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For my final curation project, I have researched the topic of food insecurity. I focus on the disparities within communities of color and how they are disproportionately represented. I include how people lack access to nutritional foods and are not able to travel to obtain their food. My sources include multiple different forms of information regarding who food insecurity effects most, who is living within food deserts, overpriced nutritional food, unequal marketing strategies, the benefits and flaws of SNAP, transportation to grocery stores, the lack of supermarkets in areas in need, and ways to help combat these issues at hand. Although this topic has ties to inequality, conflict, and the environment, it is most heavily related to the idea of inequality. This topic relates to inequality because neighborhoods of color are the majority of people who are food insecure. My topic relates to conflict because these people who are struggling are not receiving all of the assistance that they are in need of. Lastly, my topic relates to the environment because those affected by food insecurity, or those who are within a food desert have commonalities in regard to where they are living. In this this exhibit, you can find a plethora of sources related to the ideas of food insecurity, unavailable healthy foods, negative health outcomes, the weaknesses within government programs, disparities among people of color and how their environment affects the way that they are forced to live.

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Low income families, high priced food art

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Low income families, high priced food art

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This piece of art relates to my topic because it demonstrates how lower income families do not have access to nutritious foods because they cannot afford them. The family is stuck on the opposite side of the food, gated away by a barcode. Their clothing is dirty and patched up. This shows how the food is unavailable to them, possibly due to weaknesses in government programs as well as a lack of access because of the neighborhood that they live in. The photo includes illustrations of vegetables, which are often overpriced, also causing them to be unavailable to people who are financially unstable.

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Nearly 23% of people with obesity in the United States have reported food insecurity, compared with 15% of people with moderate weight. This association with obesity has doubled since 1999-2000, according to a recent analysis of trends in food insecurity.

"Food insecurity" refers to a lack of access to enough food for an active, healthy life. In the West, this issue is most often due to limited financial resources.

People with low food security report concerns that food will run out before they can afford to buy more and being unable to afford balanced meals.

Internationally, food insecurity more often relates to the frequency of conflict and to climate-related failure of harvests. Very low food security is more likely to lead to reduced food intake and undernourishment.

While there are varying degrees, low food security can reduce the " quality, variety, and desirability " of a person's diet, even in wealthy nations like the U.S. Very low food security in the U.S., for example, leads to skipping meals and the disruption of regular eating patterns.
In 2019, 10.5% of U.S. households had some level of food insecurity - 6.4% had low food security, and 4.1% had very low food security. Now, there are concerns that COVID-19 may be exacerbating this problem.
Recent Census Bureau data show that before the pandemic, 1 in 10 respondents said that they "sometimes or often did not have enough to eat." In early March, this figure rose to 25%.

The survey respondents mentioned not having enough money to buy food or being unable to get out to buy food as reasons for the insecurity.

Food insecurity is associated with a range of negative health outcomes. For children, these include anemia, asthma, poor cognitive performance, and behavior problems. In adults, there is a higher risk of depression, , diabetes, and hypertension.

Meanwhile, the link between obesity and food insecurity has been a topic of debate. In 2011, a review of 42 articles concluded that while women with food insecurity were more likely to have overweight or obesity, there was no evidence that food insecurity caused weight gain over the long term.

More recently, researchers have proposed a resource scarcity hypothesis to explain the ongoing associations between food insecurity and increased weight.

According to the theory, an increased intake of inexpensive, high-calorie foods forms a cycle with skipping meals and intermittent hunger. This, in turn, leads to physiological changes that encourage the deposition of fat and decreased energy and exercise.

The new analysis was based on data from over 46,000 adults in the U.S. collected through the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The goal of NHANES is to assess the health and nutritional status of people in the U.S. through regular surveys.

To better understand trends in obesity and food insecurity in the U.S., the analysis, from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, in Baton Rouge, LA, analyzed data collected between 1999 and 2016. The researchers focused on measures relating to food security and body fat - body mass index, or BMI, and waist circumference.

Their findings, which feature in the journal , point to a significant increase in food insecurity rates during this time, reaching 18.2% in 2015-2016. This is in contrast to declines in food insecurity before the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the beginning of the study, in 1999-2000, 12% of women with obesity were food insecure, compared with 7% who were not. By 2015-2016, the number of women with obesity and food insecurity had risen to 25%, compared with 16% of women with moderate weight, what the researchers referred to as "normal" weight.

In men, there was a similar trend. At the beginning of the study, in 1999-2000, food insecurity was more prevalent in men with normal weight (10%), compared with 9% of those with obesity. By 2015-2016, food insecurity was more prevalent in men with obesity (20%), compared with those who had normal weight (16%).

"Food insecurity and obesity are not mutually exclusive [...] Rather, these health issues are linked in such a way that a solution will require public policy that addresses both at the same time."

- Dr. Candice Myers, an assistant professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center and the study's lead author

The prevalence of food insecurity was highest among people with obesity. This may be partly because the cheapest and most accessible foods are often the least healthful.
The fact that food insecurity can coexist with obesity - and in fact correlate with it - highlights the importance of making healthy and nutritious food affordable for all.
The researchers also identified differences that aligned with race and ethnicity, with food insecurity in 2015-2016 being greater among Black participants (29.1%) and Hispanic participants (35%), compared with their white counterparts (13%).

The researchers observe that rising rates of food insecurity following the start of the ongoing pandemic in the U.S. are a critical public health concern.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly worsened the situation. The country may face long-term economic and health consequences unless we solve this public health crisis," says Dr. Myers.
The researchers recommend various ways that public health professionals can combat rising levels of food insecurity - including using screening tools to identify people at risk of this issue, who can then be referred to support services, such as food banks.

They also recommend further research to better understand the link between food insecurity and obesity, as well as the racial and ethnic disparities in food security.

Dr. John Kirwan, executive director of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, concluded, "Our research has set the stage to not only continue our current efforts to explore these issues, but also develop new and innovative projects that delve into understanding their impact on the health of the citizens of our community, state, and the entire country."

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Food insecurity in the US increasingly linked to obesity

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Nearly 23% of people with obesity in the United States have reported food insecurity, compared with 15% of people with moderate weight. This association with obesity has doubled since 1999-2000, according to a recent analysis of trends in food insecurity. "Food insecurity" refers to a lack of access to enough food for an active, healthy life.

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This article relates to my topic because it highlights the idea of inequality whereas those who are food insecure are experiencing negative health outcomes. There is an obvious link between food insecurity and obesity because an increased intake of inexpensive, high-calorie foods forms a cycle with skipping meals and intermittent hunger. This, in turn, leads to physiological changes that encourage the deposition of fat and decreased energy and exercise. This outcome demonstrates the inequality food insecurity causes. The lack of access to nutritional foods then causes other health outcomes, such as obesity, putting low-income people at a disadvantage and higher risk.

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This meme relates to my topic because it essentially summarizes the article source listed above. There are unequal negative health outcomes that come with being food insecure. Studies show that the places with the most food insecurity also have the highest rates of obesity. This seems ironic, but it is primarily due to processed and fatty foods being cheaper than nutritional options, as well as eating habits and meal patterns. This is an issue because these people who are suffering are then experiencing many other negative effects on top of the lack of food. This creates inequality, because these people are more apt to become obese and experience negative health effects.

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The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) is the primary source of nutrition assistance for many low-income families and individuals. SNAP enables low-income households to spend more on food than their limited budgets would otherwise allow and makes it easier to put enough food on the table. Households participating in SNAP include low-wage working families, low-income seniors, and people with disabilities living on fixed incomes; close to 70 percent of participants in an average month are in families with children, and more than one-quarter are in households with seniors or people with disabilities. SNAP forms a critical foundation for their health and well-being, lifting millions out of poverty and improving food security.

"Millions of Americans, including roughly half of all households participating in SNAP, are still food insecure, meaning they lack consistent access to enough food to support an active, healthy life."Despite the program's success, millions of Americans, including roughly half of all households participating in SNAP, are still food insecure, meaning they lack consistent access to enough food to support an active, healthy life. Even those who achieve food security often find it hard to stretch their limited resources far enough to purchase and consume a healthy diet. These facts suggest that SNAP's relatively modest benefits - which average less than $1.40 per person per meal - may not be enough to meet the needs of America's poor.

Our review of research from the last decade strongly suggests that SNAP benefits fall short of what many participants need to purchase and prepare a healthy diet and that additional benefits would increase food expenditures and improve food security.

