Does Healthy Food Access Matter in a French Urban Setting?

Abstract

Limited access to healthy food is commonly regarded as a contributing factor to poor dietary choices. The objective of this article is to test this hypothesis in a French context given France's increasing obesity rates and incidence of poor dietary habits. We use data on fruit and vegetable consumption frequency and different food retail availability measures, for example the number of food stores, food surface area, and a dispersion measure based on store numbers, store types, and food area surface, from several data sources in France. We also employ different types of geographic units when measuring the food retail environment and instrumental variable model specifications to test the robustness of our results, which indicate that fewer but larger retail outlets increase the odds of consuming the recommended level of fruit and vegetables. We also find that an increase in food supply dispersion will improve fruit and vegetable consumption in Paris, but not in its suburbs.

Documenting the Link Between Poor Food Access and Less Healthy Product Assortment Across the U.S.

“…However, rather than rely on small-scale studies that may only present part of the picture, some research encourages policymakers to look at larger-scale studies, such as the one we present in this paper, as these studies may provide context around targeted policy analysis (Cummins and Macintyre 2002). Finally, some recent economic studies, including Currie et al (2010), Anderson and Matsa (2011), Courtemanche and Carden (2011), Volpe et al (2013), Caillavet et al (2015), Handbury, et al (2015), Fan et al (forthcoming), and Allcott et al (2017), provide good examples of large-scale studies that address food access and policy.…”

Four Decades of Household Food Purchases: Changes in Inequalities of Nutritional Quality in France, 1971-2010

“…Thus, on the one hand, self-consumption and out-of-home consumption are not taken into account, and on the other hand, populations that are invisible in household surveys -those in collective housing and those without housing. Other aspects of food purchases involve public health and social inequalities: access to places of purchase insofar as the food supply may determine the consumer's universe of choice (Chaix et al, 2012;Drewnowski et al, 2014;Caillavet et al, 2015), or to the characteristics of products (e.g. quality, organic certification, etc.)…”

Place Effects and Chronic Disease Rates in a Rural State: Evidence from a Triangulation of Methods

“…This finding is not new in the literature. However, most researchers tend to separate between healthy and unhealthy food stores and find that individuals who have access to stores that offer a variety of food are healthier than inhabitants of food deserts [ 32 ]. In this research, we found that explicitly accounting for spatial forces (hot and cold spots) is better suited for a region where a food oasis might be the only choice.…”