Nearly 13.5 million Americans live in areas where it is hard to find healthy food and fresh produce for a reasonable price.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture calls these regions "food deserts," and it has created a new tool that uses Census data to map out these areas. The tool allows users to enter specific addresses or zoom in to get street-level mapping.
A food desert (shown in pink above) is an area where at least 500 people or 33 percent of the population have no access to a supermarket or large grocery store within one mile in urban areas or 10 miles in rural areas. About 10 percent of the 65,000 census tracts in the United States meet this definition.
The USDA hopes the tool will assist efforts to expand the availability of nutritious food in food deserts and low-income communities, which is part of first lady Michele Obama's push to address the epidemic of childhood obesity.