Mapping food environments: understanding food environments’ contribution to ensure healthy and sustainable foods for disadvantaged populations residing in Heilig–Hart, Dampoort, Belgium

Abstract

Food holds a vital place in culture, history, and community, serving as a medium for people to share their stories and experiences. From a Christmas dinner with a Belgian family to a traditional Turkish Sunday breakfast, food brings people together, embodying cultural identity, traditions, and a deep respect for heritage. According to Economist Amartya Sen, hunger continues not due to a lack of food globally, but because of barriers like poverty, inequality, and distribution challenges that prevent certain populations from accessing it.

Food environments refer to the physical, economic, political, and socio-cultural factors that shape how consumers interact with the food system and make decisions about buying, preparing, and consuming food. These environments play a crucial role in influencing dietary choices. Belgium’s current approach to improving food environments relies on voluntary measures like product reformulation, labeling, and marketing adjustments, but these efforts are often vague and insufficient for long-term impact. Stronger government regulations are needed to ensure healthier food environments where healthy choices are more accessible than unhealthy ones. A deeper understanding of how food environments influence the availability of healthy and sustainable foods is essential.

To investigate how food environments contribute to ensuring access to healthy and sustainable foods for disadvantaged populations, the City of Ghent is taking action through the Horizon Europe Project FEAST. This project focuses on examining local food environments, identifying the underlying causes and barriers to food insecurity, and collaborating with various stakeholders including vulnerable groups, to develop innovative solutions. This dissertation is conducted in partnership with the City of Ghent's Living Lab as part of the FEAST project, aiming to close the research gap within their initiative, as the objectives and research questions of this study align closely with their mission.

This research aims to identify gaps in the access to healthy and sustainable food environments of the disadvantaged groups residing in Heilig-Hart, Dampoort who regularly receive food support from a social grocery store. By investigating the contributions of food environments on food security, this study is expected to develop evidence-based policy recommendations for the government authorities in the city of Ghent.

— Abstract, taken from the master dissertation