"You have this curious circle where people don't buy the [healthful] foods because they're not available, and the stores don't stock them because they think no one wants them," said Gittelsohn. His job is to break that circle.
One key is to provide healthful foods that are the same price as the unhealthful ones. That's a challenge. Whole-wheat bread is more expensive than white. Baked chips and Sun Chips don't come in the same 25-cent bags as Utz's high-fat Cheddar and Sour Cream Chips. And 100 percent fruit juice costs several times more than the small 35-cent plastic bottles of Hugs, the sweetened drinks that kids slurp down.
Next year, the Healthy Stores Project will grow again, to include stores around 15 black churches in the city. Money for that phase will come from the American Diabetes Association, which will run workshops at the churches on diabetes prevention while Gittelsohn and his team work to get better foods into the nearby stores.
Public health experts believe that if nutritious food is available, and promoted, people will buy it. But in too many places, it's just not available. Dr. Manuel Franco, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, assessed the food offerings at 226 stores in Baltimore City and County. He found that predominantly black and low-income neighborhoods have significantly less healthful food available than white and more affluent areas.
Franco found that in 21 stores - all in black neighborhoods - the food is kept behind bulletproof glass and sold through a revolving window, making it impossible for customers to assess the quality of the food or read nutrition labels.
"We're living in cities right now where healthy foods are not available," Franco said, referring to inner-city neighborhoods, not the affluent areas where Whole Foods and farmers' markets offer a healthful eater's nirvana. For people without cars, getting to those places, and getting their groceries home, is an ordeal.
"People want to eat better, but the problem is we don't have access," said Joyce Smith, executive director of the community group Operation ReachOut SouthWest. She said in her own survey of corner stores, she found "skids and skids of ramen noodles," which are high in sodium, and processed food. And if there is fruit, it's behind glass barriers. "How can people touch it?" she wondered.
Outside the Blooming Sun Market on Mount Street, Davon Burges was sitting on some steps last week having an Icee pop and Sunny Delight he got from the store. Burges, 17, said he wished the store would carry apples and strawberries, not just bananas. But he blames his fellow customers, not the store owner. "Everything in that store is what people want to buy," he said.
Grace Lyo has made some changes to her store since joining the Hopkins program. She placed a basket of bananas on her counter and found space on her shelves for low-sugar cereals like corn flakes, low-fat milk, cooking spray and mayonnaise substitutes such as Miracle Whip.
"When I see my customers, no one is helping them eat nutritious foods," she said. "They're my neighbors, and I want them to be healthy."
stephen.kiehl@baltsun.com
