Friday, October 26, 2007

JJSE's Digital Food Map

Students in the Food Class at June Jordan created this digital map using Google maps. Each student mapped the four places they go most often for food - including grocery stores, corner stores, farmers' markets, fast food joints, and more. (Note: this map represents the places we CHOOSE to eat, not all the available food places we have access to.)

Key:
Blue marker = student's home
Red marker = place to get unhealthy food
Green marker = place to get healthy food



View Larger Map

San Francisco has 3.85 times more unhealthy food options than healthy food options, according to the California Center for Public Health Advocacy. Their study counted unhealthy options like fast food restaurants and liquor stores selling junk food and compared them to healthy options like grocery stores and farmers markets. We did better than Sacramento, with 5.66 times more unhealthy options, but worse than Santa Cruz with 1.84.

How does our class's map of our shopping choices relate to this fact about food access? Respond to these questions in the comments section:

  1. What do you notice when you look at the map overall?
  2. Are there more healthy or unhealthy food locations, or are they about the same? Near school? Near your house?
  3. How far do you have to travel from home to buy food? How many blocks?
  4. What kinds of food can you most easily buy within walking distance of your house?
  5. Why do you think this is so?
  6. Do you think other parts of San Francisco look the same as our neighborhoods, or are they different? Why or why not?
  7. If you could change something about the food locations in our neighborhoods, what would you change?



8 comments:

Louisa said...

I'm not a student, but can I comment too? I was surprised, it looks like about as many greens as reds. But then, the grocery stores are green but you can buy a lot of unhealthy food there too, right?

I have 5 grocery stores within a mile of my house, and 3 are even organic, but its hard to shop there all the time because they are way more expensive. Also there is a farmer's market once a week (not in winter) but its only during the day so those of us with 9-5 jobs can't make it there.

So, it's interesting that even with healthy options physically nearby, there are still other accessibility issues for a lot of people.

Anonymous said...

By looking at the map, overall i noticed that it showed the certain places that carried healthy and unhealthy foods with balloon flags. A green balloon being healthy, and a red balloon signaling unhealthy.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

they should put more advertising out with more healty foods instead of unhealty foods... ya digg!!

Anonymous said...

I THINK they should close all the unhealthy food places and open up more healthy foods and advertise them more on t.v!!!

Anonymous said...

In our class map of (un)healthy food choices in the city, what I found most interesting was the fact that most of either choice is clumped together in an area or spread too far apart. This is exactly what happens in my area (I live in the outer Mission) leaving me with one alternative: travel. I have to drive a bit far to get some organics. This was a large impediment until my family and I decided to turn or jungle of a backyard into a home garden. This too can be a nice way to lessen the cost of vegetables we eat, plus there is no reason to be afraid of evil pesticides. It does take more work but I think it is much easier.

Anonymous said...

I think that they shud hav more healthy places to eat and advertise them so that more people could start eating healthy and that young kids wont become obese.

Anonymous said...

I put Safeway as an unhealthy option because my boyfriend works there and he showed me what's in the back. It's all processed and frozen food. I think the healthiest option in my neighborhood is the corner produce stores.