Our results show the factors that influence how people eat are complex \u2013 with implications for nutrition in cities around the world. <\/p>\n
The rise of \u2018food deserts\u2019<\/p>\n
The term \u201cfood deserts\u201d emerged in the late 1990s<\/a> to describe areas where residents were denied access to affordable, healthy food due to a lack of supermarkets or poor transport links. As a result, food deserts have usually been defined by distance to supermarkets.<\/p>\n More recent research<\/a> has revealed the picture is more complex. It\u2019s not just how close the person is to a supermarket and how affordable the food is. There are other factors, such as how many shops are available, and whether the shops stock culturally appropriate foods and accept different forms of payment.<\/p>\n Our new paper<\/a> builds on this. It takes a different approach to identifying food deserts \u2013 based on what people actually put in their shopping baskets.<\/p>\n 420 million shopping lists<\/p>\n We used a dataset of Tesco grocery purchases<\/a> containing 420 million anonymised transactions from 1.6 million London Clubcard holders to analyse residents\u2019 food buying, based on the areas linked to shoppers\u2019 loyalty cards. <\/p>\n Two clear purchasing patterns emerged from the data \u2013 one involving sugary, processed and high-carbohydrate foods usually considered unhealthy, the other involving purchases of fresh fruits, vegetables and meat, usually considered to be healthier. <\/p>\n We then mapped the areas of London where each of these purchasing patterns was most common. This revealed distinct geographic patterns. <\/p>\n Inner northwest London had the most nutritious purchasing behaviour \u2013 with high fruit, vegetable and fish purchases. The east and outer west of London followed a less nutritious pattern, high in sweets and soft drinks. <\/p>\n Because our analysis is based on supermarket purchases, it doesn\u2019t capture all food consumption \u2013 such as meals eaten out, takeaway orders, or shopping from smaller local stores. <\/p>\n Still, using real transaction data offers a major advantage over traditional surveys, which often rely on what people say they eat rather than what they actually buy.<\/p>\n Even in cities with stores nearby, some neighbourhoods are still \u2018deserted\u2019 of nutritious options. Lower income linked to less nutritious food<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what emerges when we define food deserts by what people actually buy. Even in cities with stores nearby, some neighbourhoods are still \u201cdeserted\u201d of nutritious options. Often, it\u2019s not about distance at all \u2013 it\u2019s about economic and social factors. <\/p>\n We then analysed how demographic and socioeconomic factors such as age, income, Black, Asian and minority ethnic populations, car ownership, and walk time to stores relate to diet quality across London. <\/p>\n We found that income and the proportion of Black, Asian and minority ethnic residents were among the strongest factors linked to diet quality. But their influence varied across the city. Lower income was linked to less nutritious food purchasing throughout London, and this effect was strongest in parts of the east and west. <\/p>\n This suggests that affordability and social disadvantage shape what\u2019s within reach \u2013 even when supermarkets are nearby. <\/p>\n Some factors that might be expected to influence diet had surprisingly little effect. For example, car ownership was linked to less nutritious purchases in certain areas, while walk time to stores had very low association with diet quality. <\/p>\n Together, these patterns suggest two things: the reasons people eat unhealthily are local and vary from place to place, and they\u2019re shaped more by social and economic conditions than by how close shops are.<\/p>\n Global relevance<\/p>\n While our study focuses on London, the findings have relevance beyond the United Kingdom. <\/p>\n The same inequalities that shape London\u2019s dietary health also exist in Australian cities. Australia is highly urbanised, with around 73% of the population living in major cities. <\/p>\n Here too, poor diet is one of the nation\u2019s leading causes of preventable disease. In 2022, 66% of Australian adults and 26% of children were living with overweight or obesity, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare<\/a> (AIHW). On top of that, the average servings of fruit and vegetables have declined across all age groups since 2017\u201318, according to AIHW data<\/a>.<\/p>\n A similar data-driven approach using anonymised grocery transaction data from sources such as Woolworths Everyday Rewards card or Coles\u2019 Flybuys programs could help reveal which communities face the greatest nutritional constraints, and why. <\/p>\n Another important takeaway from our work is that food access is not a one-size-fits-all problem. Understanding what people buy \u2013 not just where they live \u2013 is key to creating healthier and more equitable food environments. <\/p>\n Focusing on actual purchasing behaviour allows policymakers to design more effective, community-informed interventions that promote fairer, healthier food choices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eating plenty of fruit and vegetables is key to staying healthy and avoiding diseases such as heart disease…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[97,269],"class_list":{"0":"post-278983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-nutrition"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/file-20251105-56-x1c6aj.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n Joel Carrett\/AAP<\/p>\n