Nutritious food is essential for health, and it’s important for all people to have access to affordable, nutritious food. When we talk about food “access,” we’re talking about both physical access and economic access. In addition to food being available in the food supply, it needs to be available in locations that people can reach by foot, public transit, or car, and it also needs to be affordable. If people need to expend a lot of time, effort, and money to obtain nutritious foods, it’s not realistic to expect that they will choose healthy options on a consistent basis. Improving the quality of people’s diets is challenging — it may not be enough to simply add a supermarket to a neighborhood that lacks one, as there are other factors at play such as access to transportation, walkability, and neighborhood safety; household income and the relative affordability of nutritious foods; and food knowledge and preferences.