SNAP benefit levels do not account for the time required to purchase and prepare a healthy diet. Preparing a healthy meal requires both time - to plan menus, travel to and from a grocery store, comparison shop to minimize costs, and prepare meals - and resources. Studies have found that the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) - the Agriculture Department's (USDA) estimate of a bare-bones, nutritionally adequate diet, on which SNAP benefit levels are based - may require low-income households to devote much more time than most households actually have to preparing meals, and to make meals largely from scratch. SNAP benefits cannot easily be stretched to purchase as many of the more convenient, but often more costly, processed or prepared foods as American consumers typically eat today. Nearly 9 in 10 households with a single adult (with or without children) lack the combination of time and money required to purchase and prepare healthy meals. Given that three-quarters of SNAP households are headed by a single adult, many participants likely lack the time to prepare meals mostly from scratch as the Thrifty Food Plan assumes.

To meet dietary recommendations at a low cost, the TFP adopts assumptions about food consumption patterns that can vary significantly from what people actually consume. USDA imposes several constraints on the development of the TFP. Its cost, for example, has been fixed in inflation-adjusted terms since the 1970s. When combined with nutrient standards, food group requirements, and other considerations, these constraints result in market baskets of food that deviate - sometimes dramatically - from current consumption patterns. To enable the TFP to more closely resemble people's actual food consumption patterns would likely require raising the TFP's level and thus its cost.

Studies show that additional SNAP benefits increase both food expenditures and food security. SNAP households' food spending increased, and their food security improved, after policymakers temporarily boosted SNAP benefits in response to the Great Recession. These trends then reversed as inflation eroded the benefit increase and policymakers subsequently ended it. Similarly, a study found that increasing benefits in the summer - when children lack access to free or reduced-price school meals - reduced by one-third the share of children with very low food security (that is, who must cut the size of meals, skip meals, or go entire days without food due to lack of resources).

Many families struggle once SNAP benefits run out.A quarter of all households exhaust their benefits within a week of receipt, and more than half exhaust benefits within the first two weeks. To be sure, SNAP benefits are intended to supplement other income that households can use to purchase food. But food expenditures and consumption fall - and food insecurity increases - as families use up their benefits and other resources. Running out of benefits may also harm participants' health and educational achievement: studies find that hospital admissions and school disciplinary problems rise, and test scores fall, among SNAP families later in the month.

Current benefits fall well short of what households may need to ensure an adequate diet. Food-insecure SNAP participants report they need about $10 to $20 more per person each week to buy enough food to meet their needs. Similarly, researchers have estimated that SNAP benefits fall about $11 short per person of the weekly cost of a nutritious meal plan. And larger benefit adjustments also would be needed to reflect more realistic expectations about the degree to which families can prepare meals from scratch.

Families in high-cost areas find it especially hard to afford a healthy diet. SNAP benefits are adjusted each year to account for rising food prices, and maximum allotments are the same across most states and the District of Columbia. While this ensures that poor households with similar circumstances are eligible for the same SNAP benefit regardless of where they live - an essential feature of SNAP - it can render a healthy diet unaffordable for families in high-cost areas. As many as 20 to 30 percent of SNAP households may encounter food prices that raise the purchase price of market baskets of foods that approximate the foods in the Thrifty Food Plan to levels above SNAP's maximum allotment.

Increased SNAP benefits could help reduce child poverty. Children growing up in poor families typically fare worse - in terms of physical and mental health, educational attainment and labor market success, and other outcomes - than children from more affluent families. Increasing SNAP benefits, particularly when coupled with expanded work supports to encourage and reward work, would reduce the number of children in poverty. Policy options focused on work alone would fall far short of this goal.

This evidence suggests that raising SNAP benefits would improve food security and lessen the adverse effects that are linked to households running out of adequate food before the end of the month, and likely would also havehealth benefits.

Assessing the adequacy of SNAP benefits is not a simple task. A panel of researchers and policy experts commissioned by USDA's Food and Nutrition Service and convened by the National Academies drew attention to the wide range of individual, household, environmental, and program characteristics that influence the program's adequacy. A household's ability to achieve food security and consume a healthy diet depends on many factors: time and resources; nutrition knowledge, motivation, and skills; food choices; access to reasonably priced grocery stores and supermarkets; and the cost of food and transportation. Key program design features - from the way benefits are calculated to the availability and effectiveness of nutrition education - also matter.

Fortunately, research over the last decade, some of it sparked by the expert panel's work, offers new insights on the adequacy of SNAP benefits.

SNAP Benefit Levels Are Based on Unrealistic Assumptions

The Thrifty Food Plan is supposed to represent the actual amount of money needed to purchase a low-cost but nutritious diet. In reality, however, USDA's periodic updates to the TFP since the 1970s all start by assuming that its cost is fixed at existing levels, adjusted for inflation. USDA then seeks to meet nutrient standards, food group recommendations, and other dietary requirements without deviating too far from low-income Americans' current consumption patterns. By adhering to these required constraints, the TFP model generates unrealistic market baskets of food.

First, the TFP does not account for the time required to purchase and prepare a healthy diet, assuming unrealistically that households can purchase low-cost raw ingredients and prepare most meals from scratch. This makes the cost of a basic diet look less costly than it actually is for most households. Preparing healthy meals requires both money and time. The full cost of a healthy diet includes not just the money used to buy ingredients, but also the time needed to plan meals, buy and prepare food, consume meals, and clean up.

Ignoring the value of time and labor grossly underestimates the full cost of a healthy diet. For example, a can of beans typically costs more in a store than dry beans, but if we account for the time it takes to sort, rinse, soak, and boil dry beans, the combined cost of ingredients and labor can exceed the total cost of simply buying and warming a can of beans. Shopping for ingredients also takes time. The value of time may be more important than the cost of food when preparing meals at home, accounting for as much as 50 to 65 percent of the total time-and-money cost of food and meal preparation among SNAP households.

A central assumption in the TFP, however, is that low-income households can and will devote the substantial time required to prepare most meals largely from scratch. Since the TFP model does not explicitly account for the cost of time required to purchase and prepare food, it implicitly assumes that the cost is zero, meaning that households are not constrained in the time they have available to prepare foods and that they will buy limited processed foods. Although the last revision of the TFP, in 2006, allows for some processed or prepared foods, it still relies heavily on meals prepared from unprocessed foods to meet its cost constraints.

While there are few estimates of the time required to prepare a nutritious diet at the cost determined by the TFP, existing estimates suggest it takes 13 to 16 hours per week, or roughly two hours per day. This is much more than most American households spend preparing meals: an average American adult typically spends just over 35 minutes each day on food preparation and cleanup, and while the figure for SNAP participants is higher (around 50 to 65 minutes), it still falls well short of the effort that the TFP requires (see Figure 1).

Ignoring the value of time and labor severely distorts assessments of whether household resources are adequate to purchase and prepare a nutritious diet. Fully 87 percent of households with a single adult lack the combination of time and money to purchase and prepare meals consistent with the TFP's requirements. This estimate is based on a sample of single-adult households regardless of income, but most households participating in SNAP likely lack the resources as well, since three-quarters of all households participating in SNAP have only one adult and low-income households may face increased budget constraints. The time deficit for households with two adults (about a quarter of all SNAP households) may not be as large, since they can share the responsibility for meal preparation. Spouses contribute about three hours per week, or almost 30 minutes per day, to meal production.

Second, the TFP does not reflect the variety of foods most people consume. It meets the nutrient standards and food group requirements at low cost only by deviating, sometimes dramatically, from current consumption patterns. Some research shows that the TFP assumes a household will consume certain foods in quantities up to 20 times the national average and omits other commonly consumed foods, such as citrus juices and whole milk. For example, whole grain rice and pasta account for 0.5 percent of food energy for females aged 20 to 50, but under the 2006 TFP, they account for more than 10 percent of the food energy to meet MyPyramid requirements.

Third, the TFP does not meet all key dietary standards or account for varying family types and dietary needs. It meets many science-based recommendations of nutritional need but fails to meet nutritional guidelines for vitamin E, potassium, and sodium. The TFP for a family of four is based on the dietary needs for a family consisting of two adults and children under age 12 and thus is likely inappropriate for four-person families with teenagers, since dietary guidelines suggest they have similar nutritional needs as adults. Furthermore, the TFP does not account for a range of dietary restrictions and is insufficient to cover medically necessary dietary needs for relatively common conditions such as lactose intolerance or diabetes, a recent study found.

