What is Your Fast Food Footprint

USDA Unveils “Food Environment Atlas”

Putting most of its informational eggs together in one basket, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has created and released a new web-based mapping tool called Your Food Environment Atlas. The Atlas presents highly detailed information on local food environments and health outcomes, including grocery store access and disease and obesity prevalence. The tool is intended to help researchers, policy makers, and the public more readily find information about a variety of factors that affect access to healthy and affordable food.

USDA’s Economic Research Service developed the Atlas as a follow-up to First Lady Michelle Obama’s recently-announced Let’s Move! campaign. Let’s Move!, which highlights healthy choices, healthier schools, physical activity, and accessible, affordable and healthy food, “has set an aggressive goal of solving childhood obesity within a generation.”

The Atlas contains county-level information on 90 indicators in three, broad categories: food choices, health and well-being, and community characteristics. The first category offers information on proximity to grocery stores, the number of food stores and restaurants, and data on fast food consumption. The second category includes statistics on food insecurity, obesity, and physical activity levels. Entries in the third category provide information on income and poverty, demographics, and urban-rural demarcations.

To see Your Food Environment Atlas, go to: www.ers.usda.gov/foodatlas. For further details on the Let’s Move! campaign, click on: www.LetsMove.gov.





Terry Nieves

Program Director

Network For A Healthy California

Ukiah Unified School District and

Mendocino County Schools

(707) 462-2561