Governmental Objectives:
Governmental objectives stated in the bill include “creating innovative ways and opportunities to make affordable healthy foods available and accessible to poor citizens and their families which may help to improve health outcomes, increase economic productivity, lower morbidity and mortality rates, reduce disease and chronic health conditions, lessen the need for certain costly health and social services, and control exorbitant and spiraling health care costs.”
Governmental objectives stated in the bill include “creating innovative ways and opportunities to make affordable healthy foods available and accessible to poor citizens and their families which may help to improve health outcomes, increase economic productivity, lower morbidity and mortality rates, reduce disease and chronic health conditions, lessen the need for certain costly health and social services, and control exorbitant and spiraling health care costs.”
Political Influences:
Supporters of this bill include the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, United States Department of Agriculture, and the School Nutrition Association.
NSAC strongly advocates for the bill because in making healthy food affordable, they are hoping people will buy more locally, supporting local farmers and thereby boosting the local economy as well as address the health needs of the community.
USDA believes that this bill and many like it will combat hunger and improve health status through healthy diets. They state there are “1 out of 6 Americans facing food insecurity and 2 out of 3 adults overweight.”
The School Nutrition Association supports collaborative efforts and legislation to make access to child nutrition programs more available. They also support America’s agriculture community and its efforts to supply nutritious food to schools and Federal funding to ensure a comprehensive coordinated nutrition education program in schools.
Through research, while we originally thought that fast food restaurants and chain grocery stores such as Walmart would oppose this bill, they are actually in support of incorporating healthy foods into these ‘food deserts.’ It is well known that America needs to change its dieting habits because of the increasing number of obese people.
Those who oppose this bill will be focused on lack of planning and the amount of money it will cost to implement these programs.
Potential Impact on Nursing, Clients, and the Health Care System:
In changing the diets of community members it will increase positive health outcomes which affects clients, nurses, and the health care system.
Childhood obesity has tripled over the last 25 years. Obesity carries with it many co-morbidities including diabetes, heart disease, and kidney disease. Patients are developing these problems at a younger age, which is putting increased stress on our health care system. It is a widely known fact that low-income families are unable to provide nutritionally adequate diets for their families so they have a higher risk of becoming obese. In providing health food at lower costs and educating we would be decreasing the rate of obesity, which would lower the rate of chronic illnesses suffered by people who are overweight.
Beginning nutritional education at a young age as well as educating their parents, it is possible to teach them the risks of unhealthy eating and what it can lead to.
Scholarly Research:
Childhood Obesity Trends:
Skelton, J., Cook, S., Auinger, P., Klein, J., & Barlow, S. (2009). Prevalence and trends of severe obesity among US children and adolescents. Academic Pediatrics, 9(5), 322-329. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876285909001090 doi:10.1016/j.acap.2009.04.005
How the Food Industry Drives Us to Eat:
Brownell, K. (2010). In your face: how the food industry drives us to eat. Nutrition Action Health Letter, 37(4), 3-6. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/In+your+face%3A+how+the+food+industry+drives+us+to+eat.-a0224932028
I believe that this is an important bill to be passed. In recent years many schools have implemented a healthier school menu in response to the rise of childhood obesity, but this alone is not enough to live and promote a healthy lifestyle. It is a known fact that the unhealthy, processed, fatty foods are cheaper and often offer coupons to further drive costs down, so when a family is on a budget they are more likely to go for a item that gives them a higher quantity of food then quality of health. I strongly agree that by making healthy food more available and affordable would lead to fewer health care issues in the long term. For prevention and healthy lifestyle is the number one intervention to keep disease free.
ReplyDeleteAlthough this is a concept that I would like to see implemented, I wonder how the government plans to regulate and drive the cost of the "healthier" food down to areas that are lacking sources. For the healthier food is often higher in price due to its source and transportation. I just wonder if the area is already lacking healthy food sources, such as local farm, wouldn't prices still be high due to the transportation and other needs to make profit?
This is something that we, as a group, were wondering as well. The idea of making healthy food the affordable choice is something that we completely agree with, as most people would, but the issue of how it will be implemented is where we run in to trouble. Although the bill does not state any specific ideas for this, one idea that we were thinking of was partnering grocery stores/large corporations with local farmers and providing a possible incentive for those larger grocery stores to sell the local farm products without inflating the price because the transportation costs would be much less.
DeleteI believe that the passage of this bill will create the potential to have a positive impact on our health care system. By making healthy foods more available to families and individuals living on a low-income, we may be able to cut down on obesity rates, which will in turn prevent the co-morbidities obesity carries with it. However, I also believe it’s hard to break a bad habit, and I am not sure if making healthy foods more available will actually make people begin to do away with the cheap, processed foods and move to healthy foods, which also usually take more time to prepare. Although, I believe this is a step in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteWe thought of this problem too and believe that unhealthy eating habits would be a hard trend to break, but that the key would be with education. We think that many problems with unhealthy eating include the lack of knowledge about what is a better choice. An important aspect in order to make this bill work would be an increased overall education of the population about eating!
DeleteThis seems like it could be a bill that would start to move America in the right direction health-wise. Did your group find anything in the research about how the bill would actually be funded or how those in favor of the bill think funding for healthier food should be accomplished nationwide or within individual communities?
ReplyDelete