Food Deserts - Hey, check this out!

 A notable problem in the greater Houston area is a phenomenon known as food deserts, where large groups of people find themselves without easy access to healthy, affordable food and are stuck with the heavily processed but cheap products sold by chains such as McDonald's and Whataburger. Large communities simply have no easy to access grocery stores within their range. The US department of agriculture defines a food desert as "an area where at least a third of the population lives more than a mile away from a supermarket for urban areas and greater than 10 miles away for rural areas." The people living in such areas are deemed "food-insecure", as of now, 724,750 food-insecure people live in the greater Houston area. Houston is 4 percentage points above the national average for rates of food insecurity. Over 500,000 people live in these food deserts, most likely affecting those in poverty above those outside of poverty.

This problem has been exacerbated by the pandemic, ever since the outbreak, countless people have lost their jobs and financial stability, for those in these food deserts, this causes a major issue. Not everyone has the money to afford a 15-mile trip whenever they want food. This causes a problem for families where the parents need to be taking care of their kids at all times. A quick trip to the store could take an hour with Houston traffic. Houston Food Bank has been working to negate these food deserts, and make affordable, healthy food possible for all Houston citizens.

Source: https://www.click2houston.com/food/2020/09/03/500k-houstonians-live-in-food-deserts-with-little-to-no-access-to-healthy-food-and-the-problem-has-worsened-due-to-covid-19/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

voting

 a basic human right in our democracy is our right to vote. the 2020 election is an interesting one because of the pandemic mail in voting is going to be used more than ever. even though there is no real evidence of fraud with mail in voting, there is a fear that there will be. in fact, people fear that people will be so intimidated that they may stay home and not vote. voting is such an important right that we have and we must exercise it. people really need to vote for this election because it is so polarized. it is my first time to vote and i look forward to my voting experience.  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/us/trump-election-poll-watchers.html
Read more

Features of Human Rights- Police Brutality (Willow Carter)

 Over the past several months the Black Lives Matter protests have been going on across the country, bringing many systemic issues to light. Most prominently, it has brought the issue of police brutality into the minds of many people, and also how the police are treating protestors. I believe that the actions of many police officers during many protests are violating the declaration of human rights.  Since the protests began in June, there have also been hundreds of reports against the police for using excessive force on peaceful protestors. Along with that, the use of rubber bullets, pepper spray, and tear gas has been widespread among police. This is within violation of article 5 of the declaration of human rights, which states: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.". There are dozens of videos of police treating protestors and journalists in ways that can be considered cruel and inhumane. Most notable to me was a video I saw of...
Read more

Features of Human Rights: Abortion as a human right

  An issue I find very interesting in regards to the discussion around human rights is the controversy around abortion. Specifically in the U.S., the ruling on Roe V. Wade as well as different restrictions made on abortions in more recent years.  There is a fascinating argument for abortion as a form of health care, this falling under the general umbrella of article 25; refering to having a living standard adequate to maintain health and wellbeing of self and family, and right to security in the cirumstances of a lack of livelihood out of the individual’s control. Pregnancy has the potential to greatly affect a woman’s health, as well as ability to maintain an income to sustain herself or her family. It also could fall under article 23, since pregnancy is an obstacle that specifically prevents women from participating in the work force the same as men.  Universal- The right to healthcare, as well as the right to be able to work and maintain a livelihood is universal, and...
Read more