaurants in the inner-city. What I was able to find out was that at one time Mc Donald’s was barely in the hood (if you can imagine that). The Mc D restaurants that were in the hood were white owned. Well, there was an outcry from the Black community that there needed to be Black-owned Mc D’s, so Mc D’s took a chance. Well, as you can see today, that chance has made that smiling clown richer, while the food has made us sicker. Needless to say, other fast food chains followed. However, we take pride in the fact that they are of some economic benefit to the community, but the food is killing us. At some point, we are going to have to choose between minimum wage jobs or our health. The best action would be to run all of these restaurants out of our communities and invest in businesses that will provide healthier food. Unfortunately, that may be wishful thinking in most cases.
I also believe that once better choices are made available in the Black community, our eating habits will change. The writer of the article Agrees:
When there are more commercial options, people make different choices. African Americans’ intake of fruits and vegetables increased by 32 percent for each additional supermarket, a recent study by researchers at the University of North Carolina concluded. And, more residents in an African-American neighborhood limited their intake of fat when they had access to a supermarket than residents in a neighborhood without any markets. There can be positive health impacts from a positive neighborhood change.
The following is a part of a study on how fast food restaurants targets Blacks:
…Students also reported that specific marketing strategies are used to target African American youth, families, and communities for fast food. These include the use of: a) Black celebrities (e.g., entertainers, rap singers, athletes); b) Black models with fashionable dress; c) Black models with specific cultural expressions such as language and mannerisms; d) popular music (e.g., hip hop, reggae; urban soul); e) proliferation and saturation of fast food restaurants in communities, especially low-income Black neighborhoods; f) media programs targeted to appeal to African American children and adults on television, radio, and the Internet; g) routine and special reduced prices. (full article)
I will probably update this posting as I have a lot to say on this subject.
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