Zoe Moffatt
Two years on from being dubbed as one of Melbourne’s ‘food swamps,’ Sunbury and the wider Hume area continue to face challenges accessing healthy food, which experts say is exacerbated by the increasing cost of living.
Melbourne University urban planning professor Alan March said a ‘food swamp’ or ‘healthy food desert’ refers to areas where it is difficult to find access to cheap healthy food.
“A healthy food dessert … tends to take people down the path of buying fast food and food that’s sort of paradoxically, high in calories but low in nutrients,” he said.
“One of the drivers of these healthy food deserts is low density, car based settlements … [where] it may even just be a lot cheaper to eat fast food.
“When we build at very low density, on the edge of cities and with a lag in the provision of shopping centres … you’ve got to work pretty hard to get ahead.”
Sunbury not-for-profit crisis relief centre, CareWorks provides support for locals and operations manager Kate Kaillick said people often eat unhealthy convenience food in times of crisis.
“Given the cost of living crisis we are having … people will turn to convenience foods which often aren’t very healthy,” Ms Kaillick said.
“We’ve seen an increase in client numbers and people accessing the food bank … [these are people] who have jobs and can pay their bills, but not necessarily afford food as well.”
Ms Kaillick said she thinks a lack of education around healthy cooking and time restraints are factors turning people to fast food.
“There’s an education barrier where people don’t know how to cook healthy … People are also leading increasingly busy lives and looking for an easier option,” she said.
“Just having that education around healthy eating is what it comes down to … and giving people the confidence to try these recipes.
“We encourage our clients to choose as much fruit and vegetables as possible … and we try to load up hampers with fruit and veg.”
Professor March said large amounts of time spent commuting is a “perfect storm”.
“You get a double whammy, where you’re stuck driving a car for periods of time … and you are then time poor and have relatively easy access to low quality food,” he said.
