sábado, 8 de diciembre de 2012

Preventing Chronic Disease | Food Retailer Licensing: An Innovative Approach to Increasing Access to Healthful Foods - CDC

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Preventing Chronic Disease | Food Retailer Licensing: An Innovative Approach to Increasing Access to Healthful Foods - CDC

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Food Retailer Licensing: An Innovative Approach to Increasing Access to Healthful Foods

Ian McLaughlin, JD; Karen Kramer, JD

Suggested citation for this article: McLaughlin I, Kramer K. Food Retailer Licensing: An Innovative Approach to Increasing Access to Healthful Foods. Prev Chronic Dis 2012;9:120127. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5888/pcd9.120127External Web Site Icon.
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Introduction

Imagine walking into your neighborhood food retailer and finding that the dairy section has no skim milk (although sodas are plentiful) and that the only fresh produce offered is potatoes and limes. This is the reality for many urban and rural low-income Americans, whose only nearby “grocery store” is a mini-mart or corner store that is primarily stocked with processed foods high in fat and sugar. More than 2 million people live in low-income rural areas where the nearest supermarket is more than 10 miles away, and 116 million Americans must travel more than a mile, often without a car, to find a supermarket (1,2).
Poor access to healthful foods and oversaturation of unhealthful foods correlates with overweight and obesity; therefore, increasing the availability of healthful foods at small food retailers is critical to improving the food environment in low-income areas and should be part of any comprehensive approach to reversing the obesity epidemic (3). Recognizing this, public health advocates have implemented programs to encourage small food retailers to sell more healthful foods, usually by offering incentives, technical assistance, and promotional materials (4).
Although these programs can be effective (5), they benefit only a small patchwork of low-income areas nationally, and because they are nonregulatory and labor- and resource-intensive, they have a limited reach, are vulnerable to funding cuts, and typically rely on incentives rather than enforceable standards.
ChangeLab Solutions has developed a Model Licensing Ordinance for Healthy Food Retailers (“Model Ordinance”) to provide a new policy option for improving access to healthful food in communities (Model Ordinance available at http://changelabsolutions.org/publications/HFR-licensing-ord). ChangeLab Solutions (formerly Public Health Law & Policy) is a national nonprofit organization devoted to creating innovative community-based laws and policies that improve public health. Inspired by the successful use of licensing laws to reduce tobacco sales to youth, the Model Ordinance is designed to complement existing programmatic work by providing a broader reach, enforceable standards, and a more financially secure foundation.

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