[discussion] are food deserts real? I am having difficulty not calling bullshit on this whole topic but I want some firm data rather than speculation.  the argument is somewhat like jello like in that it does not seem to have a single apex claim or issue other than that obesity exists and food deserts are part of the problem.  this article and ones like it tend to make these vague half defended claims like  https://newsone.com/1540235/americas-worst-9-urban-food-deserts/  for new Orleans  "average grocery store in New Orleans serves 16,000 people  twice the national average." therefore people are fat.   in Chicago "In a typical Black neighborhood in Chicago, the nearest grocery store is roughly twice as distant as the nearest fast food restaurant."   again, so what? how can burgers ever be comparable to bulk lentils and beans? In both price and shelf life, it seems like the obvious answer. the one for Atlanta is just about how its worse for black people but by their own unsubstantiated metrics. this article says "The study also found that only 8 percent of African Americans live in a census tract with a supermarket, compared to 31 percent of whites." In other words, the minority of both black and white people live near a supermarket as described by this study, so if their reasoning were true we should see much higher obesity in black Atlantians compared to whites in atlanta. but we don't, we see that they are proportionally identical to the national average and surprisingly, Atlanta is slightly lower than the national average for obesity  https://stateofobesity.org/states/ga/ , https://stateofobesity.org/disparities/ How can food deserts be real if some of the most notorious locations of food deserts are below the national average for obesity? anyway, I am curious; do you think food deserts are even real?