A team of researchers recently carried out a study of two food deserts in poor Philadelphia neighborhoods. One of the neighborhoods got a new supermarket and the other didn’t. Here’s the good news:
Respondents perceived grocer choice and quality and fruit and vegetable choice and quality to have improved, and the cost of fruit and vegetables was perceived to have decreased.
And here’s the bad news:
Few residents adopted the new supermarket as their main food store, and exposure to the new supermarket had no statistically significant impact on BMI and daily fruit and vegetable intake at six months….At the planning and consultation stages, members of the community indicated their preference for having a new supermarket instead of selling the land for residential development. This suggested their readiness to use the new store and the lowering of barriers to change. However, few residents chose to shop at the store once it was open.
….Our findings suggest that simply building new food retail stores may not be sufficient to promote behavior change related to diet….The development of new food retail stores should be combined with initiatives focused on price and availability that could help bridge the gap between improvements in people’s perceptions of accessibility and behavior change. Such initiatives might be supported by local departments of health, which could provide targeted neighborhood-based health promotion programs in conjunction with supermarket developers to increase their effectiveness.
All the usual caveats apply. This is one study of one store in one neighborhood. And it’s possible that it takes more time to change behavior. A follow-up done six months after the new store opened may simply have been too soon.
Nonetheless, it adds to an increasing set of data suggesting that food deserts per se aren’t the reason for obesity and poor nutrition in low-income neighborhoods. There’s much more going on, and it’s especially discouraging that residents plainly knew about the new supermarket but still didn’t shop there. Even a highly publicized grand opening featuring a visit from Michelle Obama wasn’t enough. It was a struggle just to get local residents to change their shopping habits, which is almost certain to be a lot easier than getting broad-based changes in actual eating habits.
We cannot call it a natural accident, because nature wasn’t involved”
End Quote Latvian President Andris Berzins
Officials have said soil from a garden being built on the roof of the shop may have caused Thursday’s collapse.
Latvia has begun three days of national mourning for the deadliest disaster since the former Soviet republic gained independence in 1991.
“These three days of mourning are very necessary to go from the mindset of helplessness to rethinking what each of us has done so that we can act in practical manner, because this is an event where we must clearly say that this is a large scale murder of many defenceless people and act accordingly,” President Berzins told public LTV broadcaster.
He said an investigation should be held at “maximum speed”.
And he went on to say: “While not undermining the professionalism of our builders, I believe that we should call upon international expertise which is in no way connected with our construction business.
“We cannot call it a natural accident, because nature wasn’t involved. The evening was calm and silent with a little fog. This is our own made disaster.”
Latvian families hold each other and cry, as they lay flowers beside a huge pile of rubble. The remains of supermarket shelves and shop goods, such as toilet rolls, poke out from the broken stones.
But alongside the sorrow, a new feeling is starting to emerge. Anger. A fierce debate has broken out about who is to blame.
In a no-holds barred interview given to Latvian television, President Andris Berzins described the tragedy as the “mass murder” of innocent civilians.
He said the tragedy shouldn’t be called an accident because the deaths were not caused by an act of nature.
And he said the criminal probe should be led by independent investigators from abroad – implying that powerful business interests in Latvia are too closely entwined with politics to ensure a fair and honest investigation.
Questions surround whether safety standards were ignored when this building was constructed in 2011; or whether work on a roof garden, which was being built on top of the store, was carried out in a negligent manner.
Fading hopes
Rescue teams have been working round the clock at the Maxima supermarket, digging in the wreckage of the single-storey concrete and glass building to see if anyone is still trapped inside.
They have been periodically turning off all their equipment and asking the families of missing people to phone their relatives so they can pinpoint the ring tones in the debris.
Ten families have told the police that they believe their loved ones could be among the rubble, our correspondent says.
But, 48 hours on, hopes of finding anyone else alive are fading, he adds. By late Saturday the death toll had risen from 52 to 54.
Many people have been laying flowers and lighting candles in commemoration of the dead.
Thirteen firefighters were among some 40 wounded, and 29 people were in hospital as of Saturday morning, the fire and rescue service said.
The initial collapse happened just before 18:00 (16:00 GMT) on Thursday, when the Maxima store was busy with customers.
About 20 minutes later another part of the roof caved in, trapping rescue workers who were trying to reach survivors.
Witnesses said customers tried to run out after the first part of the roof collapsed but the supermarket’s electronic doors closed, trapping them inside.
A rooftop garden with children’s playground was being built on the top of the building. There is speculation it may have been unable to support the large amount of building materials and soil that was believed to be on the roof at the time.
Local media said the building, rented by the Maxima chain, had been awarded a national architecture prize when it was completed in 2011.
But the inquiry will now investigate whether building regulations were broken.
land for residential development. This suggested their readiness to use the new store and the lowering of barriers to change. However, few residents chose to shop at the store once it was open.