The Thrifty Food Plan and SNAP Benefits

The TFP is derived from a nationwide survey of the cost of a market basket of foods representative of those consumed by low-income households and aligned with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. It is not a shopping list that guides a consumer along the path towards a healthy diet, but rather thousands of individual food items consolidated into 29 categories grouped under six broad food types: grains, vegetables, fruits, milk products, meat and beans, and other foods. Foods within categories are assigned an average price based on national data, then combined to achieve the dietary recommendations in the 2005 Dietary Guidelines and MyPyramid while straying as little as possible from current consumption patterns and holding overall costs constant. The requirement that the TFP meet dietary guidelines at constant cost over time implies that its value today is the same as it was 40 years ago when the TFP was introduced, once food-price inflation is accounted for. Separate plans are generated for 15 groups of men, women, and children of different ages, reflecting differences in their dietary requirements.

In principle, the TFP suggests that a family of four, consisting of two adults and two school-aged children, should be able to buy a nutritious diet for $148.20 per week in June 2018 based on average food prices across the nation. a Maximum SNAP benefits are based on this four-person reference family, with adjustments for smaller and larger households to reflect economies of scale. Maximum benefits in Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and the Virgin Islands are higher to reflect the higher cost of food in those locations. To account for food price inflation, maximum benefits are adjusted each October based on the cost of the TFP the previous June. The maximum monthly benefit for a family of four in the 48 states and the District of Columbia during fiscal year 2019 is $642.

SNAP targets its benefits according to need: households with less income receive larger benefits than households with more income since they need more help to afford an adequate diet. The benefit formula assumes that families will spend 30 percent of their net income for food; SNAP makes up the difference between that 30 percent contribution and the maximum benefit. To receive the maximum SNAP benefit, a household must have no net income to contribute to food purchases.

Additional Benefits Increase Food Expenditures and Food Security

Recent research, much of it derived from natural or designed experiments, offers strong evidence that increasing SNAP benefits would make a meaningful difference for participants' food expenditures and food security.

Recognizing SNAP's effectiveness at providing economic stimulus and reducing hardship in a weak economy, the 2009 Recovery Act made several changes to SNAP, most notably a temporary, across-the-board benefit increase for all participants. The Recovery Act raised SNAP's maximum monthly benefit by 13.6 percent beginning in April 2009. SNAP benefits were expected to continue at the new, higher level until the program's regular annual inflation adjustments to the maximum benefit overtook the Recovery Act adjustment. Food price inflation was lower than expected between 2009 and 2013, which delayed the date that the TFP would exceed the Recovery Act level. Congress ultimately accelerated the sunset of the temporary benefit increase, and as a result, every SNAP recipient except those in Hawaii experienced a benefit cut in November 2013.

Several researchers took advantage of the natural experiment this temporary provision presented to analyze the impact of benefit increases and cuts on food expenditures, food security, diet quality, and other outcomes.

Increasing benefits raises (and cutting benefits reduces) food expenditures. Basic economic theory predicts that raising SNAP benefits will increase spending on food at home and that cutting benefits will reduce food spending for most households. Even though SNAP benefits can only be spent on food, added benefits should also enable households to redirect funds they would otherwise have spent on food to other needs.

As expected, low-income households did increase overall food expenditures (by about 5 to 10 percent) after implementation of the Recovery Act. They also increased spending on housing, education, and transportation, which suggests that increasing SNAP benefits allows participants to better meet both food and other essential needs.

As inflation eroded the real value of the Recovery Act increase, SNAP households' food spending fell by 4 percent, or by about $26 per month for a family of four. When benefits were finally cut in November 2013, SNAP households lowered their food spending by 12 percent more than eligible but non-participating households. And among SNAP participants enrolled in store loyalty programs in three major cities (Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Columbus), food spending fell by 30 percent.

Increasing benefits improves (and cutting benefits reduces) food security. The share of households with very low food security was expected to rise in 2009 due to the Great Recession's impact on income and employment. Yet very low food security fell that year - the year the benefit increase took effect - among households with incomes low enough to qualify for SNAP (130 percent of the poverty line or less). Among households with somewhat higher incomes, in contrast, very low food security rose in 2009, as expected (see Figure 2). The Recovery Act increase may have reduced the incidence of very low food security among SNAP participants by about a third, helping to cushion the blow of the recession by providing more resources for families to purchase food.
As inflation eroded the value of the additional Recovery Act benefits between 2009 and 2011, the number of SNAP households with very low food security increased 17 percent, erasing nearly half of the improvement associated with the Recovery Act's benefit increase. Very low food security did not rise among low-income households not receiving SNAP. This, too, suggests a strong relationship between SNAP benefit levels and recipients' food insecurity.
When benefits were cut in November 2013, food insecurity among households that consistently participated in SNAP rose by 8 percent more - and very low food security rose by 14 percent more - than it did for other low-income households.

Evidence is mixed on whether benefit increases improve diet quality. Raising SNAP benefits could improve the nutritional quality of participants' diets if cost currently constrains participants' food choices. An additional $30 per person of monthly SNAP benefits could raise monthly food spending by $19 per person, based on the estimated associations between SNAP benefits, food spending, and diet quality. Such an increase is associated with increases in the purchase of more nutritious foods. Most notably, overall consumption of vegetables could increase by 1.5 percent, with even larger increases in tomatoes and yellow vegetables (see Figure 3). The evidence on how benefit increases affect diet quality is somewhat mixed, however, as the natural experiment offered by the Recovery Act did not reveal consistent improvements in nutrient intake and diet. The diet of most Americans, as measured by the Healthy Eating Index, falls short of the recommendations in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, regardless of income. Research on the relationship between income and diet quality has been mixed and it is not clear whether raising benefits would substantially improve diet quality among low-income SNAP participants.

Other evidence that more adequate SNAP benefits could improve dietary outcomes emerges from the growing number of incentive programs at farmers' markets or grocery stores. These programs typically provide a dollar-for-dollar match (or, in some cases, a discount) on each SNAP dollar spent on targeted foods (usually fruits and vegetables), essentially increasing the value of SNAP benefits. Studies suggest that such incentives can lead to more spending on fruits and vegetables, improved food security, and better diets.

In the strongest of these studies, USDA's rigorous evaluation of the Healthy Incentives Pilot in Massachusetts showed that a targeted incentive could increase fruit and vegetable consumption by about 26 percent. A smaller experiment in rural Maine increased weekly spending on fruits and vegetables among households participating in SNAP by 45 percent. Other studies report that incentives are associated with improvements in food security, fewer food-related problems (such as cutting or skipping meals, feeling hungry, or not having enough money to buy enough food and eat balanced meals), increased consumption of fruits and vegetables, and self-reported health. However, an interim evaluation of the Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive program, whose grantees provide incentives at over 2,000 retailers (including farmers' markets and grocery stores), found only modest increases in SNAP participants' fruit and vegetable spending and no measurable impact on their fruit and vegetable consumption.

While these studies suggest such incentives are linked to positive incomes, we recommend caution when interpreting these results, particularly as they relate to the impact of increasing benefits overall on diet quality. Because the incentives examined lower the cost of specific foods, the extent to which they apply to the impact of broad benefit increases is unclear. In addition, while these studies consistently find an association between incentives and positive outcomes, it is hard to draw conclusions about the causal impact of incentives.

Benefit increases may improve health and reduce health care costs. Studies suggest that health care use and costs respond to changes in SNAP benefits. The number and cost of hospital admissions covered by Medicaid, for example, grew more slowly after the Recovery Act's benefit increases took effect and then accelerated when those benefits were cut. There is also some evidence that participating in SNAP may improve broad measures of child health. Children who lose some or all of their SNAP benefits are more likely to have poor health and be food insecure compared to children in families that maintain benefits, and families that lose benefits are more likely to forgo medical care or make health care tradeoffs than families that consistently receive SNAP benefits. Moreover, young children in SNAP households were as likely to be "well" as children from non-participating low-income households in the years before implementation of the Recovery Act, but more likely to be "well" in the years after. This suggests a possible link between benefit adequacy and child health.

Additional evidence comes from USDA's large-scale experiment with additional summer benefits for children. Many low-income families cannot easily absorb gaps or reductions in nutrition assistance, such as occur during summer months when children have no access to free or reduced-price meals at school. Households with school-age children, limited income, and tight budgets increase their summer food spending by far less (just $2 per child per week, on average) than needed to fully offset the lost school meals.

To help fill this gap, the Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer for Children demonstration gave participating households an extra $60 in SNAP benefits each month for each school-aged child. The results were striking: food expenditures rose by 10 percent, food insecurity fell by 21 to 34 percent, and three of eight measures of child nutrition outcomes improved modestly, including an increase in children's fruit, vegetable, and dairy consumption (see Figure 4).

