Alternative food networks and the reconfiguration of food environments in the time of Covid-19 in Mexico

Abstract

One of the main concerns among Mexican health authorities, at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, was the simultaneous occurrence of the obesity, diabetes, and hypertension syndemic. It is known that the presence of any of these diseases result in a deficient immune response associated with the deterioration of the diet. The objective of the present reflection is to examine the way in which food environments have been reconfigured from a pandemic event that forced the modification of the dominant mobility and consumption patterns, strengthening some forms of alternative food supply. For such purposes we analysed, from a spatial dimension, the ways in which mobility restrictions aggravate pre-existing food vulnerabilities and how some population sectors overcame territorial limits imposed by their proximity spaces through establishing alternative food networks.