Hunger, Obesity and Innovation in the Emergency Food System

Nationally, one in eight people -- and one in five children -- received emergency food help in 2009, up 46 percent from 2005. Yet, two-thirds, or more than 190 million Americans, are overweight or obese, with women and children living below the poverty level particularly at risk.

It may seem like a strange question -- but is hunger making people fat?

To start, both statistics are a common byproduct of "food deserts." Food deserts are low-income urban neighborhoods littered with fast food joints and corner stores, while grocery stores and fresh produce stands are characteristically absent. The economics of buying food perpetuates the problem, as poor households are often reliant on cheaper, high calorie foods to stave off hunger.

Unfortunately, many of the same high calorie foods have been provided to hungry families by the emergency food system. With many banks relying on the "pounds in, pounds out" system to measure success -- a system that often values the weight of products (think: cans, soda) over the quality and nutrition of food -- fresh and healthful foods have traditionally been harder to come by. Following a 30-40 percent rise in people visiting food pantries since the recession, food banks have become a strategic point of opportunity to improve the health of poor families.

Enter the MAZON - Kaiser Permanente partnership, Healthy Options, Healthy Meals.

MAZON is a national anti-hunger organization that has been at the forefront of advancing the importance of nutrition for low-income families in California by addressing the link between hunger and obesity within the emergency food network. Attracted to MAZON's national prominence, Kaiser Permanente aligned its social mission of community benefit and disease prevention with MAZON's work in the emergency food system. What has resulted is an innovative partnership based on local knowledge, tailored health education and prestigious partners such as UC Berkeley's Atkins Center for Weight and Health to evaluate program efficacy.

"We are interested in collaborative, not prescriptive solutions," explains Marla Feldman, MAZON program director. "We want to be able to respond to individual food banks' needs and work together to determine a path ahead."

Healthy Options, Healthy Meals consists of scaling MAZON's expertise in bringing healthy eating and nutritional education to California's emergency food programs to Kaiser Permanente's eight regions of operation. Kaiser Permanente, in turn, is helping make the health case for healthier food in food banks and using its doctors and other health experts to support changes in local food bank policies and practices.

"We want people to realize that this really is a social justice issue with enormous health consequences," explains Kaiser Permanente Vice President of Community Health Loel Solomon.

Solomon recalled one conversation he had with a food bank director who explained, "What you are asking us to do is to change in an incredible time of change. But we know this is what we have to do."

An incredible time of change it is. The percentage of Americans struggling below the poverty line in 2009 was the highest it has been in 15 years, the Census Bureau reported recently. Four million additional Americans found themselves in poverty in 2009, with the total reaching 44 million, or one in seven residents. While the services of food banks have been subject to exponential demand, national initiatives like the First Lady's "Let's Move" program have simultaneously highlighted the urgent need for education and reform around healthy eating.

"Our nation's food banks are taking steps to improve the nutritional quality of the food they are distributing," says Feldman, "but the process of integrating nutrition and healthy food access into their anti-hunger work requires organizations to broaden the scope of their programs and practices."

This is a difficult and highly political move for food bank boards and donors that are populated by corporate food manufacturers such as Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay, Proctor & Gamble and Kraft Foods.

With current projections that spending on health care costs attributable to obesity are expected to rise to $344 billion by 2018, innovative partnerships like Healthy Options, Healthy Meals may just be the missing link that can change the way that the poorest in our country eat. Hunger is not just a problem that afflicts the poor; it is ultimately a social problem that affects us all.

 

Follow Nicole Skibola on Twitter: www.twitter.com/nicoleskibola

Comments

[Vicki B. Escarra]

06:15 PM on 03/07/2011

We greatly appreciate the assistance of outstanding partners like MAZON as they help food banks to develop strategies for increasing access to healthy foods for our clients. In addition, while it may not be as well known, several other corporate donors are assisting Feeding America network with this important work. These partnerships enable Feeding America, along with our nation's food banks and tireless volunteers, to implement plans that integrate nutrition with healthy food access in the focused and urgent manner the issue demands. For example, Kraft Foods is providing a funding anchor for our work to provide a sustainable strategy to the dual challenges of fighting hunger and improving nutrition. And, there is a continued and permanent public benefit from the work of Walmart and other corporate partners that have stepped up to fund our national produce initiative, which is an important way to improve food offerings. The work of improving access to healthy food requires that everyone come to the table, particularly during this period of unprecedented demand for emergency food services.

