An Assessment of the Food Retail Environment in Counties with High Obesity Rates in Mississippi

Low dietary quality and high obesity rates have been associated with poor food environments. Existing literature on food environments generally uses store audits, which presents several limitations. Our study addresses this shortcoming by using store-level scanner data to analyze prices and store healthfulness across counties with high and low obesity rates in Mississippi. We find that overall food prices are lower in counties with higher obesity rates, which seems to be driven by the lower prices of unhealthy foods. In contrast, healthy foods are more expensive in counties with higher rates of obesity compared with the rest of the state.