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Bonita Evans holds a bowl of spinach salad that was prepared with a recipe provided by HEALing Community Center at their home in College Park. Lavern Evans and his wife, Bonita, who suffer from obesity, diabetes and hypertension, live in one of Georgia's 35 food deserts, which experts say weigh heavily on the state's chronic disease burden, costing it billions of dollars annually in diabetes care, treatment and management alone.

Credit: Hyosub Shin

Credit: Hyosub Shin

Bonita Evans holds a bowl of spinach salad that was prepared with a recipe provided by HEALing Community Center at their home in College Park. Lavern Evans and his wife, Bonita, who suffer from obesity, diabetes and hypertension, live in one of Georgia's 35 food deserts, which experts say weigh heavily on the state's chronic disease burden, costing it billions of dollars annually in diabetes care, treatment and management alone.
By Rick Badie
March 18, 2015

AJC features writer Gracie Bond Staples recently wrote a special report on “food deserts” and how lack of neighborhood access to fresh, healthy food leads to chronic illnesses. Today, we highlight two programs working to curb the number of Georgians with limited means to healthy products. The third column, unrelated, deals with the opening of a diverging diamond interchange in Gwinnett County — metro Atlanta’s third such traffic mover.

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Rick Badie
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