Many Families Struggle Once SNAP Benefits Run Out

Food purchases among SNAP households follow a pronounced, well-documented cyclical pattern. Households redeem over half of their SNAP benefits within a week of receiving them, over three-quarters by the end of the second week, and 90 percent by the end of the third. Benefits normally run out for most households before the end of the month. A quarter of households exhaust their monthly benefits within a week of issuance, and more than half within two weeks.

Given the program's design, running out of SNAP benefits before the end of the month is not entirely unexpected. SNAP benefits are meant to supplement other sources of household income that can be used to purchase food, not to cover the full monthly cost of food for most households. Only those households with no net income after taking allowable deductions - just over a third of participating households in 2016 - receive the maximum SNAP benefit. The other two-thirds are expected to contribute 30 percent of their disposable income to purchase food.

Most households do, in fact, contribute their own earnings or other cash assistance benefits to pay for food. Almost 75 percent spend cash on food in addition to their SNAP benefit. SNAP benefits account for about half of participants' total food spending and 63 percent of their spending on food at home. In theory, therefore, the decline in the use of SNAP benefits over the course of a month might simply reflect participants spending down benefits before turning to cash, rather than participants running out of resources for food.

Numerous studies have found, however, that late in the benefit cycle, SNAP participants not only spend less on food but also consume fewer calories, are likelier to experience food insecurity, and may be likelier to visit emergency rooms or be admitted to a hospital because of low blood sugar. In addition, children score lower on basic achievement tests and disciplinary problems in school increase. These adverse consequences suggest that households' overall resources for food - their SNAP benefits plus their own income - may not be enough to meet their needs.

Food spending falls rapidly throughout the month. Multiple studies document large and significant reductions in overall food expenditures as a month unfolds and SNAP benefits are exhausted. (See Figure 5 for the findings of one such study.) Among SNAP households, average daily food spending falls from $66 on the day of and the day after receiving benefits to less than $18 for the rest of the month, from $63 in the first week of the benefit month to $37 on average in the last three weeks, and from $94 to $19 from the first day to the last day of the benefit month. Detailed scanner data from a national grocery retailer in one state show that SNAP households reduce their food expenditures by 34 percent between the first and last weeks of the month after benefit issuance.

Food consumption falls throughout the month. Food intake, most often measured as the number of calories consumed, falls off at the end of the benefit month, probably by as much as 10 to 25 percent.
In one of the earliest studies on this issue, participants who do their major grocery shopping once a month or less frequently consumed fewer calories four weeks after receiving benefits than in the each of the first three weeks. Another study from the same period estimates that consumption (again measured by calorie intake) fell by roughly 9 to 12 percent over the course of a month.
More recent studies affirm these results. Adults participating in SNAP consume about 38 percent fewer calories per day in the last two days of the month than in the rest of the month, and about 25 percent less relative to their estimated energy requirement. Working-age adults are also much more likely to skip meals or go without eating by the end of the month. While SNAP participants may consume as many as 12 fewer meals, children - especially very young children - are less likely to skip meals, as parents shelter them from the effects of the benefit cycle. Elementary school children, however, may eat less during summer months when school is out of session, as noted above.

Hunger and food insecurity increase throughout the month. While going an entire day without eating is rare (only about 1 percent of SNAP participants do so, according to time use surveys), the probability of a day without eating roughly triples from the first to the last day of the month. The probability of eating less than usual is nearly 17 percentage points higher in the final days of the benefit cycle. Similarly, a SNAP household is 11 percentage points likelier to be classified as food insecure near the end of or at the beginning of the benefit month than in the rest of the month. In one mid-sized city, the chances of SNAP participants experiencing food insecurity rose by at least five times in the last third of a month. And parents in a midwestern city who were able to stretch benefits further into the month were less likely to experience very low food security or physiological symptoms of hunger, such as dizziness.

Diet quality may be impaired by the end of the month. Research exploring changes in dietary quality over the benefit cycle is limited and offers mixed evidence that quality falls as benefits run out. Two studies found three- to five-point reductions in the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) for foods purchased later in the month. Another found that household purchases of perishable and healthier foods associated with higher HEI scores fell over the month, while purchases of non-perishable and less healthy foods were more constant. In contrast, at least one study found no pattern in the amount of fruit and vegetables consumed, and HEI scores of African Americans in low-income neighborhoods in Baltimore did not change based on the time since they received benefits.

Some families may increasingly rely on coping strategies to get through the month. Some evidence suggests that many families draw on social networks to get through the month. A little more than half report borrowing money for food, with the need to borrow increasing 37 percent over the month; 38 percent report using a food bank. Another study, however, found no relationship between reliance on coping strategies and the time until SNAP benefits ran out.

Running out of benefits may harm health and educational achievement. Recent research highlights various behavioral consequences of the monthly cycle in food consumption. Children's test scores, for example, are lower at the end of the benefit month, and children are more likely to misbehave in school. In addition, emergency room visits and hospital admissions to treat low blood sugar (which can occur when diabetics reduce their food intake) appear to spike near the end of the month, though the evidence is mixed.

One study found that the rate of hypoglycemia-related emergency room visits and hospital admissions in low-income communities in California was 27 percent higher in the last week of the month than the first, an increase not found in higher-income communities. Similarly, a separate study found that hospital admissions in the last week of the month were 7 percent higher in a national data set of medical claims among people with income below the national median. Neither study, however, accounted for differences between the calendar month and the SNAP issuance cycle (most states stagger issuance of SNAP benefits over several days of each month), so it is difficult to attribute the results solely to the timing of SNAP benefits; other factors - such as receipt of monthly paychecks - may also be at work.
In contrast, two studies that examined whether either the timing or the size of SNAP benefits affected the number of emergency room claims for hypoglycemia and hypertension found no link between these claims and the timing of benefits but did find a modest link between these claims and the size of the SNAP benefit. A $50 increase in monthly benefits, for example, would reduce the average number of hypoglycemia claims by 12 to 15 percent. These results suggest that more generous SNAP benefits might help households avoid fluctuations in the quality and quantity of food that might result in low blood sugar, thus reducing emergency room visits for hypoglycemia.

Increasing benefits lessens the benefit cycle. As noted above, before the Recovery Act benefit increase took effect, SNAP participants' daily calorie consumption fell by 38 percent in the last two days of the month; after those increases took effect, however, consumption rose by about 14 percent in the last two days of the month (see Figure 6). Both calorie intake as a percentage of estimated energy requirements and the probability of eating less followed a similar pattern. Similarly, the declining value of SNAP benefits as inflation eroded the Recovery Act increase contributed to the re-emergence of the benefit cycle. This evidence suggests that increased benefits can help smooth food intake over the course of a month. It may also suggest that benefits' adequacy might be more important than their timing in smoothing the cycle of consumption.

Families Report Tradeoffs, Struggles Due to Inadequate Benefits

The research reviewed in this paper demonstrates that for many families, SNAP benefits do not cover the cost of a nutritious diet throughout the month for all family members. Qualitative research shows how falling short on money for food each month affects families and how they try to cope with inadequate benefits.

In these qualitative studies, families describe the tradeoffs they must make between food and other necessities:

"[The] last week of the month is horrible because . . . if that week, anything happens, [you are going to have to go without]. For example, my son got mono four months ago [during that last week of the month], and he had to be seen and he had to have medication and so you think, 'Okay, I've got $200 for food.' [If] you go spend $88 on that and now what are you going to do? Food or medication?"a

"I was having to choose between medicine to stay out of pain and function and try to raise my ten-year-old because there are so many things I can't do with him now like I did my other two sons. I'm afraid that's all [he] is going to remember of me, that his mom was sick. So yeah, there have been times this year, the past year where there really wasn't enough to eat and I felt really badly about it."b

"I had to do without buying food in order to put gas in the truck to go to work the next day. . . . I get Food Stamps on the 5th. . . . Three weeks later, the food stamps are gone so at that point, the food's coming out of my pocket and if I have money, I have to make that choice, you know? I have to have gas in order to work to make more money."c

Families also describe their struggle to afford an adequate, nutritious diet:

"We are surviving, yes. Do I think [SNAP benefits] provide all of the fruits and vegetables that we require for our diets? No. I mean, if you were just buying ramen noodles and packets of cheap noodles and bags of rice [it does]."

