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Christopher Rome
Dr. Wanda White
ENGL 1102 - 018
19 March 2014
Topic: Why would food deemed health by the Food and Drug Administration cost more than
regular food in the United States.

Story, Mary, Karen Kaphingst, Ramona Robinson-O'Brien, and Karen Glanz. Creating Healthy
Food and Eating Environments: Policy and Environmental Approaches. Annual Review,
2007. Web.

This source was first published online in November of 2007 under the Annual Reviews
publishing company. The review goes over the many aspects as to why certain food choices are
made. It covers areas from the cost of the food, immediate environment, and work/school
settings. The review specifically highlights the status of measurement and evaluation of nutrition
environments and the need for action to improve health.

This review not only discusses the cost of healthy food and its impact to low income families,
but also discusses the environments and conditions that influence food choice. Within the review,
there is an excellent graphic that shows the many influences as to why people choose to eat what
they eat. Although the review has a highly academic vocabulary, using words that I would need
to look up, I feel the review is well organized and presents the information in a way that I can
use it.

The review is a very credible work. The authors are well known in their respective fields and
have their contact information and work titles available for anyone whom wishes to contact them.
The article itself is published under a nonprofit scientific publisher and has been cited over 250
times by other works.


Gittelsohn, Joel, Melissa Laska, Allison Karpyn, Kristen Klingler, and Guadalupe
Ayala. Lessons Learned From Small Store Programs to Increase Healthy Food Access..
38. Oak Ridge: American Journal of Health Behavior, 2014. 307-315. Web.

This source is very recent, only being published in the last couple months. The article goes in
depth with lessons learned from using small stores to provide a healthier food choice to the low
income areas that the stores are located in. Four authors take four different cities and talk with
small store owners and attempt to help them stock healthier food choices, taking seven themes
and many lessons learned from the endeavor.

The article does not specifically hit on the prices of healthier food choices, but it does discuss
small stores in lower income areas. The article mainly focuses on the stores and how the authors
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got them to get healthy food in stock, keep it in stock, and get the locals to buy the healthier
choices over the less healthy choices. I find the seven themes and the several lessons learned
under each theme to be very intriguing. I feel I could use several of the lessons in my paper to
help drive some topics home.

The article comes from a very credible background. It was published under the American Journal
of Health Behavior, which is a large and respected publishing organization. The authors are
experts in their specific fields and have had their article peer reviewed.


Ward, Paul R., et al. "Food Stress In Adelaide: The Relationship Between Low Income And The
Affordability Of Healthy." Journal Of Environmental & Public Health 2013.(2013): 1-10.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

This article specifically discusses how expensive healthier food options can be and their effect on
low income families. Food being the only thing that low income families can compromise,
seeing as house payments, transportation, utilities, etc. are generally fixed costs, leads to the
purchase of cheaper foods that are less healthy and can cause health risks associated with eating
those unhealthy foods. The article discusses that a Healthy Food Basket would cost a low
income family about 30% of their household income, while a wealthier family would only need
to spend about 10% of their income on the basket.

The article discusses the very nature of my topic, why healthy food is so expensive despite being
needed because of the health risks of obesity. The idea of the Healthy Food Basket being the
medium for what families should buy to meet their nutritional needs is interesting. The article
has a graph that displays how big the percentage gap between what wealthy families pay for food
and what low income families pay for food and a chart that shows what would be the nutritional
requirements that needed to be met to fulfill the nutritional requirements for the week.

The article is from the Journal of Environmental and Public Health, which has some merit to
being a credible source. The authors are well versed in their fields of study. The authors also all
come from well-known departments that specialize in health related subjects.


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 & Dietetics 24.4 (2011): 380-381. Academic Search Complete. Web.
10 Mar. 2014.

This article compares two different health food baskets, one from Australia, one from Great
Britain. It notes that the cost of the healthier baskets were more expensive than that of the less
healthy baskets. This article can go hand in hand with the previously mentioned source because
of how closely related they are.

I can use this article as extra support from the source mentioned above. Both articles were
published on the same day but discuss my topic in different ways but use the health basket as a
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tool of measurement. This particular article has a chart that shows the cost difference between a
healthy food basket, as deemed by specific standards, compared to that of a standard food
basket, and it shows the price difference rates between lower income families and wealthier
families.

The article comes from the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, which is another well-
known and respected organization. The authors are well versed in this topic because of their
affiliations and backgrounds. One author is a member of the School of Health & Emergency
Professions and another is a member of the Nutrition and Dietetics Department, each go hand in
hand when writing this article.


arlson, ndrea, and lizabeth Frazo. re Healthy Foods eally ore xpensive t epends
on How You Measure the Price. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Economic
Research Service, 2012. Internet resource.

This article shows a flip side of the argument. It asks whether healthy food is actually more
expensive by posing the idea that the way people measure the price of food. Food being priced
per calorie or per edible gram can have largely varying ratios. This article shows that there is still
debate and arguments over whether healthy food is actually more expensive than their unhealthy
counterparts.

I can see myself using this article as a way to show that the topic is in no way near to being
completely solved. There are still sources that argue that food prices as they are now are
reasonable for everyone. The article does bring up an interesting point in that the way we
measure prices to food can be widely misused when comparing prices of food and in validating
the findings of other articles because of misused ratios.

This article is published under the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is a government
organization. Maybe because it is a published by a government organization, the article could be
biased towards the government agenda, but that is pure speculation. The authors themselves are
educated in their topics and have written many other articles before, most somewhat related to
the cost of food.