Food insecurity
Eating isn't simply functional. It's social. Food helps people feel both connected and nourished. Consequently, it should be a fundamental placemaking ingredient. However, in policy and practice, this isn't necessarily the case. Food insecurity is a reality for millions of people. Research from the House of Commons Library suggests 11% of the UK population live in households experiencing food poverty.
What this means for these 7.5 million individuals is uncertainty about getting enough food. 18% of them are children.
Place is a crucial factor in food insecurity. The University of Leeds Consumer Data Research Centre and Which? have created the Priority Places For Food Index. It identifies areas most vulnerable to the rising cost of living and where there’s a lack of access to cheap, healthy and sustainable food sources.
Another food-related factor affecting people’s quality of life is their relationship to food. Only 56% of UK adults feel they have a healthy relationship with food. The Food Foundation reports that UK dietary inequalities have worsened with the escalating cost of food. Per calorie, healthier foods are twice as expensive as less healthy foods.
The paradox is that food insecurity and poverty can help to fuel excessive intake — the overconsumption of unhealthy food. Typically, this food is highly calorific but low in nutritious value and relatively inexpensive.
Overconsumption is part of a pattern largely determined by dominant food culture and environment.
In this environment, over a third of supermarket promotions apply to unhealthy food and non-alcoholic drinks products. Around a third of food and drink advertising is spent on snacks, confectionery and soft drinks. In the most deprived areas of the country, a third of places where people can buy food are fast-food outlets. In the rest of the UK, this figure is around 25%.
Fast food has a negative environmental impact. Worldwide, meat and dairy agriculture are the highest CO2-emitting sectors. Ultra-processed food (UPF) production is intensive and places heavy demands on energy and natural resources such as water. Much food packaging is wasteful and polluting.
There is the argument that people should be free to choose the food they eat, but how much of this choice is a false perception? Is the system rigged against people making healthier food choices?
Why do we eat what we eat?
Why do we eat what we eat?
Hunger is an obvious answer to why and what we eat, but it’s only one factor among several.
Along with appetite and taste, hunger is a biological driver of food choice. Other drivers include economic, social, physical and psychological factors as well as food-related attitudes and beliefs.
Both cost and accessibility are major elements influencing the food we eat. They are also place-related. According to the Health Foundation, more deprived areas are likely to have higher concentrations of fast food outlets.
In a policy discussion paper, the Obesity Health Alliance states that what we eat is determined by the food around us and for most people, this food isn’t healthy. 60% of adults exceed sugar recommendations in their diet and are consuming too many calories. And, whereas UPFs have attracted a large degree of media and public attention, the food and drink industry denies any link between these foods and harm to health.
The paper highlights how UPF consumption is driven by the tastiness and texture of the food. Purchasing drivers, such as perceived convenience and low price, long shelf-life, availability and packaging, also contribute to its dominance.
The advertising of ultra-processed and fast food is widespread. Nuffield reports that children's social media feeds are flooded with junk food ads.
The Obesity Health Alliance is calling for a food system transformation. How might this change happen in a wider placemaking context?
The food-place connection
The food-place connection
Inter-connectedness is a core principle of food systems thinking. Just as a place needs cohesion to be successful, so a local food system must make sense locally.
For example, when a new development’s proposal or scheme includes space for local food provision this must be a viable venture set up to succeed as a business. It will also require a reliable, supportive infrastructure in place for delivering supplies and disposal of food waste.
We must also consider what sort of community already exists, or how the developer envisages it growing. This thinking should then impact decisions around local amenities, including food and drink, the community can sustain.
Where will this food come from? What do supply chains look like? What is the capacity for locally produced or sourced produce?
Placemakers must examine their desired outcomes related to an area's food system: how might it support the environment, promote the local economy and enhance quality of life through fairness and improved health?
In a holistic approach to placemaking, food becomes a practical, strategic lynchpin — it helps transform spaces into places. It’s not only part of a healthy diet, but also glues communities together.
Improving people's quality of life requires a commitment to change. Transforming their relationship to food is one way of making this happen.
Educating people about diet or nutrition is not enough. They need better access to sustainable and affordable food, in a local context that makes sense to them — it must have the right cultural as well as environmental fit.
This is why placemaking should be the perfect vehicle for delivering change based on food systems thinking. Increasingly, placemakers are advocating for greater collaboration between planners, designers, developers and communities — designing with people, not for them.
Likewise, applying food systems thinking practically and realistically requires collaboration to ensure food meets local needs and aspirations without imposing values or making assumptions.
How can this work in practice? There are various routes to improving food within a place context:
Working with social enterprises
Supporting local food-based businesses
Promoting sustainable local food production
Establishing community food systems.
These are all hands-on approaches involving genuine collaboration. There's an appetite for change. It's time to start feeding it.
Jemma is the founder and strategic director of Fork, a consultancy for food-related strategic decision-making.