"[S]ometimes you be wanting to eat healthy, but it's very - food is expensive. Period. But it's more expensive when you're trying to eat healthy. . . . And you can't eat healthy off of $169. So it's like you gotta get what you can so you can get enough of it."e

"Oh yeah, [SNAP] doesn't cover a month. There is no way. It doesn't cover a month, not with a growing ten-year-old. There is no way. Half the time I don't eat. I'll live on coffee and pain medication. That sounds awful but I can go without food. . . . That's not the way to do it, I know, but when it comes to [him] eating or me, it's going to be [him] every time."f

SNAP Benefits Are Less Affordable in Higher-Cost Areas

While SNAP benefits are adjusted each year to account for rising food prices, maximum benefits are the same across most states and the District of Columbia. This ensures that poor households with similar circumstances are eligible for the same SNAP benefit regardless of where they live. This uniformity is an important feature of SNAP and can reduce differences across the states in their overall financial support for low-income people, as some states where benefits stretch farther may have lower wages, lower cash assistance benefits, and higher poverty.

Food prices, however, are not the same across the country. A recent study estimates that 20 to 30 percent of SNAP households encounter food prices high enough that a nutritious, low-cost market basket would cost more than SNAP's maximum benefit, based on prices from stores where SNAP participants do most of their grocery shopping and from nearby stores where participants could also shop. The average shortfall among these households could be at least $50 and perhaps as much as $150 per month.

The reduced purchasing power of SNAP benefits due to higher local food prices affects more than just the affordability of a nutritious diet. SNAP participants in high-priced areas are nearly 20 percent more likely to be food insecure than those in low-priced areas. In addition, children in high-priced areas receive less preventive and ambulatory care, are at greater risk of food insecurity, and have marginally worse nutritional outcomes. Modest increases in SNAP purchasing power are associated with improved utilization of health care, reduced food insecurity, and better school attendance (see Figure 7). Higher SNAP purchasing power may improve children's health and other outcomes if it leads to better diets, enables families to spend more on health care (by reducing pressure on their limited budgets), or reduces family stress, making it easier to get children to school or to the doctor for annual exams.

Differences in local and regional housing prices can also affect the adequacy of SNAP benefits. Housing accounts for about 40 percent of SNAP participants' overall spending; food accounts for less than 25 percent. Families in areas with high housing costs may have less disposable income to spend on food. SNAP offers a deduction for excess shelter costs (including utilities) that exceed half of a participant's net income after all other deductions (up to a cap for most households) when determining benefits. In principle, this deduction should benefit families in areas with high shelter costs, but the cap may limit its effectiveness in adjusting benefits to reflect differences in household circumstances due to housing costs.

Increased SNAP Benefits Could Help Reduce Child Poverty

Children growing up in poor families typically fare worse - in physical and mental health, educational attainment and labor market success, and engagement in risky behaviors and delinquency - than children from wealthier families. Recognizing these harmful consequences, Congress directed the National Academies to identify evidence-based programs and policies that could reduce the number of children living in poverty by half within ten years.

The expert panel found compelling evidence of SNAP's importance in the lives of children and their families. SNAP is second only to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the refundable portion of the Child Tax Credit in lifting children out of poverty, and no program is more effective than SNAP in lifting children out of deep poverty (with income less than half of the poverty line). SNAP also improves food security and health outcomes for children and their families.

The panel concluded that while no single program or policy could achieve the goal of cutting child poverty in half, a combination of expanded work supports and increases in selected means-tested benefits - including SNAP - could. Specifically, raising the maximum SNAP benefit by 35 percent, increasing benefits for older children, and expanding the Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer for Children demonstration nationwide, when coupled with increases in the EITC and Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit to encourage and reward work and an expansion of housing vouchers, could reduce the number of children in poverty and in deep poverty by half. Policy options focused on work alone would fall far short of this goal, the panel found.

How Much More Is Needed?

The research summarized here indicates that current SNAP benefits are not sufficient to meet the nutrition needs of many low-income households: food insecurity persists, even among current SNAP participants; many households lack the combination of time and money needed to purchase and prepare a nutritious diet; and the monthly benefit cycle as families exhaust their SNAP benefits adversely affects consumption, food security, dietary quality, and a host of other outcomes.

Research on how much more would be needed to eliminate hunger and food insecurity and mitigate other adverse consequences is limited but offers some useful insights. When asked directly, food-insecure participants say they need roughly $10 to $20 more per person each week to buy just enough food to meet their needs. While some may underreport and others may exaggerate their need, these responses roughly indicate participants' perceptions. Other researchers simulated the cost of a meal in every county and concluded that the average cost of a low-income meal (based on the Thrifty Food Plan) is 27 percent higher than the maximum SNAP benefit per meal, and that monthly benefits fall short of the cost of the average low-income meal by roughly $11 per week. Finally, some research suggests that households with a single adult would need about $107 more each week - and two-adult households would need about $23 more per week - to compensate for the time required to purchase and prepare meals consistent with the TFP.

Is the Cost of the Thrifty Food Plan Realistic?

Setting aside the issues raised in this paper about the basic adequacy of the Thrifty Food Plan, is it possible to purchase the healthy diet it represents within its limited cost constraint? If the TFP does not sufficiently reflect the cost of a healthy market basket, low-income families may struggle to acquire food to meet their basic needs.

This question has received a fair amount of attention in the research literature. Some approach the question by comparing the cost of a market basket of foods from local stores to the cost of the TFP or by comparing the cost of a healthy diet to the value of the maximum SNAP benefit. Others have looked at the amounts that low-income families spend on food, again relative to the cost of the TFP. (The TFP is a monthly estimate of the cost of a particular market basket of foods. The maximum SNAP benefit is updated annually, with the maximum for each fiscal year set based on the cost of the TFP in the preceding June.) The results of these studies suggest there may be an issue of affordability - at least in some communities and for some families - but also that families may make different choices than the pattern the TFP assumes.

Many studies have tried to compare the cost of purchasing food that emulates the TFP from local food stores to the maximum SNAP benefits or the cost of the TFP, with mixed results. In general, according to one systematic review of 16 such studies, market basket prices in supermarkets were roughly evenly split between those higher than and those lower than maximum SNAP benefits or the cost of the TFP; almost all studies found higher market basket prices at small and medium-sized stores. a For example:

The cost of 104 food items intended to mimic the TFP from four supermarkets in low-income neighborhoods of Philadelphia was 16 percent more than the maximum SNAP benefit for a family of four at the time.b

The cost of 58 food items from the only large-scale discount retailer in a small Rhode Island city was as much as 18 percent less than the cost of the TFP at the time.c

The cost of 68 items priced at the lowest unit cost in 34 supermarkets and discount food stores in the District of Columbia was approximately equal (within 3 percent) to the cost of the TFP for a family of four at the time.d

Interpreting these results is difficult. The studies on which they are based are generally small, vary widely in the tools and protocols used, and are not easily generalized beyond the communities in which they were conducted.

More recently, some have noted that the TFP was last revised in 2006 based on the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the 2005 MyPyramid Food Guidance System. Since then, USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services updated the Dietary Guidelines in 2010 and replaced MyPyramid with MyPlate. The estimated cost of eating in accordance with these more current recommendations ranges from $558 to $749 per month for a family of four, compared to a maximum SNAP benefit of $649 in 2015. e

Finally, several studies examine the food spending patterns of low-income households. In general, low-income households' spending on food at home appears to average roughly 80 percent of the cost of the TFP, well below the minimal standard for a nutritious diet. Many low-income households, however, spend more on all food, both food prepared at home and food prepared away from home, than the cost of the TFP. On average, total food spending could be as much as a third higher than the cost of the TFP; roughly half of low-income households spend an amount at least equal to the TFP.f These results suggest that the typical low-income household spends about the same amount on total food (at home and away) as the TFP but may allocate its limited food budget differently in order to save time (by buying more convenient forms of food), accommodate household taste preferences, or for other reasons, such as limited food availability in the area.

Conclusions

The preponderance of evidence suggests that current SNAP benefits fall short of what many families need to ensure they have enough food to meet their needs. Millions of SNAP participants regularly struggle to meet their food needs. Even those who achieve food security may find it hard to stretch their limited resources far enough to purchase and consume a diet that is healthy. Current benefit levels unrealistically assume that beneficiaries can take the time to prepare meals from scratch. And many families struggle to meet their needs once SNAP benefits run out, an occurrence linked to negative outcomes.

This evidence shows that raising SNAP benefits would materially improve food security and lessen the adverse effects linked to households running out of adequate food before the end of the month and could contribute to improved health outcomes.

