The Kern County, California, NBC station has a great piece on the report PolicyLink released yesterday about the connection between your food environment and your risk for diabetes and obesity. The report, Designed for Disease (pdf), was a joint project from PolicyLink, the California Center for Public Health Advocacy and UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research.
Are our food options making us sick? According to a new report released today by PolicyLink, the balance of healthy-versus-unhealthy retail food options in your neighborhood is directly tied to your risk for diabetes and obesity.
The groundbreaking study, Designed for Disease: the Link Between Local Food Environments and Obesity and Diabetes, was released jointly with the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the California Center for Public Health Advocacy. It examines the correlation between the health of nearly 40,000 Californians and the mix of retail food outlets near their homes.
The key finding: people living in neighborhoods crowded with fast-food and convenience stores but relatively few grocery or produce outlets are at significantly higher risk of suffering from obesity and diabetes.
The findings are the latest in a growing batch of evidence that the obesity epidemic is at a crisis level. As PolicyLink Vice President of Research Victor Rubin said for the release of the new report:
“Clearly the obesity crisis in California can no longer be seen only as a fight over personal choices. Public policies drive the universe of food options from which we can choose. Families who live in communities with choices limited to high-calorie foods and beverages face substantially greater health risks. Policy makers at the state and local level can save lives by giving Californians healthier food options.”
The results lend even more weight to a recent USA Today lead editorial, which argued that the obesity epidemic is literally killing Americans at a younger and younger age — and disproportionately targeting poor Americans.
Everyone knows how to lose weight: exercise more and eat less, fatty foods in particular. But fast food, eaten on the run and in vast quantities, has too often replaced the leisurely sit-down dinners with healthier foods of years past. Further, obesity is increasing worldwide, and among the poor more than the affluent. Broad social changes underlie the trend, and so it will not be easily reversed. But where it is worst, among the poor, better access to preventive health care plainly is part of the answer.
A century ago, poorer Americans were more likely to have their lives shortened by hunger and malnutrition. It would be a tragic irony if the obesity epidemic has a similarly devastating and unequal impact.
The editorial builds off the stunning findings of this Harvard University report.
For more information on how to help build healthier communities, visit the PolicyLink Center for Health and Place. Also, check out a great blog about this subject from the Grassroots Leadership Network.
Via the Atlantic’s Matt Yglesias, here’s an interesting proposal from what Matt describes as the Green Party candidate for Paris Mayor which would “create a generous program along the lines of food stamps here in the U.S. but specifically targeted at the purchase of fresh produce.” Since my French starts and stops at “papier mache,” I’ll have to trust him on the translation.
California made a major stride in this direction just last week, when the state’s Women, Infants and Children Supplemental Nutrition Program decided to start offering “fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and soy products to the 1.4 million low-income Californians the program serves.” PolicyLink President Judith Bell was on-hand for the announcement.
Justin, from the new Chicago start-up nonprofit MoveSmart.org, noted in the comments of an earlier post on the new Tesco Fresh and Easy small supermarkets moving into low-income neighborhoods that there are some other chains trying to bring low-cost food to these neighborhoods. He writes:
In Chicago there’s a network of Aldi stores. They are a German chain that offers very cheap groceries (sometimes 50% of what you find in the major chain stores) and have locations in many impacted neighborhoods. Aldi stores, however, have a large footprint and can’t be easily inserted into existing retail space. I hope that Tesco plans to come to Chicago and try some infill - there’s a number of food deserts around the city that could use it!
In the meantime, there are some folks here working to get fresh fruits and veggies into ‘corner stores’ - http://gapersblock.com/drivethru/2008/04/11/big_bodega_love/
As a former Chicagoan myself (and sometime-Aldi shopper) I concur with Justin’s critique that the Aldi’s footprint is too big to work in some of these communities. The prices are pretty incredible, though.
Also, take the time to check out the fledgling MoveSmart.org site. They’re trying something pretty cool. Here’s part of their mission statement:
Until now, information on neighborhoods has been buried in the back of academic reports, pinned to community center bulletin boards, and locked in data sets only available to planners, inaccessible to those who would benefit from it the most: housing seekers looking for a better neighborhood. MoveSmart.org will leverage the power of this information by combining these and other data sources into a single mapping engine built into a full-featured site that includes guides, tools, calculators, forums, and social networks, all designed to foster racial and economic integration.
And here’s a video explaining why they’re doing what they do (set to one of the best horn samples around, “Make the Road by Walking” by Menahan Street Band)
