More than 1 in 3 adults eat fast food on a given day in the United States. Why do so many people eat food that is so highly discouraged by nutritionist and health advocates? The assumed culprit of the U.S.’s reputation for unhealthy eating and obesity is fast food and poverty. The media narrative is often focused on low-income communities’ lack of access to quality food. Neighborhoods that only have fast food chains and small corner stores lacking fresh, healthy, and safe produce are examples of “food deserts” that are prominent in both rural and urban areas in the U.S.

It makes sense that accessibility is a barrier to higher quality food markets, right? This has been the basis of food desert research and improving food security in the past. Significant policy attention and research is now devoted to increasing access to healthy grocery markets in low-income areas as a means of improving community nutrition. While food deserts have increasingly been thought to be the main culprit of unhealthy eating habits, the lack of fresh food access has seemingly made little to no difference in the eating habits of these populations, according to a recent and pioneering study. Now, this narrative is being overturned and shifted, reshaping how food deserts are researched.

A 2018 study by Stanford Graduate School of Business, Food Deserts and the Causes of Nutritional Inequality, challenges how the public and governmental organizations approach food deserts by focusing not just on access to food, but why urban residents choose to eat the foods they do.

By investigating “purchasing patterns among households with identical local supply,” the study finds introducing markets within these neighborhoods has little impact on nutritional inequality. The study also exposes low-income households to the same products and prices available to high-income populations. Researchers estimate grocery demand, using an instrument that studies geographic markets and product groups.

This study concludes that the introduction of local supermarkets in these areas explain no more than about 1.5 percent of the difference in healthy eating between high- and low-income households. The reduction in nutritional inequality was found to only be 9 percent. That leads to the researchers’ most surprising finding: the remaining 91 percent is then driven by differences in product demand.

Wouldn’t proximity to stores help this issue due to less need to drive, especially if they don’t have access to a car? Actually, it is the opposite. Americans travel a long way for shopping, so even people who live in “food deserts” still get most of their groceries from supermarkets. Thus, the only result of adding a grocery store in the area is the diversion of business from another market. In fact, researchers find that households living in zip codes with no supermarkets still buy 85 percent of their groceries from supermarkets. What these findings mean is that policies to reduce supply inequities, such as “food deserts,” do not, in fact, play an important role in reducing nutritional inequality, contrary to the common perception

This reframing of food deserts is monumental. Estimating grocery demand has sparked a shift in research which will affect the structure and pursuits of many communities. Resources for food knowledge will be more available to and reach millions of people whose lived realities are in these neighborhoods. The widely accepted notion of a “food desert” is misleading as it is based on a market definition that under-estimates consumers’ willingness-to-travel. Furthermore, our current fight against food deserts ignores the bigger topic and issue of healthy eating.

This study unearths issues more heavily associated with the need for better nutritional education and knowledge. As findings suggest “20 percent of the income-related preference differences are econo-metrically explained by education and another 14 percent are explained by nutrition knowledge.”

Food access is at the forefront of conversations regarding U.S. eating habits and issues. More organizations dedicated to food security, urban farms, and health stores have gained traction. While convenience is important, this study shows the most important strategy is nutrition education. This study is critical to the future of food policy. It challenges the fields of public health, urban planning, and environmental studies to interrogate their own findings and look towards more effective means of addressing in these inequities.