Hidden cost of buying groceries at Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar and 99 Cent Store: study

Buying groceries at dollar stores may save shoppers money at the checkout, but the cheaper bill could come with a hidden cost to their health, according to startling new research.A UC Riverside study found that greater access to dollar stores was linked to higher rates of obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes.Meanwhile, access to traditional grocery stores was associated with better health outcomes and the findings held across the US even after researchers accounted for factors such as income and unemployment levels.“I want to raise awareness that higher grocery costs are pushing people to buy highly processed, lower-quality food at dollar stores, and it is negatively impacting their health in a similar way to fast food,” study first author Ryan Bruellman, a UCR genetics, genomics and bioinformatics doctoral student, said.The study examined stores including Dollar General, Dollar Tree, the 99 Cent Store and Family Dollar, which together accounted for roughly 34,000 locations.“Across the US there are more dollar stores than traditional grocery stores,” Bruellman said.Dollar stores are currently classified by the Census Bureau as general merchandise outlets rather than grocery stores, meaning they are often excluded from research on food consumption, according to UC Riverside.For the study, Bruellman analyzed health data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 500 Cities Project, which covers major metropolitan areas and cities across the continental US, including greater Los Angeles and the Inland Empire.He used geographic mapping software to calculate how many dollar and traditional grocery stores were within a 10-minute drive of residential areas, while also incorporating a social vulnerability index that measured factors such as people’s ability to afford groceries.California's top news, sports and entertainment delivered to your inbox every day.

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