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More Adequate SNAP Benefits Would Help Millions of Participants Better Afford Food | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

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The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) is the primary source of nutrition assistance for many low-income families and individuals. SNAP enables low-income households to spend more on food than their limited budgets would otherwise allow and makes it easier to put enough food on the table.

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This article relates to my topic because it demonstrates the flaws of SNAP, a program meant to help the food insecure. It highlights everything that they are doing wrong and provides examples of ways to improve the program in order to benefit those who are suffering. The idea of inequality is represented in this article because the low-income families are in need of more assistance than what is available to them. It also includes conflict because it describes how people are against what the government is attempting to do. The people are pointing out what they are doing wrong and what should be adjusted.

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This meme relates to my topic because it shows how the government needs to step in and help the people who are food insecure. It is using a screenshot of a popular video with the woman’s famous quote to humorize the fact that the government is not handling the situation of food insecurity properly. This demonstrates both conflict and inequality, as citizens have lost some faith and trust in their government. There is a large group of individuals who are not receiving the care and assistance necessary for their health and wellbeing. They lack access to nutritional foods and are unable to succeed without the help of higher up officials.

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On one side of a refrigerator that stands on a sidewalk in New Orleans, two alligators encircle a woman with dark mocha skin wearing a tattered white slip. Her hair is a single braid that reaches the ground. She stands with her right foot on top of an orange snake. Above her, white birds seem to be flying toward a celestial body. Below her, two white Bengal tigers prowl between two halves of a papaya. This is just one of several paintings created by artist Sydney Calderon in support of New Orleans Community Fridges (NOCF), which is a mutual-aid effort setting up refrigerators around the city that offer free food to community members, many of whom currently struggle with hunger.

Twenty-four-year-old Calderon, originally from Richmond, California, says about her art, "[I am] deeply inspired by my Mexican heritage, and aim to honor it within my art. To me, painting is more than a career; it's the core of my existence."

She says New Orleans is the home she's always been searching for in her heart.

"My intention was to combine my personal artistic style of Mexican folk art with various aspects of New Orleans, to create a piece inspired by the whimsical and colorful character of this city," Calderon said. "My goal in painting the [fridge for NOCF] was to create something beautiful and colorful that everyone could have some sort of ownership over. I think we all kind of absorb our surroundings and are impacted by what we see/experience on a day-to-day basis. I think more regular exposure and accessibility to art could play a huge role in nourishing our community."

The fridge arrayed with Calderon's paintings is just one of many community fridges that have been set up outdoors across New Orleans and around the nation by activists looking to provide mutual aid in their communities in response to the economic realities of COVID-19. Hunger and food scarcity were already issues for many Americans who struggled to put food on their tables prior to the economic strain of the pandemic. Since many businesses were forced by the circumstances to shut down during the virus outbreak in March, millions of workers have been displaced, causing U.S. unemployment rates to skyrocket.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic and its economic impacts, large swaths of the American population have been struggling to feed themselves and their children.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic and its economic impacts, large swaths of the American population have been struggling to feed themselves and their children. The impacts of the virus and the irresponsible response carried out by the Trump administration are worsening the already serious hunger crisis in America. More than 54 million people will potentially experience food insecurity in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the nonprofit Feeding America.

To set up a community fridge, organizers find a willing business or residence that will let them plug in a fridge in an accessible outdoor location. The fridges are stocked by donations from community members with extra food to spare, or local bakeries, restaurants, grocery stores, food pantries and sometimes farms looking to offload extra food. Inside a community free-food fridge, on any given day people will find fresh veggies, dairy products and other basic perishables meant to feed community members struggling with food access. Stacks of non-perishable items are often also found in baskets or crates surrounding the fridges, up for the taking.

This community-led solution to hunger has been gaining speed since around February. That is when Thadeaus Umpster, a longtime organizer with the mutual-aid-oriented anarchist collective In Our Hearts (IOH) NYC, says residents working with IOH installed New York City's first community fridge in Brooklyn.

"Our goals in doing this are to make sure that people have enough to eat, and also to address food waste," he says. "Another thing that we're very focused on with this project is helping to build stronger, more resilient, self-sustaining, autonomous communities."

Umpster has been involved with community organizing efforts focused on addressing food waste since 1999, when he first became involved with the local Food Not Bombs project. He says the issue is not one of food scarcity in America, but of distribution and access. According to estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), food waste makes up 30-40 percent of the American food supply. According to the USDA's Economic Research Service, that equated to about 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010.

The USDA website states that this much food waste impacts society, as "[w]holesome food that could have helped feed families in need is sent to landfills," and "[l]and, water, labor, energy and other inputs are used in producing, processing, transporting, preparing, storing, and disposing of discarded food."

Umpster notes that food waste worsened with the onset of COVID-19 as restaurants and hotels and other major buyers of food from farms and suppliers began to shut down and farms across the nation dumped their produce and dairy products en masse.

"Even before COVID, though, that was happening on a regular basis," he says, noting that nearby chain grocery stores like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, in particular, throw out "tons of food" each day, and have done so for years.

Since early February when the initial community fridge was set up in Brooklyn, the effort has grown "exponentially," says Umpster. There are so many community fridges in New York City today that he has lost count, but guesstimates that there are at least 40 of them throughout the city. He has also spearheaded an effort to organize community fridges across the nation, by connecting hundreds of organizers and volunteers using the encrypted messaging app Signal. As community fridges gained attention from the press, volunteers and organizers interested in starting community fridges in their own towns began to reach out by the hundreds, he says, so IOH created free-food fridge groups via Signal for the various neighborhoods in NYC as well as different cities around the United States-stretching all the way to Los Angeles.

He says the free-food fridge project has been a connection point for communities as much as it has been a source of physical nourishment. Of his own neighborhood in Brooklyn, he says the project has allowed him to get to know the names and stories of many neighbors he once only waved to in passing.

"It's a much more tight-knit community than it used to be," Umpster says. "People are watching out for each other more and working together more and supporting each other. It has just become a lot better-and it's not just on my block that I've seen that. I've heard from people doing fridges and other neighborhoods [that] it's very much the same thing."

Art and Free-Food Fridges

To spread the word initially about the free-food fridge effort, Umpster says IOH put up signs and did ample outreach on social media; however, he says the artists who have painted and transformed their local community fridges are largely responsible for generating attention and awareness about the effort.

"A friend of mine who paints under the name HUGO GYRL painted one of the earliest fridges we have, and it changed the whole vibe, the whole feeling on the block that it's on," he says. "It made it into the spot where journalists and photographers wanted to come take pictures and spread the idea of what we're doing."

Colorful, diverse and elaborate designs cover the community fridges that now dot America, and in large part that artwork is created by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) artists who have either donated their time and creativity to the cause, or have been paid a small fee for their labor.

For Calderon, who painted the free-food fridge in New Orleans, community art provides a greater narrative around the value and worth of art. She says on a personal level she has been undergoing a "long process of unlearning" the things most of us are taught to assume about fine art, "most importantly, rejecting the idea that fine art is centered around wealth/whiteness."

"There is absolutely a place for BIPOC in the world of fine art, and I often feel very inspired to depict BIPOC in classical art themes," she says, pointing out her use of baby cherubs holding a banner that carries messages like "free food" and "community fridge" on one side of the fridge she painted for NOCF.

"As I've grown, I've begun to challenge what it means to be a 'great artist,'" she says. "Is it years of technical training and an expensive education in the arts? Or is it the passion and emotion you pour into your work because you have no other outlet or way of expressing yourself? Is it thousands of followers on social media? Or is it direct involvement with your community?"

Calderon adds, "Most recently, I've begun to challenge the capitalistic side of fine art. I strongly believe that art is for everybody, not just a handful of wealthy collectors who can afford the standard price for a work of art. Painting the [fridge for NOCF] really enforced that for me."

Race Inequities and Food Access

Umpster says most of the free fridge project's Instagram followers, close to 71 percent according to self-identification on Instagram, are women. And, women of color are largely responsible for the spread of the free-food fridge movement, as they are behind most of the organizing efforts around the United States.

"This movement is very much a women-of-color-led movement," he says. "It's mostly women of color who are setting up these fridges, keeping them stocked and making sure their things are running smoothly."

Brynn Comeaux, an organizing member of NOCF-which has been live for just a short time, having begun in July 2020-pointed out in an email interview that food access issues are inextricable from racial inequities.

