Abstract
The high financial and human costs of obesity create an urgency to combat this disease that has been increasing with unceasing relentlessness in the United States since the 1970s. This study investigates food deserts as a key variable affecting individuals’ body mass index (BMI) in the District of Columbia to help understand the connection between food inequity and obesity. We analyze sociodemographic, socioeconomic, and food deserts data in pooled cross-sectional and fixed effects ordinary least squares regressions. The narrowness of our study results in data limitations that leave us unable to determine a statistically significant correlation between living within a food desert and BMI. Our findings contribute to the wider literature on obesity in the United States and broaden our understanding of factors affecting this epidemic.