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Better access to supermarkets – long touted as a way to curb obesity in low-income neighborhoods – doesn’t improve people’s diets, according to new research. The study, which tracked thousands of people in several large cities for 15 years, found that people didn’t eat more fruits and vegetables when they had supermarkets available in their neighborhoods.

Instead, income – and proximity to fast-food restaurants – were the strongest factors in food choice.

The results throw some cold water on the idea that lack of access to fresh produce and other healthful foods is a major driver in the disproportionate rates of obesity among the poor, or that simply encouraging grocery chains to open in deprived areas will fix the problem, said study lead author Barry Popkin, director of the Nutrition Transition Program at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

For one thing, experts said, grocery stores are brimming with choices that are every bit as fattening as fast-food meals. For another, the prices of healthful grocery store foods are often higher than fast-food prices.

“This raises the serious issue of how we get people to eat healthy,” Popkin said.

The study, published last week in the Archives of Internal Medicine, looked at more than 5,000 African American and Caucasian men and women in Birmingham, Ala., Chicago, Minneapolis and Oakland between 1985 and 2001. The researchers assessed participants’ diets over the years and tracked how far they lived from supermarkets and fast-food restaurants. The study did not measure their weight or body mass index.