"When you look at a map of the city, it's no coincidence that areas experiencing higher rates of poverty, unemployment, and housing insecurity are also areas that lack access to fresh, affordable food," she said. "They are also areas with higher populations of African Americans, Latinx, and Vietnamese residents. Going even further, you would see that these areas are notoriously undercounted and underrepresented in the census. What that means is that outside of a pandemic, in New Orleans it is hard to determine exactly what portion of the population is food insecure. And even if a need is determined, it is often underfunded. These issues are only exacerbated in the event of a global pandemic or natural disaster."

The same trends hold across the United States, as food insecurity is typically heightened for Black and Hispanic populations. And, as detailed in a New York Times article, the pandemic has deepened those existing disparities.

As a national study, "Examining the Impact of Structural Racism on Food Insecurity: Implications for Addressing Racial/Ethnic Disparities," published in 2018, notes, "An analysis examining trends in food insecurity from 2001 to 2016 found that food insecurity rates for both non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic households were at least twice that of non-Hispanic white households."

Comeaux said the free-food fridges are "a physical manifestation of ways we can directly give back to our community."

"Given the nature of how we have had to shift socially and as a community during the pandemic, the fridges offer us that way to connect that seems so far away these days," she said. "We have seen folks starting their own fundraisers to support this project. We have seen restaurants cooking a little extra for their family meals or adding pay-it-forward options to help keep the fridges stocked. We are also starting to see culture-bearers of the city like Mardi Gras krewes and the BIPOC artists... come together to make this uniquely New Orleans. Everyone has their part to play. Our hope is that movements like this normalize mutual aid. This is solidarity, not charity."

April M. Short
Independent Media Institute
This article was produced by Local Peace Economy, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

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Fighting Food Insecurity, One Block at a Time

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On one side of a refrigerator that stands on a sidewalk in New Orleans, two alligators encircle a woman with dark mocha skin wearing a tattered white slip. Her hair is a single braid that reaches the ground. She stands with her right foot on top of an orange snake.

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This article describes the use of community fridges to help fight food insecurity in New Orleans. The goal is to assist the American population who has been struggling to feed themselves and their children, especially due to the pandemic. Organizers find a willing business or residence who will allow them plug in a fridge at an accessible outdoor location. The fridges are then stocked by donations from community members with extra food to spare, local bakeries, restaurants, grocery stores, food pantries and even farms looking to offload their extra food. Anyone in need is allowed access to this food. On the side of the fridge, Sydney Calderon has painted a Mexican heritage style mural, which ties in with the idea of communities of color struggling disproportionately, also known as inequality. This issue also relates to the environment because only specific locations are in need of these community fridge's.

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Black communities at a disadvantage article

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Black communities at a disadvantage article

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Democratic lawmakers and anti-hunger advocates are calling on the Agriculture Department to broaden food assistance to mitigate a longstanding inequity Black Americans face that's now aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic.

"Food insecurity has been impacting African-Americans disproportionately for decades," said Minerva Delgado, director of coalitions and advocacy at the Alliance to End Hunger. "That racial gap has been there all along."

Black households already experienced the highest racial rate of food insecurity before the pandemic hit: 21.2%-more than double the 8.1% among White households, the Agriculture Department says. The situation has since worsened: 45% of Black adults said they've skipped meals, or relied on charity or federal food assistance since February, compared with 18% of White adults, the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy nonprofit, found.

Racial injustice and disparities have been on display since George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, died in Minneapolis police custody May 25, triggering weeks of protests nationwide. Cities and states are also navigating how to reopen businesses after leaders directed residents to stay home for months to slow the spread of Covid-19. The workplace shutdowns caused 21 million Americans to claim unemployment as of May.

Food banks are struggling to keep up with demand as one-fourth of the public is gripped by hunger, the Kaiser Family Foundation reports. At the same time, states are moving to expand a pilot program that lets food aid recipients shop online at authorized retailers, including Walmart Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

Congressional Democrats pointed to the plight of low-income and communities of color living in food deserts in a June 9 letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. Some 23.5 million Americans live in areas lacking easy access to healthy, affordable food, with grocery stores farther than one mile away. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee ranking member Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) was among the 22 senators urging Perdue to focus on working to reduce food deserts.

One answer could be expanding the pilot program that lets Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients order their groceries online with delivery options, advocates say. The pilot included in the 2014 farm law ( Public Law 113-79) was launched in New York in April 2019, and has grown swiftly since January: The program operates in Washington, D.C., and 36 states, with four additional states approved, but still planning their roll-outs.

"COVID-19 has magnified the significant food insecurity facing communities of color across our nation, but it is important that we acknowledge that the need for increased SNAP benefits and access to nutritious, affordable food existed long before COVID-19," said Rep. A. Donald McEachin (D-Va.), the Congressional Black Caucus whip.

In total, more than 90% of SNAP households will be covered by online purchasing, the department reports. Retailers determine the availability of home delivery, and federal benefits don't cover the related fees.

The approval of online purchasing in SNAP isn't limited to a certain time frame or number of states, a department spokesperson said in a June 12 statement. Ultimately, the responsibility is on state agencies, their third-party processors, and any retailers who wish to participate, the official added.

Looking Forward

Delgado at the Alliance to End Hunger said different factors, such as low-wage work and lack of affordable housing, compounded by "the racial wealth gap," contribute to food insecurity.

"Food deserts continue to be a challenge," she said. "However, the expansion of online purchasing using SNAP benefits is helping to address this problem."

The program's power lies in its ability to "work at scale," Delgado said. While data on the number of SNAP recipients without internet access wasn't readily available, those users would "be assisted by additional purchasing power in their usual method of accessing food," she added.

The strength of federal food programs will remain critical for hungry Americans post-pandemic, said Geraldine Henchy, director of nutrition policy at the Food Research & Action Center, an anti-hunger nonprofit.

With the U.S. economy hurtling into a recession, Henchy said, recipients seeking government assistance-often the "first fired, last hired" employees-will be hit harder in the future, as President Donald Trump's administration pushes to tighten work requirements.

To tide over households reliant on monthly aid, SNAP's maximum benefit should increase by 15%-a provision included in the HEROES Act ( H.R. 6800), a virus-relief bill that stalled after the House passed it in May-Henchy said.

"Make SNAP a program that people can keep using, that they're not going to get thrown off of," Henchy said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Megan U. Boyanton in Washington at mboyanton@bgov.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Hendrie at phendrie@bgov.com; Robin Meszoly at rmeszoly@bgov.com

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Black Communities Face Wider Food Shortfalls as Covid Saps Jobs | Bloomberg Government

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Democratic lawmakers and anti-hunger advocates are calling on the Agriculture Department to broaden food assistance to mitigate a longstanding inequity Black Americans face that's now aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic. "Food insecurity has been impacting African-Americans disproportionately for decades," said Minerva Delgado, director of coalitions and advocacy at the Alliance to End Hunger.

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Food insecurity has been impacting African Americans disproportionately for decades, as there has always been a racial gap. The graph displayed within this article shows how since 2008, the rate of food insecurity for Black households has been more than double that of White households. Because of the pandemic, the situation has worsened. The situation has since worsened: 45% of Black adults said they’ve skipped meals or relied on charity or federal food assistance since February, compared with 18% of White adults. This demonstrates the inequality of food insecurity. This shows ideas of conflict because these communities are in need of help that they are not fully receiving, as food insecurity numbers are so high. This issue relates to the environment because these people are struggling mostly due to their location.

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When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans there was a brief moment of shocked compassion before racial anxieties flooded the Internet. Victims of the disaster were quickly recast as looters, criminals, and layabouts. They were government "dependents" seeking even more entitlements now that they were bona fide survivors. Some of these hideous opinions drew on the physical "evidence" of the bad character of hurricane survivors: their size. The mostly black bodies crowding the Superdome, getting on rafts, and being carried away by helicopters, were too large for online critics. Obesity, while common in the U.S. and over-represented in the South, was conflated with blackness. Black bodies fleeing New Orleans were not only linked to historic stereotypes of menace and criminality but also slothfulness, helplessness, and a tropical torpidity unwelcome in hard-working America.

