THURSDAY, July 22, 2021 (HealthDay News) – Changes in Americans’ grocery shopping habits during the pandemic have exacerbated pre-existing gaps in food access, researchers report.
While many wealthier people moved to online orders and replenished more supplies, most low-income people still had to shop in person at local small grocery stores and dollar stores, and do so regularly because they could not afford to stock up on groceries .
That’s the result of a study that captured 2020 data on personal traffic at nearly 400 grocery sellers in the Columbus, Ohio area prior to the lockdown (Jan. 6-March 15), during the lockdown (March 16-March 19) April) and reopening investigated during the first investigation (April 20 – May 31).
While mid-range and upscale grocery stores and large city grocery retailers saw a sharp drop in pedestrian traffic during the lockdown, dollar stores and smaller independent grocers – especially in low-income neighborhoods and those serving many people of color – saw little drop in customer visits.
“Most low-income people still had to shop for groceries in person during the COVID lockdown and may not have had the economic opportunity to stock up on groceries,” said lead study author Armita Kar, a doctoral student in geography at Ohio State University.
“They made fewer trips to mid-range and upscale grocery stores outside their neighborhood and continued to regularly go to the stores closest to them, that is, the dollar stores and local grocery stores,” Kar said in a university press release.
The problems poor people face during pandemic lockdowns are not new, according to study co-author Huyen Le, assistant professor of geography at Ohio State.
“COVID-19 has exacerbated existing problems of unequal access to food for low-income people,” Le said.
“The rich and poor mainly shopped at different grocery stores prior to COVID-19, and those differences became even more apparent when the lockdown came,” said Harvey Miller, study co-author, director of the Ohio State Center for Urban and Regional Analysis.
The results underscore the need to provide better food shopping opportunities to low-income people living in so-called food deserts, Le said.
“Dollar stores mostly sell packaged and highly processed foods that are not healthy,” Le said. “Policymakers should look into ways to better shop for people in low-income areas so that they can have better access to healthy food.”
The study is published in the September issue of Applied Geography magazine.
More information
The U.S. Department of Agriculture offers tips on how to eat healthily on a budget.
SOURCE: Ohio State University, news release, July 19, 2021
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