Michelle Obama lures Walmart to food deserts

First Lady Michele Obama today announced that several large grocery chains, including Walmart, will add 1,500 new grocery stores over the next five years in poor communities that lack access to fresh foods. The stores are expected to reach 9.5 million people.

The First Lady called the initiative a "game-changer for kids and communities all across this country."

"We can give people all the information and advice in the world about healthy eating and exercise, but if parents can't buy the food they need to prepare those meals because their only options for groceries are the gas station or the local minimart, then all that is just talk. Let's Move is about giving parents real choices about the food their kids are eating, and today's announcement means that more parents will have a fresh food retailer right in their community -- a place that sells healthy food, at reasonable prices, so they can feed their families the way they want."

White House domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes called the project a huge jobs and health program, predicting "tens of thousands of jobs" will be created. For stimulus doubters, she said the White House is "not pulling numbers out of the sky," but is using retailer projections.

Skpetics should note that at last count, obesity is costing the nation $150 billion or so annually in added health costs. Health economists contend there is no way the country can get a grip on health care costs unless obesity rates start dropping. Also there is plenty of evidence that adventurous retailers can do quite well in urban neighborhoods they once shunned, and that such stores can generate local economic boomlets.

The California Endowment, Kaiser Permanente,grocery industry groups and banks are investing a whopping $200 million into the project to add stores throughout California. Find their website with an interactive map here. The First Lady's Let's Move campaign against childhood obesity Obama has leaned heavily on research by the California Endowment, a non-profit group that has urged fundamental changes to urban and rural environments to attack the obesity epidemic.

The California program "is open for business," said Marion Standish, director of community health for the Endowment.

Also participating are Supervalu, Walgreens, Brown's SuperStore, Calhouns Grocery and Klein's Family Markets. The last three are independent stores. Congress allocated $35 million to the effort to seed loans to small and large retailers.
Click here for USDA's food desert map, also an outgrowth of Let's MOOOve.