Poor in the wallet could mean poor in health

Though many American adults and children live with the heavy burden of obesity, economic class may play a part in increasing their risk of the life-threatening problem.

Statistics show that lower-income areas tend to be populated by more overweight or obese people. Generally, fresh and nutritionally-dense foods like fruits and vegetables are considerably more expensive than fast food value meals or packaged items in convenience stores; healthy, fresh produce prices have increased 20 percent since 2007. And though preservative-saturated value meals will take less from one’s wallet, they will surely add more to one’s waistline.

Residents of Sunnyside, a southwest Houston neighborhood of 22,000 mostly blacks, have found difficulty in eating healthy.

“It’s a true food desert,” said Toral Sindha, a senior nutritionist with the Houston health department. “Healthy produce in fresh fruits and vegetables is not accessible in Sunnyside.”

The desperate need to introduce nourishing foods to Sunnyside prompted the Community Garden Program, which involves community-planted fruits and vegetables in gardens. The program has been successful enough to warrant the planting of fresh food gardens in other Houston areas like the southwest, Third Ward and West End, with eight more planned.

Here is a list of the locally-grown foods found in the gardens:

• Vegetables: Squash, green onion, bush bean, cucumber, eggplant and peppers including bell, cayenne, jalapeño, habañera

• Fruit: • Lemon, apple, plum, kumquat, mandarin, watermelon, strawberry, raspberry, grape, tomato

• Herbs: Basil, sage, lemon parsley, Italian parsley, oregano, rosemary, mint

• Other: Garlic, lettuce variety

Gardens in low-income areas may help at least level off the shocking trends in the health of minorities. To pinpoint what will resolve the issue, it’s important to understand the links between poverty and obesity. Here is an idea of how average Americans view their personal eating preferences and the results of such on their health:

“Americans are eating more but enjoying it less,” according to Pew Research Center’s study on social trends. “Just 39% of adults…say they enjoy eating ‘a great deal,’ down from the 48% who said the same in a Gallup survey in 1989.”

It also adds that “about six-in-ten Americans say they eat more than they should, either often (17%) or sometimes (42%). More particularly, a majority of Americans report that they eat more junk food than they should, either often (19%) or sometimes (36%). The biggest reason, people say, is convenience.“

“More than eight-in ten people (85%) say Americans are more overweight now than they were five years ago, and two-thirds of the public calls this a ‘major problem.’”

So why are the same folks opting for meals that are ruining their health bite by bite? Quickly-prepared or highly processed foods are like anything else that travels down an assembly line: quick to produce, cheap to purchase, and easy to prepare or consume. Convenience is key, and if you’re a minority or part of a traditionally low-earning demographic, pricey eats are just not an option.

“It is the opposite of choice,” Adam Drewnowski, director of the Center for Public Health Nutrition in the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine, said. “People are not poor by choice and they become obese primarily because they are poor.”

For what he calls an “overfed but undernourished nation,” here are a few reasons why junk often trumps quality:

“It’s a question of money,” Drenowski said. “The reason healthier diets are beyond the reach of many people is that such diets cost more. On a per calorie basis, diets composed of whole grains, fish, and fresh vegetables and fruit are far more expensive than refined grains, added sugars and added fats. It’s not a question of being sensible or silly when it comes to food choices, it’s about being limited to those foods that you can afford.”