Better access to supermarkets and grocery stores doesn’t necessarily inspire people to eat better, according to a study out of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In fact, researchers found that U.S. adults buy most of their junk-food at such stores. The findings fly in the face of the “food desert” theory, which holds that people in neighborhoods without grocery stores are more likely to eat unhealthy food.
The study, which was published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, analyzed data from 4,204 adults who reported their daily food intake in two, nonconsecutive 24-hour periods in 2011 and 2012. “The analysis found that nearly half (46.3 percent) of U.S. adults consume sugar-sweetened beverages and 88.8 percent eat discretionary foods such as cookies, pastries, ice cream, cakes, popcorn and candy on any given day.”
Of that, “more than half of the sugar-sweetened beverages and two-thirds of discretionary foods are purchased in supermarkets and grocery stores,” said University of Illinois kinesiology and community health professor Ruopeng An, who led the study.
“We don’t see from our data that the presence of a supermarket has a preventive effect on people’s obesity or their junk-food intake,” An explained.