On October 25, 2011, the White House First Lady, Mrs. Michelle Obama, traveled to her Chicago hometown to discuss the need for healthy foods in unprivileged communities. The event took place at a local redesigned Walgreens store on the city’s Southside, in an area known as a desert community.  This new store layout contains several isles of fresh produce and basic grocery stables, located at the front part of the store.  Prior to Walgreens deciding to take on this redesign store model, these underserved communities had very few stores with selections of healthy food options. Now, the chain has made a commitment to redesign 1,000 of its stores using this model.

National grocery chains such as SUPERVALU, Wal-Mart, Roundy’s Supermarkets and ALDI have come onboard to bring fresh fruits, vegetables and meats to communities that have had limited to no access to these important foods. Many big cities call these communities food deserts – defined as an industrialized city where healthy and affordable foods are difficult to obtain. Food deserts also exist in small towns and rural parts of the country, mostly in low socio-economical communities.  In addition, it is a known fact that food deserts are directly correlated with bad diets and unhealthy eating habits, which can yield to an abundance of health problems such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.