Healthy Columbus: The City of Columbus Food Accessibility Initiative
- Discipline
- City and Regional Planning
- Semester
- Spring 2013
- Course
- Plan Making
- related to
- Bennetch, Philip Bergman, Thomas Brotherton, Kyle Caputo, Christina Carnesi, Nicholas Erickson, Langley Fleming, Luke Harley, Caitlyn Huizenga, Tyler Louwers, Daniel McMillian, Abby Moore, Andrew Slater, Maxwell
- faculty
- Hanlon, Bernadette
- Location
- Columbus, Franklin, Ohio, United States, NA
- Description
- Food is one of the basic needs of life. Everybody should be given the opportunity to live a healthy life. This begins with food. An appropriate diet is needed to maintain one’s wellbeing. Without access to healthy food, individuals face more obstacles in life. A few health issues that arise from poor diet include diabetes, hypertension, obesity, kidney disease, and cancer. All these lead to a decreased overall quality of life and shorter lifespan. Unhealthy people also face less evident hardships such as difficulty finding insurance, maintaining a job, and taking care of a family (Ver Ploeg, 2009). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), food security means that “all people at all times have both physical and economic access to enough food for an active, healthy life”. Households that have difficulty providing enough food for all its members because they lack money or other resources necessary for food are considered food insecure. Food insecurity is especially prevalent in the low-income urban neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are filled with fast food restaurants and corner convenience stores that heavily stock processed foods such as chips, candy and sugary sodas but lack fresh produce and healthy snacks (Walker, Keane, and Burke 2010). The Columbus Department of Public Health determined the zip codes pictured below as the most likely areas in Columbus and Franklin County to be food insecure. These zip codes are areas where it seems to be harder to purchase healthy, nutritious food because there is a large imbalance in the ratio of fast food restaurants to full service grocery stores. By improving access to healthy food, residents of Columbus will have the opportunity to purchase affordable, nutritious food, grow their own food, or receive it from charitable distribution programs. The complex issue of food accessibility requires a multifaceted approach that will address physical, social, and economic issues that fuel food insecurity.