No Mentor Convenience Stores Make Health District's Healthiest List

The Lake County General Health District and the ACHIEVE Wellness Lake County Initiative surveyed all of the convenience stores in Lake County to see which offered the healthiest options.

They looked for stores that sold fresh fruits and vegetables, skim milk, juice, whole wheat bread, high fiber cereal and snack items with reduced calories and fat.

After the survey, they listed the six healthiest convenient stores and none of them were in Mentor.

Deputy Health Commissioner Ron Graham said he was pleased to find that many convenience stores in Lake County with healthy options.

"In some areas, convenience stores are the only local grocery store and they are notorious for not offering healthy options," he said.

Graham said this survey was the first step in attempting to identify food deserts (places that don't have any food options) and food swamps (places that have a lot of food options but most of them are unhealthy) in Lake County.

He noted that the Mentor's absence on the "healthiest convenience store" list did not mean the city was a swamp of a desert.

"What we have yet to identify is how the access to food, and specifically to healthy foods, impacts all 23 political subdivisions (in Lake County)," Graham said.

He added that a lot of other factors impact how healthy a community is -- its walkability, the presence of community gardens or farmers' markets, the density of fast-food restaurants, as well as other criteria.

Graham said the health district and ACHIEVE would be assessing these factors during the next three to five years to try to get a more complete picture of the county's health and how to improve it.

The convenience stores that did make the health district's list are:

1. RediGo Food Mart, 161 Richmond Street, Painesville
2. Falcones Convenient Mart, 444 North State Street
3. RediGo Food Mart, 426 Bacon Road, Painesville Township
4. RediGo Food Mart, 33 West Walnut Street
5. Kirtland’s Market, 8232 Chardon Road, Kirtland
6. Convenient Food Mart, 36201 Lakeshore Boulevard

More information about Lake County General Health District’s programming to fight obesity can be found at www.lcghd.org.