NFL Hall of Famer, Emmitt Smith Takes A Stand For Healthier Food

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Many know Emmitt Smith was as an NFL Hall-of-Famer, but did you know he is also a real estate and construction businessman and community philanthropist?

He is now writing on support for Texas to establish a food retail incentive fund that would help businesses expand healthy retail into low-income neighborhoods and booster development.

“When I talk about people in low opportunity neighborhoods, I am talking about my parents as we were growing up. My friends and family. My teachers and role models. I am talking about me as a child,” he told the Texas Tribune.

Emmit wrote a recent column in the Tribune to encourage State Legislature to help families have grocery stores and access to healthy foods.

I am a businessman, not a politician. But if running Texas were my business, I would invest in a food retail incentive fund immediately, Smith explains.

Healthy Food Financing Incentives (HFFI’s) help offer incentives like tax credits, zoning incentives, equipment, financial, legal or technical assistance to help encourage supermarkets, farmer’s market’s and healthy food retail to locate in underserved areas.

Smith talks about how a healthy food retail incentive fund could not only help low-income neighborhoods, but boost the overall economy, providing jobs, hubs for economic activity, and impact the state’s largely rural population all while increasing the chances of healthier weights for all.

What Smith writes is true from research as well for Latino communities,  where evidence clearly shows that increasing access in Latino communities to supermarkets is linked to healthier body weights and improves economic vitality in underserved areas.

To read more about the benefits of HFFI’s for Latino neighborhoods, click here.

By The Numbers By The Numbers

1

Supermarket

for every Latino neighborhood, compared to 3 for every non-Latino neighborhood

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