GREENVILLEJOURNAL GREENVILLEJOURNAL.COM • Friday, May 30, 2014 • Vol.16, No.22
Lost in the FOOD DESERTS Closing stores and lack of transportation can make finding fresh, nutritious food a challenge for some Greenvillians
HOW THE UPSTATE’S 10 COUNTIES COLLABORATE FOR SUCCESS APRIL A. MORRIS | STAFF
amorris@communityjournals.com On a near-90-degree day, Dequarius Strickland was walking down the sidewalk on Academy Street in West Greenville, having just ducked out of a gas station convenience store with a plastic bag in each hand. Strickland, 18, frequents the store because “this is the closest and I don’t have the best transportation, so I have to walk,” he told the Journal last week. A trip to the convenience store takes up to 20 minutes on foot. Strickland shopped for groceries at Wal-Mart before he moved, he said. Unfortunately, he hasn’t found a store offering fresh produce within walking distance of his current home. The two small stores nearby “don’t really sell anything healthy for you,” he said. Food deserts – areas where residents lack easy access to nutritious and affordable food – are a bigger problem in Greenville than many people may realize. Food availability has diminished downtown most recently with the closing of a BI-LO store – known in the neighborhood as the “Baby BI-LO” – on the corner of Main Street and Park Avenue, leaving many downtown residents without transportation in a serious lurch. The U.S. Department of Agriculture initially defined a food desert as areas inhabnumber of people in ited by low-income residents one U.S. Census tract who are greater than a mile near White Horse Road (urban) or 10 miles (rural) who are low income from a supermarket. It has and have low access to now added vehicle availabilfood (further than one ity as well. mile from a grocery It’s no secret that South store). Approximately Carolinians and much of 141 households in the nation are overweight or that area also have no obese. The growing girth of vehicle, according to Americans has been attrib2013 USDA data. uted to inactivity, car culture, processed food and other factors. But lack of access to affordable and healthy food can contribute to obesity and the attendant diseases like diabetes and heart disease, experts say. What stores and restaurants offer for purchase also matters – and was recently the subject of research by Dr. Alicia Powers of Furman University. Powers, who is also a principal investigator at
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CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 GREG BECKNER / STAFF
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