[Jog] Re: Poverty foils healthy food choices

[Jennifer L YOUNG]

Thought this was of interest since Oregon leads the US for food insecurity with hunger!


 
   
Wednesday, July 16, 2003  ― Time: 8:15:07 AM EST 
 



 
 Crossword
 E-ThePeople: Marietta's interactive townhall  
 
 Poverty foils healthy food choices 

By Callie Lyons, clyons at mariettatimes.com 


While hunger and obesity might seem like opposite extremes, researchers have found that the two problems are often apparent within the same population groups. 

Some recent studies show that the two morbidity factors - poverty and obesity - exist simultaneously in many cases. 
The phenomenon occurs in part because parents skip meals so their children can eat and then they have a tendency to develop dangerous eating habits, including binge eating.

Karen Wilson, of the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger, said ups and downs in food availability appear to cause some to develop coping mechanisms. Consequently, parents often protect the adequacy and nutritional quality of their child's diet while contributing to their own obesity. 

"There could be this cycle of eating that develops especially in women who care for kids," Wilson said. "There is a tendency to eat when food is abundant and not eat at the end of the month when the food and the money has run out." 

Obesity and poverty are issues for citizens in southeast Ohio, which has higher than average rates of both. Poverty inhibits the development of healthy eating habits because good healthy food costs more, said Karen Anderson, of the Marietta Community Food Pantry. 

Working families often have to make purchasing choices to make ends meet. Often those choices are not healthy.

"Cheap food is not always healthy food," Anderson said. "But people cannot afford to buy healthy, nutritious food."

The high cost of fresh fruits and vegetables, for instance, is an expense that Zondra Johnson, of Eighth Street in Marietta, chooses to bear for her family's health. But she admits it sometimes means not purchasing other items on her grocery list. 

"You can't afford to buy the healthy food," Johnson said. 

Jim Couts, Marietta/Washington County coordinator for The Children's Hunger Alliance, said he sees the link between poverty and obesity every day in his job that helps bring a free summer meals program to children in the area.

That link comes mostly due to children and parents making uneducated choices about food.

"There needs to be a major effort to improve the nutrition education for children and their parents. We need to teach children what it means to eat a nutritional meal, and what they need to do to stay healthy," Couts said.

Couts' program this summer is serving about 800 free meals to children this summer at 19 different places around Washington and Morgan counties.

One issue for the hunger alliance is that all school nutrition programs and the summer meals program are based on U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, which he says need to be updated.

"We're using the same USDA guidelines we've used for decades," Couts said. "And in recent years childhood obesity has increased dramatically while the guidelines have not changed."

Couts said the guidelines are under review and soon there will be new guidelines that likely will alter the traditional food pyramid guide and require less fat in the USDA guidelines. Those guidelines are what all school lunch programs are required to follow.

But Couts is quick to defend the USDA guidelines saying the biggest reason that children are becoming obese is not from outdated guidelines but from lifestyle choices. 

That includes eating fast food, watching too much television and failing to participate in exercise programs. He said physical education programs at schools are being cut due to money concerns, and he said that has a much greater contribution to the obesity issue.

One in nine people in Washington County live in poverty according to a recent report by the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies. Sixty percent of Ohio adults are overweight. Of people living in southeast Ohio in 2001, figures from the Ohio Department of Health indicate that 37.5 percent were considered overweight and 21.1 percent were considered obese. 

The extent of the obesity epidemic in Washington County is not yet known, but the problem is evident. Selby General Hospital is sponsoring a workshop next week on the childhood obesity issue in hopes of deciding what the community will do about it.

The county health department is also working on developing baseline data to determine how many people are affected and decide how to address the concern.

Kathleen Meckstroth, Washington County health commissioner, said a cardiovascular health task force in cooperation with the city and county health departments will go into city and county schools to evaluate the issue of childhood obesity. Several projects are under way throughout the county to look at various aspects of the problem. 

"It's an issue we are very much aware of," Meckstroth said. "We do know you can look around you and see it is a problem. I think it has gradually gotten worse nationwide. No county or community is exempt."


Obesity and poverty

 10 percent of Ohio students in grades nine to 12 are obese. 

 60 percent of Ohio adults are overweight or obese. 

 31 percent of Ohio adults report getting no physical activity. 

 79 percent of Ohio adults report eating less than five servings of fruit and vegetables a day. 

Source: The American Public Health Association 

n What's ahead: A "Kids in Crisis: Childhood Obesity" workshop is from noon to 5:30 p.m., Thursday, July 24, at the Graham Auditorium at Washington State Community College on Colegate Drive. 

For more information: Selby General Hospital at 568-2226.
   



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