Some places ban dollar stores, blame them for poor diets; research says that won't improve nutrition in 'food deserts'

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Though dollar stores are a fast-expanding retail segment, some municipalities are banning them, blaming them for contributing to poor health by creating "food deserts," which are defined differently in urban and rural areas. Detractors say they "saturate poor neighborhoods with cheap, over-processed food, undercutting other retailers and lowering the quality of offerings in poorer communities," Steven Malanga reports for City Journal, a national policy publication.

In rural food deserts, dollar stores may be the only easily accessible place to buy groceries, but most dollar stores do not stock fresh produce, and only a limited selection of healthful frozen food. Dollar General Corp., which plans to open 1,000 more stores in the U.S. this year, has put some full-service grocery stores out of business. That's mostly because of Dollar General Markets, a store model that sells limited selections of fresh produce and meat.

However, dollar stores aren't completely to blame for poor dietary choices in food deserts, Malanga notes. Recent research found that households in former food deserts keep buying unhealthy food even after a local supermarket opens. The researchers wrote that stores sell people what they want to eat, and that "lower demand for healthy food is what causes the lack of supply."

"Combatting the ill effects of a bad diet involves educating people to change their eating habits. That’s a more complicated project than banning dollar stores. Subsidizing the purchase of fresh fruits and vegetables through the federal food-stamp program and working harder to encourage kids to eat better—as Michelle Obama tried to do with her Let’s Move! campaign—are among the economists’ suggestions for improving the nation’s diet," Malanga writes. "That’s not the kind of thing that generates sensational headlines. But it makes a lot more sense than banning dollar stores."