Fast food, snacks, and sodas are cheap. Fruits and vegetables are not.
Without access to healthful foods, people cannot eat healthfully. But access alone cannot reverse obesity.
The real issue is poverty. Unless we do something to reduce income inequality, and to make healthier foods more affordable, fixing the access problem is unlikely to produce measurable results on its own.
Mapping Global Food Spending (Infographic)
A sobering infographic about the proportion of income that goes to food in countries around the world. Excerpt:
A one dollar bag of rice in the U.S. is not the same as a one dollar bag of rice in Indonesia. For an American, who, on average, devotes about seven percent of his or her spending to food, it won’t matter that much if the price of rice doubles to two dollars. An American can likely take the money that would have gone to a “non-essential” item and put it towards food instead. But for an Indonesian, who devotes 43 percent of his/her spending to food, it could mean less to eat.
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