Through the eyes of a kid, what is it like growing up in a food desert?

MHA Admin

Fri, 05/12/2023 – 13:57

by Lisa Radzak, Executive Director of WithAll

Authors note to readers: When using the word “obesity,” I use quotes as a matter of public health. The word “obesity” and the phrase “childhood obesity” are grossly overused and widely misused as a label to suggest poor or inadequate health, or – worse yet – to suggest a personal failing on the part of the person being labeled. Weight or body mass index (BMI) is NOT synonymous with health. When a person’s BMI measure is on the antiquated BMI spectrum at the level of “obese,” that person may be (and usually is) healthy and at the weight appropriate to support their health. Labeling weight or BMI as unhealthy (or healthy) is an oversimplification that causes real and lasting harm. The health issues of great significance are most often independent of one’s weight or BMI.

A “food desert” describes an area where residents have low incomes and limited or no access to a grocery store within a reasonable distance. Individuals who live in food deserts are often more likely to experience food insecurity because food is simply more difficult to obtain where they live. Unfortunately, food deserts are a disproportionate reality for Black, Latino, or Indigenous communities.

Food insecurity often goes hand-in-hand with barriers to other needs. In urban food deserts, there’s often less or no access to safe and inviting spaces to play and live. Low-income parents often have inflexible work schedules, which can mean little opportunity for family meals or quality time. Many risk factors overlap, and all need to be considered when looking at what a person in this situation deals with every day. As a child in this situation, it can have lasting consequences. Kids dealing with the ups and downs of food scarcity also tend to engage in significantly higher levels of disordered eating behaviors, dietary restraint, internalized weight concerns, and worry compared to those with lower levels of food insecurity.

Through the eyes of a kid, what is it like growing up in a food desert?

For a kid, it means limited or no access to the “healthy” foods we’re told to eat, which are often promoted as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, proteins, and fresh dairy. The food we’re told to limit, like soda, sweetened beverages, fried food, and sugar, generally are foods readily accessible in a food desert, and therefore a kid’s staple foods. Added to this is limited or no access to safe places to play and be outside, despite being told how important it is to get outdoors and exercise. Society suggests that all of these things should be within our control and we are bad and wrong if we don’t eat the right things and look the right way.

What are kids feeling as they live with a barrage of “should” messages that aren’t possible to implement given the situational reality?

Despair is a reasonable answer. And despair, shame, or feeling bad about the foods we eat (or don’t eat) and about our body size and shape is the start of disordered eating behaviors. Disordered eating too often evolves into clinical eating disorders, like binge eating disorder, bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, and others. Given all of this, is it really any wonder why kids in this situation struggling with their mental health, body image, and eating behaviors?

Is there any data on food insecurity and eating disorders?

While we know food insecurity is associated with eating disorders among adults, there’s less research on how they relate in youth populations. A recent study found:

22.7% of young adults with lower incomes are dissatisfied with their bodies compared to 8.1% of those with high incomes.
When it came to weight control behaviors, 53.5% of the poorer adolescent girls reported unhealthy behaviors such as skipping meals, purging, or taking laxatives compared to 37.2% of girls in the highest income bracket.
Overall, young women in the low-income group were less likely to use lifestyle strategies, such as getting more exercise to lose weight, than their richer counterparts.

We still have a lot to learn about marginalized populations who have historically been overlooked in the eating disorder field, as well as the relationship between food insecurity and eating disorder pathology. Interventions to encourage children’s health, including those aimed at those growing up in a food desert, need to start by putting ourselves in the kids’ shoes to consider what their days are like. Only then can we come up with effective solutions.

Lisa Radzak is executive director of WithAll – a 501c3 serving a national audience with simple, actionable resources for adults to support and protect kids’ mental health related to their body image and food relationship via WithAll’s What to Say program. WithAll’s resources are developed by first considering a child’s perspective.

DID YOU KNOW?

The Capital City Emergency “Level II” Trauma & Wellness Center will house a “state of the art” Outreach Community Resource Center, that will provide case management, mental health community advocacy, and oversight from the M.I. Mother’s Keeper mental health advocates. 
 
The Capital City Emergency “Level II” Trauma & Wellness Center will offer patrons access to immediate coverage by general surgeons as well as coverage by the specialties of orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, radiology and critical care.
 
Our goal is to help people in the best way possible in an effort to preserve and to save more lives in the Nation’s Capital and beyond.

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trauma

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At Capital City Emergency Trauma & Wellness Center patrons with mental health emergencies that include life threatening situations in which an individual is imminently threatening harm to self or others, severely disoriented or out of touch with reality, has a severe inability to function or is otherwise distraught and out of control, will have access to quality and psychiatric emergency services and referrals.

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Whether your life threatening medical emergency involves excessive or uncontrollable bleeding, head injury. difficulty with breathing, severe pain, heart attack, vision impairments, stroke, physically collapsing, or seizure related, rest assured that our professionals will properly assess and evaluate the level of response that will be most needed to help provide stabilized care solutions and minimize complications as well as reduce early mortality.

Holistic Healthcare

We offer healthcare solutions that will support the whole person which includes their physical, psychological, emotional, social, & spiritual wellbeing. Research supports that because your mental state can affect your overall health we support and offer the inclusion of complimentary and alternative medicine(CAM) practitioners and naturopathic doctor recommendations and referrals as a part of our Outreach Community Resource Center’s care regimen and support.

Rehabilitative

Emergency care can typically result in traumatic injuries for which rehabilitation becomes an essential component of care in trying to achieve the best long-term outcomes for the patient. In addition to speeding up recovery times and helping to prevent further complications, rehabilitative care also helps to support a patient’s self-managed recovery once discharged from our facility. Our Outreach Community Resource Center works closely with our trauma center’s discharge department to assure that patrons requiring these services are linked with qualified professionals who will be accountable to the standard of care required to help the patron be successful in their recovery.

Social Services

Our “state of the art” Outreach Community Resource Center intends to promote “expansive” beneficial community enriching services, programs, case management, & linkage to “approved” partner resources and supports in all of the following intended areas and more:

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(Bridging the Gap)

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Prevention/Intervention Outreach,
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Nutritional Outreach

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Community Outreach

The Healthy DC & Me Leadership Coalition is partnering with the M.I. Mother’s Keeper Mental Health advocacy organization to provide outreach services on the community level as an aid in reducing the existent health inequities that many District citizens are facing as a direct result of the presence of debilitating social determinants and the lack of culturally appropriate care choices and realities for community members residing in marginalized and lower-income communities.

It is the vision and intentions of the M.I. Mother’s Keeper Mental Health Advocates organization to help improve the quality of living for citizens living in our Nation’s Capital and beyond by overseeing the delicate linkage to services and by maintaining higher standards of care accountability for deserving citizens of the Nation’s Capital.

For more information or to enroll as one of our service providers, please email us at:
info@healthydcandme.org