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Does Wal-Mart Make You Skinny?
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Surprising research suggests Wal-Mart can actually reduce obesity in low-income neighborhoods starved for affordable fresh food.
Growing alarm over the epidemic of obesity in the United States, particularly among the poor, has focused attention on the marketing of food in low-income neighborhoods. Some cities have sought to restrict the number of fast-food restaurants in certain areas, or ban them within walking distance of public schools. They argue that junk food is too cheap and available; healthier food too expensive and elusive.
They’re half right. It isn’t that low-income people can’t afford to eat healthy: A 2005 USDA study found that you can fulfill your requirement of fruits and vegetables for 64 cents per day—less than the cost of a candy bar. But access to healthy food in poor, urban areas really is a problem. There are stretches of U.S. cities where you’ll pass three Wendy’s and five convenience stores before you’ll find a produce stand.
“We know that Wal-Mart lowers the cost of food, but we figured it’s not always the best food for you.”
In the popular imagination, a big-box store such as Wal-Mart is more often seen as part of the problem than part of the solution: We associate Wal-Mart with large women in stretch pants, fat kids sucking down tubs of soda, and morbidly obese men inching down the snack-food aisle in motorized shopping carts. The store makes candy, chips, and soda ridiculously cheap—so wouldn’t Wal-Mart contribute to the obesity problem?
That’s what economists Art Carden of Rhodes College and Charles Courtemanche of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro suspected. So they conducted a study to find out. Carden and Courtemanche have done a number of studies on Wal-Mart. Carden insists they get no funding from the company, directly or indirectly. Rather, he says, the two free-market economists have been intrigued by the Wal-Mart debate and wanted to test some of the more common criticisms of the store. Generally, they’ve found that the worst fears about Wal-Mart are unfounded, and that the stores have a mostly positive impact on their communities.
But they thought this one might be different. “We expected the study to show an increase in obesity in communities with a Wal-Mart,” Carden says. “We know that Wal-Mart lowers the cost of food, but we figured it’s not always the best food for you.”
To their surprise, they found the opposite—there was a small but statistically significant reduction in obesity rates in communities with a Wal-Mart, perhaps because the store also sells fresh produce of good quality at a good price.
Broadening the study to big-box stores in general, the effect was even more pronounced. “People actually bought more produce, more fruits and vegetables,” Carden says. “Instead of just eating more, they ate a higher-quality diet—a lower-fat diet than the rest of the population.”
Wal-Mart didn’t escape the study completely unscathed. Carden and Courtemanche found an increase in alcohol purchases in communities with Wal-Mart Superstores, and increases in smoking in communities with a Sam’s Club. They also found that the presence of a Wal-Mart in the community correlates with less exercise. But the overall “Wal-Mart effect” on health was positive.
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What kind of article is this. There are people from all walks of life in wallmart.and once you finish walking that whole store, you certainly loose weight.!!!also the whole food,organic, healthy gourmet places are getting out of reach&too expensive
um I don't know if you've ever been inside a Walmart but one of the first things you see is a food court filled with every kind of junk you can imagine.
This article doesn't deal with the fact that when Walmart and other big box stores move in, small local businesses often can't compete and they close down. Walmart creates a monopoly and limits consumer choices to basically cheap Chinese goods, and that's not good for healthy capitalism. What we have these days in this country is corrupt, greedy corporatism. If that's acceptable to you, then by all means shop at Walmart.
That did happen in my town when Walmart moved in; however, not a single one of the businesses that went under paid their employees better than Walmart. Not one. I was in high school at the time and I knew someone who worked for every single business. It also brought people in from some of the rural communities around to spend money in our town (I didn't like the extra traffic, but for the town's $$, it was obviously a boon).
I take it that you would rather exchange the greed of the private sector with the greed of the Statist. Who buy the way have the monopoly on legal violence. I'll take my chances with those who can't compel me through force.
Such paranoia...
Walmart moving into a town is not limiting consumer choices. People CHOOSE to shop at Walmart over other small, local businesses and that is what puts those local businesses out of business. Walmart providing goods to individuals and families is very GOOD for those who are in poverty. Why reject lower prices at big box stores for higher prices at local stores if you are in poverty?
I live in New York. There are most definitely some areas of the city that could use a walmart or something similar. The small "businesses" that they would compete with are rackets. They range from electronic stores that sell last year's digital camera at full MSRP and grocery stores that sell oranges for $1 each. They take advantage of the unsophistication of their customers to stiff them for as much money as possible. They are not worth protecting.
Access is a huge problem in poor areas. Go to a low income neighborhood's grocery store and prepared to get depressed. Dirty, dingy stores with odd lot brands, frequently past their 'buy by' date.
