Abstract
Food deserts are areas that lack the availability of fresh, affordable, and nutritious foods. Almost half of the food in the United States of America is wasted every year, yet somehow there are thousands of food deserts. This lack of nutritious food for people of all ages negatively impacts health outcomes as chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are rising quickly. Preventive care is a practice in which patients take the initiative to make healthier choices in life to prevent the onset or progression of chronic illness. An example of such initiatives is eating and preparing more nutritious food. Trying to practice preventive care with little to no access to the appropriate resources makes it difficult to achieve for underserved communities. Our design research led to an initiative called Movin’ Grocers. Movin’ Grocers is a mobile grocery truck bringing fresh produce from local gardens to various food desert locations. Accessible healthy groceries to community members at a discounted price, allows them to eat better and practice preventive care to reduce chronic diseases.
Keywords
food desert, preventive care, healthy foods
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.173
Citation
Kaurin, D., Syed, S., Chabo, B., Ali, G., Sagerman, A.,and Basapur, S.(2023) Increasing preventive care through increased access to healthy foods, in De Sainz Molestina, D., Galluzzo, L., Rizzo, F., Spallazzo, D. (eds.), IASDR 2023: Life-Changing Design, 9-13 October, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.173
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
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Increasing preventive care through increased access to healthy foods
Food deserts are areas that lack the availability of fresh, affordable, and nutritious foods. Almost half of the food in the United States of America is wasted every year, yet somehow there are thousands of food deserts. This lack of nutritious food for people of all ages negatively impacts health outcomes as chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are rising quickly. Preventive care is a practice in which patients take the initiative to make healthier choices in life to prevent the onset or progression of chronic illness. An example of such initiatives is eating and preparing more nutritious food. Trying to practice preventive care with little to no access to the appropriate resources makes it difficult to achieve for underserved communities. Our design research led to an initiative called Movin’ Grocers. Movin’ Grocers is a mobile grocery truck bringing fresh produce from local gardens to various food desert locations. Accessible healthy groceries to community members at a discounted price, allows them to eat better and practice preventive care to reduce chronic diseases.