[Mary OGarbiadd]

09:52 PM on 03/05/2011

I think that many of us, low income or better income, need places we can go to purchase cooked healthy food for not much money. How hard should it be to have cauldrons of oatmeal, chili, minestrone etc. cooking..and people with more time than money could hopefully cook it (meeting all sanitation requirements etc. of course) in exchange for meals. We all should be at home cooking I know...but after a day doing just office work I am needing to eat right now..how much worse would it be for a nurse on her feet all day or a coal miner? People should be able to use food stamps for this food, if it were healthy and low-cost. And food-stamp reform will really help both low-income people and farmers. I suggest that the main food stamps be used for healthy, whole foods, such as WIC permits. A second food stamp card should be given, in modest monetary amounts, for treats such as donuts, coke, candy..it totally then would avoid the argument of don't poor people deserve a diet coke now and then or other treats..yes of course they do but some boundaries need to be in place for better health of the people receiving food assistance.

[Dead I]

05:42 PM on 03/05/2011

Do you really think that the poor are paying attention to the government's suggests reguarding their diet? I doubt it. The poor go to the store and try to get the most food for their food stamp dollar. They also buy what they and/or their kids like.

In a perfect world, yes, the poor would only eat according to a recommended diet, but in the real world they buy what they like and of course, can afford.

[TruelyFedUp]

09:28 AM on 03/05/2011

From the Department of Agricultur­­­e "The United States has a total land area of nearly 2.3 billion acres.
Major uses in 2002 were forest-use land, 651 million acres (28.8 percent);
grassland pasture and range land, 587 million acres (25.9 percent);
cropland, 442 million acres (19.5 percent);
special uses (primarily parks and wildlife areas), 297 million acres (13.1 percent);
miscellane­­­ous other uses, 228 million acres (10.1 percent); and
urban land, (where most of us live) 60 million acres (2.6 percent)"

http://www­­­.ers.usd­a­.­gov/pu­bl­ic­atio­ns/­EIB­14­/eib­14fm­­.pdf

By withholdin­g land the government creates a scarcity that allows the banking industry to charge more interest and to benefit large corporatio­ns. At the same time they allow those Americans in most need to go without adequate food and shelter.

Americans ought to be entitled to live on the land they were born on. Right now the PEOPLE occupy only 3% of America's land. Why should the Federal Government be entitled to 30% of it and have a budget of another $50+ million this year to buy even more land?

That $50 million could create a LOT of self sufficient villiages WITH training programs to prepare jobless and homeless people for jobs. This could be done with only 3% more land than we occupy now. The people deserve to have land to use to create self sustaining villages to give them stability and comfort while they regroup for a better future.

[Dead I]

05:50 PM on 03/05/2011

If one goes into the Wheat Belt one will discover that almost all of the land is being farmed. While flying over Kansas, just take a peek outside the aircraft. All of the land appears to be producing. Same goes for all of the rural land in the mid-west. It appears to me all of the land that can be utilized to either grow something on, or feed stock upon is being used for just that.

[TruelyFedUp]

06:36 PM on 03/05/2011

Sure, but why is that? What rule says that an American born in this country has no right to live on the land for his survival unless he works for a corporation or starts one and buys a piece of land from ___???

Who owned the land after we stole it from the indigenous population? Why did we have to buy land that we helped to steal? Why does the Fed have a right to continue buying more and more land with taxpayer dollars that we then cannot use to grow some food and build a shelter?

Why is there no mandate that says EVERY AMERICAN HAS A RIGHT TO USE LAND TO CREATE HIS SURVIVAL. And some arable land in every state should be assigned to the use of citizens that want to use it for their survival. There is no valid reason that some of those millions of farm acres cannot be designated for the creation of eco villages for people to use to create their lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Instead we have some nebulous Owner that says we can only use 2.6% of America's 2.3 billion acres for the majority of people to live on. Because of this habit we have extremes of ownership and nonownership of land. And the owners of land are in the habit of enslaving the nonowners for the privilege of acquiring even more profits.

Until we are free to live on the land we were born to there will be

[TruelyFedUp]

06:38 PM on 03/05/2011

wars.