Stimulus Funds Fight Obesity at the Corner Store

Stimulus funds are helping bring healthy foods to people who live in food deserts. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is giving stimulus grants of more than $372 million to 44 communities in an effort to reduce rates of both obesity and smoking.

Philadelphia got a chunk of this change — specifically, $15 million to fight obesity and $10.4 million to combat smoking over two years — according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The Food Trust, a nonprofit, will collaborate with Philadelphia's Department of Public Health to apply some of the funds to its Healthy Corner Stores Initiative, which will help 1,000 corner stores provide fresh food in poor areas of the city where obesity is common. Oftentimes, low-income neighborhoods lack access to grocery stores and farmers' markets, so folks need to source their meals from places that are accessible, oftentimes corner stores or bodegas and fast-food restaurants. The Food Trust has been working for years to improve corner stores' ability to provide nutritious food, and this new tranche of funding pushes that effort a long way.

Stores that would like to participate in the expanded program will be expected to sign an agreement promising to sell items in at least two categories of healthy foods. The grants will make that easier in part by providing stores with money to improve refrigeration and shelving to display fruits and vegetables.

The program demonstrates that people in areas served primarily by these corner stores are eager to buy fresh food when it's available, squashing the all-too-often-repeated lie that low-income people aren't interested in produce and other healthy items. The Inquirer sites the example of Romano's Grocery Store in North Philadelphia's Juniata Park neighborhood, where adding produce bumped business up by 40 percent right away. From this example, it's clear that most people want to purchase healthy, seasonal fare, regardless of how much money they have or what neighborhood they live in.

"We've been able to show store operators that there is customer demand for fresh foods," said Yael Lehmann, executive director of the Food Trust. "There's a misconception that people [in poor neighborhoods] don't want fresh food. And we're showing store owners that fruits and vegetables are actually profitable to sell."

Photo: greenkozi via Flickr