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Christopher Rome
Dr. Wanda White
ENGL 1102-018
13 April 2014
The Costliness of Healthy Food
Despite the obesity epidemic running rampant in the United States, a majority of citizens
are finding it difficult to afford healthier options. Is it the measurement of food, corporate greed,
or production cost that cause healthy foods to appear more expensive? Over the past few decades,
several news outlets have aired articles showing that the average weight of Americans has been
increasing, mostly due to the lack of exercise and poor diet. Focusing on the poor diet aspect, is
it because there are no healthy options in super markets? To find out why consumers would
rather buy unhealthy food over healthy food, first, one would have to define what would
constitute as a healthy food product. Next, one would need to know about the labels used by
these products and what they mean in relation to how healthy the food is. After that, a
comparison of prices between these healthy food products and regular food would be needed to
assess whether there is a big price difference that these news outlets are reporting on. Lastly, one
would need to identify whether there are any other influences that persuade or dissuade
consumers from buying a particular product.
What constitutes as healthy food?
Healthy food is considered healthy because of what the food causes or prevents. The
Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is the government run regulation agency for food
and drugs, defines the health claims of healthy food as a relationship between a food substance
(a food, food component, or dietary supplement ingredient), and reduced risk of a disease or
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health-related condition. (Label Claims for Conventional Foods and Dietary Supplements.)
What this means is that a food would have to be known to reduce health risks, such as high
cholesterol or heart attacks, to be able to make health claims. This might be one reason that
healthy foods cost more than regular food. The added benefit is a draw from some customers that
could afford it. Is it that healthy labeling and the means of obtaining it that causes the price to, on
average, be higher than other foods? Maybe it is how the prices between the foods are measured
due to the nature of calories, fats, and salts corresponding to how healthy a food is.
How healthy food is labeled
While perusing through a super market, many
customers will see various labels on all sorts of items, ranging
from vegetable packages to cereal boxes to pastry containers
(see fig. 1). Many of these labels arent completely regulated
by the FDA because of how ambiguous many terms are. For
example, the 100% natural label has no regulatory
definition. The FDA has no concrete definition for natural because of the wide range of
process that could make a product no longer of the earth. The FDA allows many companies to
use the label if their products are only minimally processed and no artificial flavors, colorings, or
preservatives are used. Another very interesting label that could be more false than a costumer
would realize is that a 0g Trans Fat actually doesnt mean that the product is completely free
of trans fat. The FDAs standards say that a product can have this particular label if the product
contains less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving. Meanwhile, the American Heart Association
advises the public to eat no more than two grams of trans fat per day. Many companies could
possibly manipulate their serving sizes to adhere to the FDAs labeling standard to get the label
Figure 1 The Various Labels Found on Food Items
(Family Wellness HQ)
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and the added exposure and appeal to the average costumer. If regulations like these can be
easily manipulated in favor of selling more products, costumers are unable to trust the labels that
are on these products on the shelves. They would need to actually go in depth into the ingredients
of the food item in order to find out if the product is being sold as advertised.
Comparison of prices between healthy and unhealthy.
Generally, people associate with higher prices to healthy and organic foods. These types
of foods are low in calories, fats, and salts most of the time. When analyzing the price of a food,
they are usually measured with the ratio of price per calorie. Fruits and vegetables are known for
their lower calorie count, which means that an apple will have a higher price per calorie than a
twinkie would. Research on this particular argument has been conducted by Andrea Carlson and
Elizabeth Frazao, in their report titled Are Healthy Foods Really More Expensive?: It Depends
on How You Measure the Price. In this report, they stated that:
Foods low in calories for a given weight appear to have a higher
price when the price is measured per calorie. For example,
vegetables and fruits, which are low in calories, tend to be a
relatively expensive way to purchase food energy. Conversely, less
healthy foods (called moderation foods in this report)
especially those high in saturated fat and added sugartend to be
high in calories and to have a low price per calorie.
While being a completely valid point, this doesnt explain similar foods and their prices,
such as organic fruits and vegetables compared to genetically modified or several pesticide
bathed fruits and vegetables. The FDA has guidelines for daily nutrition for average people, as
do many other countries across the globe. Cameron and his other authors wrote a report that
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compared the U.K.s Compatible Healthy Eating Guidelines (CHE) based food basket and a
standard basket that was filled with equivalent weights of food, but did not meet the guidelines
in all the right places. Having taken a basket of each from two separate super markets, they
found that the CHE fulfilling basket was significantly more expensive than the standard basket.
The difference ranged between 27% and 37% higher costs, the monetary cost difference ranging
from four Euros to seven Euros. This is between two similarly filling baskets, but the healthier
one is considerably more expensive.
A study conducted closer to the United States happened in Los Angeles and Sacramento,
California. A survey conducted between 25 small grocery stores, using a similar basket method
as Cameron, Jetter, KM, and DL Cassady found that For the 2-week shopping list, the average
[Thrifty Food Plan] market-basket cost was $194, and the healthier market-basket cost was $230.
