You Can’t Find Healthy Food in the Bush: Poor Accessibility, Availability and Adequacy of Food in Rural Australia

Jill Whelan, Lynne Millar, Colin Bell, Cherie Russell, Felicity Grainger, Steven Allender and Penelope Love
Additional contact information
Jill Whelan: School of Medicine, Global Obesity Centre, Deakin University, Geelong 3220, Australia
Lynne Millar: Australian Health Policy Collaboration, Victoria University, Melbourne 3000, Australia
Colin Bell: School of Medicine, Global Obesity Centre, Deakin University, Geelong 3220, Australia
Cherie Russell: School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University, Geelong 3220, Australia
Felicity Grainger: School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University, Geelong 3220, Australia
Steven Allender: School of Health and Social Development, Global Obesity Centre, Deakin University, Geelong 3220, Australia
Penelope Love: School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University, Geelong 3220, Australia

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-15

Abstract: In high-income countries, obesity disproportionately affects those from disadvantaged and rural areas. Poor diet is a modifiable risk factor for obesity and the food environment a primary driver of poor diet. In rural and disadvantaged communities, it is harder to access affordable and nutritious food, affecting both food insecurity and the health of rural residents. This paper aims to describe the food environment in a rural Australian community (approx. 7000 km 2 in size) to inform the development of community-relevant food supply interventions. We conducted a census audit of the food environment (ground truthing) of a local government area (LGA). We used the Nutrition Environment Measurement tools (NEMS-S and NEMS-R) to identify availability of a range of food and non-alcoholic beverages, the relative price of a healthy compared to a less healthy option of a similar food type (e.g., bread), the quality of fresh produce and any in-store nutrition promotion. Thirty-eight food retail outlets operated at the time of our study and all were included, 11 food stores (NEMS-S) and 27 food service outlets (NEMS-R). The mean NEMS-S score for all food stores was 21/54 points (39%) and mean NEMS-R score for all food service outlets was 3/23 points (13%); indicative of limited healthier options at relatively higher prices. It is difficult to buy healthy food beyond the supermarkets and one (of seven) cafés across the LGA. Residents demonstrate strong loyalty to local food outlets, providing scope to work with this existing infrastructure to positively impact poor diet and improve food security.

Keywords: rural; food supply; food security; obesity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/10/2316/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/10/2316/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:10:p:2316-:d:177247

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().