I recall being in such a store in the warm months. Where a Publix would have lots of fresh fruit, this one had shriveled, dusty produce with weird smells. Even these were hardly plentiful. Plus-insult to injury- the stuff was expensive. The cheapest item? Lard. many brands of lard.
When one doesn't have a car, and one works the odd hours, those times when the working poor are often employed, time and effort matter when shopping.
When Walmart offers one stop shopping of decent food at decent prices, it helps people who want to eat better to do so.
Small convenience stores and local shops don't provide what poor people need to have better diets. It's as simple as that.
This is truly an astonishing article. In my neck of the woods, you can see more obese people waddling through the Wal-mart, than anywhere else. It is as though, they have been concentrated in that location by a magnifying glass.
I believe that making fresh produce available at lower cost could potentially help those with a food-eating-to-excess disorder, but the evidence suggests that the food eating habits that those with this particular disorder have, are well-ingrained, and that they may choose frozen pizzas over fresh broccoli.
But, if the article is true, I say "Praise the Lard!"
Did the authors of this study bother to include Wal-Marts that don't sell produce? There are many. I've only been in one that does sell produce. Surely including those other stores would alter the results.
Also, this article neglects the fact that a good number of Wal-Mart employees receive Medicaid, they are the working poor. So you and I are funding Wal-Mart's corporate greed. If they paid a decent wage, if they offered real affordable health care, Medicaid wouldn't be so prevalent. What's wrong with Wal-Mart? Plenty.
Economic impact of Wal-Mart aside, healthy eating is a matter of inclination, choice, and education.
While obesity absolutely has a genetic factor, it is also a behavioral disease.
Putting the fresh vegetables next to the McDonalds in the store doesn't make much of a difference to people who want McDonalds.
"While obesity absolutely has a genetic factor,
it is also a behavioral disease."
Just another politically correct phrase to shirk
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY and CHOICES.
It is NOT a scientific fact that obesity is genetic.
The French eat some of the richest foods in the
world and they don't have an obesity problem
like we do.
Americans eat a lot of processed crap, and soda
and more soda, and more soda, and nobody
holds a gun to our head to eat or drink CRAP.
Put down the freaking fries, and eat some vegetables.
Overeating is not a "behavioral disease." IT IS A CHOICE.
Enough with the politically correct excuses.
The problem with Wal-Mart is this: they are so spread out and powerful, if a little produce market were to open and give them competition, Wal-Mart could give fresh produce away for free for years and still not feel it. They can underbid any competition. That's bad for business.
Price is only one leg of the sales triad. The other two are quality and service. Yes in hard times wal mart is going to clean house on price but have difficulty competing on quality. A good company will exploit this to it's advantage and flourish, a bad company will die. Or get a bailout thus preventing the market to work.
> Wal-Mart could give fresh produce away for free for years and still not feel it.
Yeah, that sure would suck for poor people, wouldn't it? Free produce for years...
It may be bad for the business attempting to compete against Walmart but its fantastic for the consumer. Can you imagine getting fresh produce for under its market value? Consumers - especially the poor - should love that.
Great article. Information about what is healthy is so widespread that it is not as if people in poor communities are unaware of it. In many poor communities, there just isn't a grocery store that carries fresh produce and healthy food. In all grocery stores, healthy food is much more expensive than unhealthy food. There is, effectively, a tax on healthy food. Walmart levels the playing field, to some extent. If the healthy food is easy to get and reasonably priced, anyone would take the step to buy some of it.
I wish walmart would get rid of the drive around carts that all the fat people ride.
What I see during trips to Walmart are a variety of
obese people riding around on "people movers" . . .
. . . filling their carts up on GALLONS of sugary "sunny" drinks,
frozen dinners, a collection of fried this-and-thats,
bags of chips, super-duper-delicious high fructose cereals,
and processed snack cakes . . .
. . . as they pass by the so-called "fresh food,"
which would be a shock to their systems.
To be followed by a trip to the fast food joint for
another serving of fried "delicacies."
Sorry, sophia5, but recent medical studies are lending credence to the theory that there is a genetic component to obesity.
As in all disorders with a behavorial component, of course choice is a factor.
But it isn't everything.
And I never implied that reducing obesity doesn't require personal responsibility. It does.
I just pointed out that choice isn't all that is involved in the condition.
Agreed. Have no idea how old you are sophia5, but most people have gone through a larger stage in their lives. You are sounding a little judgemental and, frankly, heartless.
People prioritize different things or life beats them up which often time leads to more pounds, too. Stress, loss, so forth can result in little time to focus on eating well. A lot of people get depressed and gain more. It has been shown that people who are overweight have a harder time sticking with exercise because it is simply harder for them to do it due to their size. It isn't all black and white out there.
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Even worse than finding fresh food, try to find a bank in poor areas. I work in these areas and often have to drive many miles for a bank. I have a car, but local people often have no access to any of the stores that the rest of us take for granted.
