HJ 88 Food deserts; SHHR to explore strategies to eliminate to make healthy food affordable, report.
House Patrons for the Bill: Delores L. McQuinn (Chief Patron), Mamye E. BaCote, Betsy B. Carr, Roslyn C. Tyler
This bill encourages the government to look into making healthy food affordable for low income populations. There is a vast number of people living in poverty in our country and it has been shown that the lower the income, the greater the health problems.
Increasing healthy food availability to low income populations, increases health status, economic productivity, and reduces morbidity and mortality rates.
Initially, there will be extensive costs to set up programs enabling low income populations access to these products, which is stressful on an already overextended budget. However, the benefits greatly outweigh the initial costs. Risks for this bill include cost, knowledge deficit, and disinterest in healthy eating.
I am glad you are addressing this bill because it is a constant challenge for many low income families to get nutritional food for their families. A lot of times parents end up buying more for less, which in turn means that they are not getting the healthiest items because they are too expensive. If the government could do something about this problem it would help to make healthy foods more affordable and accesible to low income familes. This would ultimately lead to a healthier lifestyle; people would have more options on what foods they eat, and less likely to acquire the illnesses that occur due to unhealthy food choices. It will be interesting to see how this bill works out, and the implications it will have in the healthcare field and in the community.
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Affordable healthy food is an important issue regarding low income families. It is true that it is too expensive, and their money needs to be spent on other things such as bills, car payments, etc. A few questions regarding your blog: Does the bill address education to these families on the importance of nutritional food? Have they come up with a plan of action on how to make nutritional/healthy food more affordable? Maybe a little more details on the bill could be helpful for the reader. Good start to the blog!
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The bill is very vague on how they plan to implement making healthy food affordable for low income families. It also does not state anything about increasing education regarding nutritional eating, although this would be an important addition to the bill.
DeleteThanks for your input!
I really like that this issue is being brought into action. I agree that people are forced to purchase unhealthy food choices over healthy choices due solely on price. I think if foods such as fresh produce and non processed foods were at a lower and reasonable price, it will allow those with less money to eat healthier, and in turn reduce health related issues linked to poor diet. Has this bill stated any specifics on decreasing the price of foods in general, so people with low income can afford it, or will there be a resource provided to low income families to purchase healthier foods?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the bill only states that it would like to create "innovative ways" to make healthy food the affordable choice, but it does not give any specific ways as to how this will happen. This is obviously a major part of the bills success, though, and is one of the things that as a group in support of it, we are trying to work on and come up with. Thanks for your input and interest!
DeleteThis is a great issue being addressed. For those individuals or families who are tight with money and have a limited budget, it would be helpful for them to be able to purchase healthy foods, instead of cheap, processed foods that are so commonly bought. With the passing of this bill, it would be helpful in the long run for everyone. Being able to finally purchase fresh, healthy foods would in turn help the diet of the individual or family and more importantly, decrease the incidence of health related problems such as diabetes and hypertension.
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We agree! One of the biggest obstacles with this bill is the initial costs that implementing this change would cause, but as you have stated, the health care dollars being saved in the long run would far outweight the beginning costs. It is always a challenge to look at the long term outcomes when money is involved however. Thanks for your thoughts!!
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