The average cost of the healthier market basket was more expensive by $36 due to higher costs
of whole grains, lean ground beef, and skinless poultry. A low income family would have to
spend about $2410 a year, which equals to nearly 40% of their income. This is one of the many
influences as to why people would rather buy unhealthy foods over healthy foods.
Influences for buying healthy food.
Economics is driven by supply and demand. If there is low demand and low supply,
things become harder to find and become something of a premium for those who want a
particular item. This may be the case for healthy foods. Among various types of retail stores
that sell food, supermarkets offer the greatest variety of food at the lowest cost. Low-income and
minority neighborhoods have fewer chain supermarkets than do middle- and upper-income
neighborhoods. (Story, Kaphingsy and Robinson-O'Brien) Small Mom and Pop stores cannot
buy many items in bulk, which usually comes in a reduced price for buying from the warehouse
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and lower selling price for the customer. With healthy food costing more and low-income
families unable to afford it at the Mom and Pop stores, the healthy foods that are found in these
stores are much more expensive.
Families, on average, visit the grocery store twice a month, spending $93 on food per trip.
To get the most out of their money, these families buy the unhealthy options of food. A cup of
ramen noodles costs about $.50 but is probably one of the unhealthiest options available. Its salt
content alone is
ridiculously high
compared to most
other foods, yet
many low-income
college students live
off of ramen noodles
solely because of its
price. This type of
influence can be
found related to a
type of influence in
an image that shows
the several layers
and types of
environments that
influence food choices,
Figure 2 An ecological framework depicting the multiple influences on what people eat. (Story,
Kaphingsy and Robinson-O'Brien)
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provided by Story et al. (see fig. 2).
The all-encompassing circle that is labeled Macro-level deals with very obvious and
blatant choices that are made into law, such as a soda tax that New York tried to place. The next
level down can be related to the access of the foods. As mentioned above, many small stores
cant afford to stock healthy food, but if they do, it is much more expensive. In Dr. Gittelsohn
and teams report, they spent several weeks at various small stores across the nation and
attempted to get them to sell more healthy food options to the neighborhoods that they were
located in. The report contains all of the lessons that they have collectively learned during the
experience. In their fourth theme, titled Getting Stores to Stock Healthier Foods, three sites
were unfamiliar in stocking healthy foods and another two sites said that procuring healthy
items in a convenient and affordable way was a challenge. They had to develop relationships
with suppliers and wholesalers to be able to strike deals that would allow them to have access to
affordable pricing and the ability to fill smaller orders that would suit a small store.
The social environment is also a prevalent influence. A humorous example of this would
be seeing a popular athlete on the front of various sugary cereals and fruit snacks, endorsing the
very thing that the athlete is unable to eat because he or she needs to maintain a fit and athletic
body. The most inner circle contains the influences that are purely personal. This includes the
attitudes and preconceived notions about certain foods and, ultimately, the income of the
individual. Not being able to afford certain types of food in reasonable quantities is obviously a
major influence when deciding on which food options to buy.
Conclusion.
Healthy food is generally more expensive than their less healthy counterparts. The price
hike isnt based completely on the publics desire to eat only cake or lack of knowledge. The
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poor food choices can be almost completely pinpointed to the fact that healthy food is more
expensive. A study done by Powell et al. which used the costliness of healthy food and the
resulting effects on the BMI of children of lower income families found convincing data that
supports the theory that higher healthy food prices causes obesity. The study found that a 10%
increase in vegetable prices was associated with a 0.7% increase in child BMI. Throughout this
essay, several concrete statistics and factual findings have shown that there is a clear correlation
between higher prices and foods being healthier, which causes a majority of consumers to buy
the less healthy foods that are offered in grocery stores.
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Works Cited
Cameron, S J, and A M. Madden. "The Cost of a Basket of Food Compatible with Healthy
Eating Guidelines is Higher Than a Comparable Basket of Standard Food." Journal of
Human Nutrition and Dietetics 24.4 (2011). Print.
Carlson, Andrea and Elizabeth Frazao. Are Healthy Foods Really More Expensive?: It Depends
on How You Measure the Price. Economic Research Service. Washington D.C.: U.S.
Dept. of Agriculture, 2012. Internet.
Family Wellness HQ. BEING FOOLED AT THE SUPERMARKET? 20 CLAIMS ON FOOD
LABELS EXPOSED! 20 December 2012. Web.
Gittelsohn, Joel, Melissa N. Laska, Allison Karpyn, Kristen Klingler, and Guadelupe X. Ayala.
"Lessons Learned from Small Store Programs to Increase Healthy Food Access."
American Journal of Health Behavior 38.2 (2014): 307-315. Print.
Jetter, KM, and DL Cassady. "The Availability and Cost of Healthier Food Alternatives."
American Journal of Preventative Medicine. 30.1 (2006): 38-44. Print.
Label Claims for Conventional Foods and Dietary Supplements. 26 February 2014. Web. 1 April
2014. <fda.gov>.
Powell, LM, Y Baow. "Food Prices, Access to Food Outlets and Child Weight." Economics and
Human Biology 7.1 (2009): 64-72. Print.
Story, Mary, et al. "Creating Healthy Food and Eating Environments: Policy and Environmental
Approaches." Annual Review. 2007. Web.