The fact that these two are "free-market economists" gives you a hint that there is some bias here. I've read a few articles on Walmart's practices on the other side of the business equation where public scrutiny is a lot less intense. I refer to their rabid practices with suppliers. It's been said that securing a contract to supply them with produce can put you into bankruptcy from the severe penalties levied for non-compliance through to intense pressure to lower and lower the charges for produce. In their favour, however, this means that produce Walmart sells is of very high quality and freshness. They won't take anything less. No-one is ever going to argue that Walmart sells "dodgy" produce.
In my neck of the woods (Glendale, CA), we have independent supermarkets and ethnic groceries selling local produce for far less than Wal-Mart or any of the big chain supemarkets. I undrstand this may not be possible in all areas of the country but Wal-Mart should not be anyone's sole recourse for low prices. Locally grown produce costs less because of lower shipping expenses, not because Wal-Mart extorted unsustainable low costs. The whole article sounds like a shill for Wal-Mart to lower resistance to their operations in the big cities.
Have you been to a Wal-Mart lately? Tons of fat asses and carts loaded with cans as opposed to fresh produce.
Wal-Mart would do a great job in promoting the health benefits and ease of preparing fresh produce. AND how much better it is for your kids.
"low-income people can't afford to eat healthy . . . "
Have any of this generation's writers heard the word "adverb?"
Is there a product called "healthy" that we should be eating, or did you mean . . . low-income people can't afford to eat healthily?
If Wal-Mart is one large entity making huge profits, then why hasn't another big box store come around and given them a run for their money? The barriers to entry aren't that high. Honestly, they're not making outlandish profits; they are still in competition with every mom and pop store in town
Target is competing with Walmart in many markets, and has groceries including produce in their super stores.
The obsession with low prices in this country is as short-sighted as the obsession against taxes. Everybody wants to make out in the end, but things have a price. What people in poor neighborhoods need more than cheap goods is opportunity. Do monolithic corporate monopolies provide better opportunities for wages than local businesses? Where are the products made? If we all got over these obsessions and started paying what society's costs are, then we would see everybody's boats rise. Well, expect that pond sum floating above the rest of us. Some of them would have to come back down to earth a bit.
How is Walmart a monopoly? Nobody is stopping you from starting a rival company that will somehow provide greater "opportunity." If goods are produced in the US, their market price will rise. If their market price rises, then people in poor neighborhoods will have to pay higher prices for their consumer goods. Perhaps it is better for the goods to produced elsewhere to create lower prices for the consumer. You may forget that in places where there is unfettered capitalism, everybody becomes wealthier.
Mr. Boots at 9:48 May 17, 2009: excellent point re: the adverb.
The fact is we still live in a country where we can make our own choices. Wal-Mart is in the business of selling consumer goods. If the people choose not to buy certain items, WM will, in all likelihood, adapt and find the items the public will buy. The obesity police should not step in and tell WM what they can & cannot sell. If people want to buy with their own money candy, donuts, chips, pastries and other fat/sugary items and WM is willing to sell it to them at a price they can afford, that's commerce, people. Get over it and let the people buy what they want and can afford with their own money. It's called freedom. However, if these people choose to eat things that are not good for their health, smoke, do drugs, drink and be a couch potato, that's fine; just don't ask me to pay for their diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, mental health counseling, and other health problems that may result therefrom.
This article discusses separating poor people from their junk food by using Wal-Mart. Did those researchers pay any attention to the locations that Wal-Mart chooses for its stores? It started in large towns. Then it went to the suburbs. I have not seen Wal-Marts in poor neighborhoods. Comparing the corner store to the Wal-Mart ten miles away seems a little crazy. How do these researchers manage to get these grants for these studies? I can come up with a bunch of nonsense for a few hundred thousand dollars.
A good start to combating obesity among the "poor" in "poor" neighborhoods is to restrict the foods they can aquire using food stamps. No more chips, sodas, snacks etc. when the taxpayer is footing the bill. Program the checkout scanners to reject foods of useless nutritional value. You want your Little Debbie's? Reach into your own pocket, not mine.
Wal-Mart's spotty environmental record also needs to be factored into this equation. Any so-called benefit that Wal-mart communities see will eventually, if they are not already, be eclipsed by the costs of environmental degradation.
Also, kudos to DeaconDrJones--well said.
Such elitism toward Wal-Mart. Granted its not the type of store for everyone, but you can't argue that it has the effect of lowering prices. The point of this article is about making healthy food affordable and available. In my community, a city of approx 250,000, the 'north side' is where the lower income reside. They have a very difficult time attracting and retaining businesses in the area. I find it very interesting that affordable healthy food, as well as as our 'sins and indulgences', are a benefit of a big box store.
Thank you.
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