Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Food & Nutrition Journal

Publication Date

2025

Comments

Published in: Food & Nutrition Journal, June, 2025.

Abstract

Despite tremendous progress in addressing food insecurity, hunger and malnutrition are still widespread across the globe. Different factors, such as low levels of income and education, lack of access to food markets and transportation, high unemployment and population rates, and abandoned homes in a neighborhood, are among the factors that have been attributed to the creation of food deserts in emerging and developed countries. Some of the leading causes of death in the U.S. are heart attack, obesity, and diabetes. These major causes of death have a higher rate among the Black, Latin, and Hispanic populations. Access to healthy and nutritious food is imperative to enhance the health and the welfare of the communities that are considered food desert areas, the areas that are denoted as insecure food areas with poor access to nutritious and healthy foods. The Greater Springfield Area, the 4th largest city in the northeast part of the U.S., with high Black and Hispanic populations, was selected for conducting this research. This study provides the demographic information of the Greater Springfield Area. Furthermore, the research provides nutritional information regarding some easily available fast food items in the Springfield urban area in addition to some vegetables that can grow in Massachusetts. The study compares the minerals, vitamins, and other nutrient contents in the selected vegetables and compares them to the selected fast food items in the area under study. The research provides information regarding the available urban areas under study that vertical agriculture can be implemented with the potential of turning food deserts into green neighborhoods and providing nutritious, healthy, and accessible food sources with the potential of enhancing the health of the communities under study.

Volume

10

Issue

326

DOI

https://doi.org/10.29011/2575-7091.100226

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