The Obamas’ healthy-eating initiatives were full of programs designed to help motivate people to make good food choices. One example was a partnership with Walmart to nudge shoppers toward healthier foods through new packaging. According to Partnership for a Healthier America, a nonprofit created in conjunction with the initiatives, by the end of 2015 Walmart had reduced the amount of sugar in its branded packaged foods by 10 percent and had saved Americans $1 billion per year by lowering the prices of fruits and vegetables, as well as opening or renovating hundreds of stores in food deserts. Walmart also closed some stores during this period, creating new food deserts, but overall there was a net improvement in access. It’s interesting, then, that this massive healthy-eating initiative undertaken by the nation’s largest grocery chain, alongside new standards and legislation, did not result in lower obesity rates.
Rather than offering a cornucopia of health, the opening of a Walmart store in a poor community is correlated with a 2.3 percent increase in obesity levels. This makes sense when you consider that Walmart also sells cheaper, calorie-rich processed food in bulk. That’s the kind of food that Walmart’s own poorly paid employees can afford. As the largest private employer in the nation, Walmart’s labor practices impoverish some of its own shoppers—and in turn impact their food choices. If you’re underpaid and overworked, or underemployed and dead broke, the fact that healthy food is available doesn’t mean it’s accessible.
The left-leaning food movement had a real opening to foment collective change. But its reach mostly stopped at the cash register. It was about making good choices as individuals in the free market and never about the choices made for us by our employers. It never looked at how our work lives inform how and what we eat. Between 1965 and 1995, time spent on cooking decreased by 40 percent. During the same period, union membership declined, the Democratic Party abandoned its working-class base, and both parties presided over the shrinking of the middle class. As the labor movement collapsed and our government marched rightward, our ability to nourish and care for our bodies declined. In 2023, according to an analysis by the Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts, 55.7 percent of all food purchased in the United States was prepared outside the home. Today, there may be more organic produce in supermarkets, but our living and working conditions largely prevent us from cooking and eating fresh and nourishing whole foods. With the food industry pressing junk food on us the moment we leave the house, and the hours we spend working increasing alongside the costs of food, housing, and childcare, it’s no wonder that we continue to stress-eat our way to poor health.