This past week in my Citizen’s Appetite RFT, my class watched a movie titled A Place at the Table (2012). This movie made me realize how many food deserts exist in the United States even though this country produces more food than it possibly needs. The standard definition for a food desert according to Oxford Dictionaries is an area where it is hard to have access to and buy affordable or good-quality fresh food. A disturbing fact that I learned is that 1/6 Americans are reportedly hungry; this results in 50 million Americans being hungry today. Every president has claimed that they would combat hunger and that we are growing as a society but, the total number of Americans reportedly hungry has risen each year. The United States sadly ranks the worst among the IMF Advanced Economy of food insecurity.

Food deserts affect many low income areas throughout the United States and many people living in these areas are either having a hard time feeding there families or they are becoming obese. This is because food deserts consist mostly of Ma and Pa shops, which rarely sell any fruits and vegetables, and fast food restaurants. These places mainly sell cheap processed food’s made from corn; this leads to higher obesity rates. Americans buy these food items because it is cheaper and also because fruit and vegetable prices have risen. Many people have to either walk very far or spend a lot of money to go to a supermarket that is out of town. These barriers lead people to buy more processed foods and their health is affected as a result of this. Research shows that not getting nutrition your first three years of your life can lead to neurological problems and many other lifelong risks such as diabetes. One last disturbing fact is that 1/3 three children born in the United States from the year 2000 will develop type 2 diabetes.

The movie A Place at the Table (2012)  has made me realize that not many people have access to the nutritious food that I eat every single day.  Hunger and failure to ingest proper nutrition has lead to many health issues in a country that has more than enough food to feed its entire population. As Americans in this great country we need to figure out a way reduce the number of hungry people in the United States and we find out way to reduce the amount of food deserts.