Growing socioeconomic health inequalities are major challenges. Chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes type 2, and cardiovascular disease are more prevalent among individuals with a lower socioeconomic position than among individuals with a higher socioeconomic position. As a consequence, individuals with a lower socioeconomic position do not only live a shorter period of their life in good health. Also their life expectancy is significantly lower than individuals with a higher socioeconomic position. Many factors contribute to socioeconomic health inequalities. An unhealthy diet is one of these. From researches known that people with a lower socioeconomic position, have in general, less healthy food intakes than individuals with a higher socioeconomic position. For a long time, encouraging healthy food choices focus on the individual. Healthy food campaigns of food education aim to increase individual knowledge and intentions to eat healthy. However, these efforts alone will not lead to healthier food choices. Research has shown that just improving knowledge about healthy eating is not automatically translated into actual healthy eating behaviors. And in addition, people also need to have the ability and the opportunity to eat healthy. This means, that people need to have personal opportunities in their daily life to make healthy food choices, and also their healthy food choices should be encouraged by our living environment. It is not always easy to make healthy food choices. For example, if people experience daily hassles. Have a lack of time, feel stressed, or have financial, family, or work problems, it may be much harder to eat healthy. Such challenges may be prioritized over other tasks like healthy eating and thereby comes that our environment is mainly stimulating unhealthy impulsive eating behaviors. We live in a so-called obesogenic environments with an overproduction and intensive marketing of palatable, processed, and energy dense foods and these can be purchased almost anywhere and anytime of the day. In the past decade, researchers became more interested in this obesogenic environment and the number of studies in this area increased steadily. A lot of research has been conducted on so-called food deserts especially in the United States. Food deserts are defined as low income urban areas where a substantial number of residents have no access to shops selling affordable fresh and healthy foods. And when lacking such food destinations, individuals are dependent on the available convenience stores or fast food outlets in your neighborhoods. Especially, when they don't have a car or inadequate public transportation options. Therefore, people living in the food deserts will have a hard time eat healthy as its food is simply not available. In the United States there's evidence that lower socioeconomic neighborhoods are less likely to have access to shops selling fresh healthy foods. However not all scientific studies demonstrate these results and evidence of the impact of food deserts on diet and health is still mixed. In addition, the existence of food deserts are disputable in many European countries. In the Netherlands for example, the average distance to a supermarket is only 900 meters, and also our research supported the absence of food deserts in the largest city of the Netherlands. Currently, the food environmental research has shifted more towards so-called food swamps. Food swamps are areas where affordable fresh and healthy foods are accessible, but where there is an overabundance of energy dense, low nutrient foods. And also here, unhealthy food choices are much easier to make than a healthy food choice. As better access to healthful and affordable food translates into an environment would increase opportunities to purchase and to consume healthy products. Academics, governments, and municipalities are constantly searching for strategies to improve citizen health and health behaviors like food consumption. In this efforts, attention to create healthier environments has been increased to stimulate healthy food choices. School canteens are offering healthier snacks and drinks. Food marketing to children is more and more bent, supermarkets offer healthy options at the checkouts, and some countries are introducing taxes on sugar sweetened beverages. By this, they try to discourage sugar consumption. And also urban planning projects are increasingly paying attention to health and welfare in the new building plants. For example in the planning of neighborhoods, fast food free zones will potentially be integrated in residential neighborhoods. All strategies seem promising to improve public health and research in the upcoming years should investigate whether these combined efforts help citizens to eat healthy, improve their health, and contribute to lowering the socioeconomic health inequalities.
