Mountains of Abundance: A Fruit and Vegetable Walking Program in Central Appalachia

This note presents the results of interviews with twenty-five participants in a fruit and vegetable walking program in Central Appalachia. Individuals joined and used the program for a number of diverse reasons, most commonly with the hope of improving their health. Participants also valued the abundance of food and social opportunities. Overall, participants enjoyed the program and utilized it in ways that funders and evidence-based medicine (EBM) methodologies of biometric and anthropometric data collection are not equipped to capture. This research illustrates how people within socioeconomically marginalized regions such as Appalachia utilize community-based networks of social and economic relations to exercise agency and maneuver around broader economic and political constraints.