Alan here again. Have you checked out the video South Central Diet? It’s about Lae Schmidt of South Central Los Angeles, who is looking to buy healthy foods in a part of town over run by fast food chains. Shmidt knows it is unhealthy. “In my community there’s not a lot of healthy food choices,” she says.  The video chronicles her trip on two buses and more than an hour and a half of travel to find healthy fruits and vegetables.

In this section of LA, there is fast food on almost every block and virtually no supermarkets or grocery stores. The biggest problem is that in a low-income part of the city like South Central, fast food is the cheapest and most convenient thing to buy. Highly processed and cheap to make, fast food chains can afford to sell burgers and fries for just a dollar each whereas fruits and vegetables have to be grown and maintained to be sold for much more.

People in this area are left with a choice of eating a single fruit or vegetable from a high priced corner market or having a whole cheeseburger. The prices just don’t compare.

Fast food particularly targets these areas of low-income and minority communities where the only thing people can afford is cheap fast food. As a result, we see very high levels of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease in these low income communities.

To make matters worse, because supermarkets are so scarce people have to go far to obtain healthy food, meaning they have to take time out of their day, which is not possible for most low-income families.

In the Bay Area, there is a similar situation in Daly City. Students from Jefferson High School asked their city council to ban any new fast food restaurants near the school. They claimed their school’s unhealthiness and obesity rate were much too high as a result of all the nearby fast food. As a result, city council agreed to bring new, healthier restaurants, and work with the fast food places to offer better alternatives.  

In the East Menlo Park, East Palo Alto area where I live, I notice a lot of fast food places, not just chains but local vendors, too. This all contributes to the fact that this area has one of the highest obesity rates in San Mateo County. On a positive note, the area now has a farmer’s market, and more grocery stores are opening.

Now ask yourselves, do you live in an area where cheap greasy food is easy to find? Let us know! See what you can do to help out.