Food Inequalities

This book provides an accessible introduction to food inequality in the United States, offering readers a broad survey of the most important topics and issues and exploring how economics, culture, and public policy have shaped our current food landscape. Food inequality in the United States can take many forms. From the low-income family unable to afford groceries and the migrant farm worker paid below minimum wage to city dwellers stranded in an urban food desert, disparities in how we access and relate to food can have significant physical, psychological, and cultural consequences. These inequalities often have deep historical roots and a complex connection to race, socioeconomic status, gender, and geography. This book explores different types of food inequality and highlights current efforts to improve food access and equity in the United States. It delves deep into a variety of issues and controversies related to the subject, offering thorough and balanced coverage of these hot-button topics. Readers are provided with a variety of useful supplemental materials, including case studies, a timeline of critical events, and a directory of resources.

List of contents

Series Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments

Part I: Overview
1. An Introduction to Food Inequalities
2. History of Food Inequalities in the United States
3. Inequalities in Food Access
4. Food, Culture, and Inequalities
5. The Impacts of Food Inequalities
6. The Relationship between Food Practices, Policies, and Inequalities
7. Food Activism

Part II: Controversies and Issues
8. Is Everyone Treated the Same? Racial and Gender Discrimination in the Food System
9. Fair Wages for Fair Work? Equity in the Food System
10. Do Food Deserts Really Exist? Community Access to Food
11. What Can I Use SNAP For? What the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Provides
12. What and How Do We Eat Now? How Large Agriculture Businesses Shape Food Availability and Tastes
13. Healthy Lunch, Hungry Kids? Lunch at School

Part III: Scenarios
14. Case Studies

Glossary
Directory of Resources
Bibliography
Index

About the author

Tennille Nicole Allen, PhD, is Associate Professor at Lewis University, USA where she chairs the sociology department and directs the African American and Ethnic and Cultural Studies programs.

Product details

• Authors: Tennille Nicole Allen
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 22.01.2026
• EAN: 9798216445531
• ISBN: 9798216445531
• No. of pages: 232
• Series: Health and Medical Issues Today
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Poverty & Homelessness, TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Agriculture / General, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Social Policy, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Cultural Policy, Poverty & unemployment, Food & society, Agriculture and farming, AGRICULTURE & FARMING, Central / national / federal government policies, Cultural studies: food and society, Central government policies, Housing & homelessness, Poverty and precarity, Housing and homelessness