University of Chicago Press, 248 pp., $25.00

African Americans are more likely to be obese in the United States than their white counterparts. The same is true for Hispanics. For some conservatives, that may be an indictment. For the rest of us, it is a public health problem. The rise in obesity in the U.S. is an epidemic and much of the root causes lie in poverty, a condition more prevalent in communities of color. In many U.S. cities, bodegas serve dinner in the form of chips and soda to low-income people living nearby who have no access to neighborhood supermarkets. For those without much money or options, fast food can be a blessing: a full meal that is quick and affordable in a safe and predictable setting. Yet, these very meals are one of the country's biggest public health menaces. Filled with fat and sugar, fast food is contributing greatly to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

Supersizing Urban America, a new book by the historian of public health, Chin Jou, shows that fast food did not just find its way to low-income urban areas: It was brought there by the federal government. In the wake of the 1968 riots, Nixon's law-and-order presidency began programs that doled out federal funds to fast food franchises. The administration asserted that black-owned businesses serving fast food would help to cure urban unrest by promoting an entrepreneurial spirit in poor communities. The federal subsidization of McDonald's and other chains to enter urban markets previously considered too poor or dangerous was meant to promote "black capitalism." It did make a select group of black entrepreneurs wealthy, but it was mostly a boon to fast food giants searching for new market demographics.

Like "ethnic" advertising in the alcohol and cigarette industries, fast food companies sold a dream of middle class affluence to communities of color that were nonetheless still excluded from the housing and education that would make those aspirations a reality. Jou's book shows conclusively that obesity and diet in America have little to do with personal responsibility, and everything to do with public policy.

Large bodies used to be a sign of health and vigor. President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty targeted malnutrition and used the emaciated bodies of unemployed Appalachians to illustrate the shame of America's wealth gap. It was Johnson who in 1964 began the Equal Opportunity Loan program that helped bring fast food to low-income areas. The agenda gained traction after violent unrest broke out in Los Angeles, Newark, and a dozen more cities in the mid-1960s. In the aftermath, Johnson's administration called for a "Marshall Plan" to revitalize the ghetto. In communities where riots had occurred, only 25 percent of businesses were black owned and most were small. Providing loans to restaurants promoted the wholesome mission of the program, but fast food was also industrialized food. It replaced the soda fountains and greasy spoon neighborhood restaurants of the previous era with streamlined burger assembly lines answering to corporate shareholders.

Nixon, Johnson's successor, saw in the promotion of black businesses a mixture of markets and morals that fit with his anti-communist agenda and the conservative belief that all the poor need to prosper is uplift. In a position statement released after he created the Office of Minority Business Enterprise in 1969, Nixon stated: "What we need is to get private enterprise into the ghetto, and get the people of the ghetto into private enterprise-not only as workers, but as managers and owners." The program was allocated $65 million in the first year, although Nixon asked for three times as much, and fast food companies were some of the most eager participants. They used federal money to expand franchises from the white suburbs into low-income black neighborhoods, providing an easily-copied business model and a tested product.

The administration asserted that black-owned businesses serving fast food would help to cure urban unrest.

The growth of fast food franchises, like McDonald's, into black neighborhoods with black owners was a highly visible step taken towards Nixon's dream of a more robust Black Capitalism. The Small Business Administration (SBA) made thousands of loans in the early 1970s to black entrepreneurs. There were just 405 minority franchises in the United States in 1969. By 1974, there were 2,453. This growth owed not a little to loans from the SBA. McDonald's went from one minority franchise in 1969 to 10,142 in 1984 (mostly African American).

Just as fast food companies attempted to "modernize" ghetto diets they also wanted to create a new black business class. For the government, this group was important because of their community standing, which could purportedly help to keep order. For fast food companies, the new black bourgeoisie would serve as their community liaisons, often doing business in places where white owners were distrusted. Jou shows that under the guise of community empowerment, federal loan programs may have diversified who accessed capital, but they also redistributed money upward to fast food companies, which grew their businesses while bypassing riskier investments that didn't involve government support.

The federal loan programs never met their original goal of granting 40 percent of Small Business Administration loans to African Americans. The number never reached more than 23 percent. Yet, this did not stop the gleeful marketing of the program as a means to connect black entrepreneurs with funding. The government saw the franchise system as a form of tutelage in proper capitalist citizenship and did not bother to hide their paternalistic goals. Some participants agreed with them. Brady Keys, a former NFL player and star of the Nixon era program, opened multiple franchises; between 1969 and 1973, he received $9 million in loans. He was grateful for the apprenticeship the scheme gave him. But as Jou makes clear, many black franchise owners did not need this kind of guidance. Some were overqualified, such as Robert Alexander, who operated a Hardee's in Washington D.C., despite holding a PhD and having previously worked for the CIA under the Ford administration.

The grantees of federal loan programs, Jou shows, were often disappointed by their trajectories after accepting the loans. Many of those who operated McDonald's and Burger King restaurants complained of racial redlining by the companies, stating that they were expected to operate franchises in black neighborhoods only and were never given locations in more prosperous areas. In this sense, the operators served as a sort of managerial class amongst the marginalized: resenting the white corporate profits from their labor and also seeking to differentiate themselves from poorer residents of color. Jou's book sadly does not contain enough conversations with these entrepreneurs that would make this relationship clearer. However, one can infer that as middle class blacks took advantage of waning residential segregation to move to suburbs, more privileged entrepreneurs operating businesses in the inner city felt a gap between themselves and their patrons. As inner-city poverty became more concentrated, the gap between black business people and their working class customers grew severely.

One is reminded of the McDowell family in Coming to America, who own a knock-off McDonald's in Queens and treat their customers and employees with disdain: including Eddie Murphy, a young African prince in disguise. Of course the Shakespearean swapping of class identity in Coming to America is the whole joke: By 1988, when the film came out, there was nothing regal about McDonald's or, by proxy, McDowell's. The chain was barely clinging to its middle class image. Jou shows us that as the general public has learned more about eating healthy, fast food has been demonized along with those who eat it. Too often, burgers and fries are not understood as the sustenance of last resort but as a pleasure of the irresponsible and gluttonous.

Many cities have been more intent on cracking down on the ingredients in Happy Meals rather than raising the hourly wages of those who make them.

The Reagan Era antipathy for the poor and shrinking of the social safety net is expressed in elite condescension towards those who eat at fast food restaurants. Fast food is viewed as a matter of taste rather than resources even, sometimes, by public health advocates. As Jou puts it: "Foodie disdain for 'fast food values' elides the ways in which historical circumstances, governmental practices, and targeted, relentless food industry advertising helped create and reinforce fast food consumption in America's low-income urban communities." In places like the Bronx, where 62 percent of restaurants are fast food and childhood diabetes is skyrocketing, the fast food market was not just created by the appetites of residents but also by the corporate craving to increase market share, even if that means drawing in less affluent consumers.

Supersizing Urban America makes clear that addiction to fast food is not a moral lapse or a brain chemical but the effect of poverty. Jou recognizes that "low wages affect the type of diets households can afford." She also shows that anti-poverty programs have had ulterior motives, often creating markets for large companies. Politicians like Michael Bloomberg are often fascinated with the 'bad choices' of the poor requiring the government to mandate posted calorie-counts, rather than the calculated logic of multinational chain restaurants that keep wages far below the cost of living. Many cities have been more intent on cracking down on the ingredients in Happy Meals rather than raising the hourly wages of those who make them.

Fast food once symbolized middle-class status, prized in neighborhoods where many were just scraping by on public assistance and food stamps. Today, it has become much more identified as the food that people who labor in fast food restaurants eat, as the miserable pay leaves them few other options.

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How Fast Food Chains Supersized Inequality

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When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans there was a brief moment of shocked compassion before racial anxieties flooded the Internet. Victims of the disaster were quickly recast as looters, criminals, and layabouts. They were government "dependents" seeking even more entitlements now that they were bona fide survivors.

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This article explains how fast food was brought to low-income neighborhoods by the federal government. African Americans are more likely to be obese in the U.S. than White people. These Black people have "historic stereotypes of menace and criminality but also slothfulness, helplessness, and a tropical torpidity unwelcome in hard-working America". For people without money or options, fast food’s a blessing: a full meal that is quick and affordable in a safe and predictable setting. However, these meals are one of the country’s biggest public health menaces. Fast food is contributing to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. These food places are strategically placed and targeted to low-income communities of color, knowing they need it and will consume it, showing inequality. There is conflict between these people and the government because they are setting them up for failure. It’s primarily due to their environment, as this issue is dependent on location.

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A Nation Divided: Food insecurity in America

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Eating Disorders and Food Insecurity is the third in a four-part series on eating disorders for Mental Illness Awareness Week. This series contains discussions of body image and mental health which may be difficult to engage with for some. If you need support, visit the National Eating Disorder Information Centre. See here for part and

Representations of eating disorders in mainstream media often paint the same picture: a young white woman, from a middle to upper class family, who struggles with anorexia or extreme food restriction. The public is fed (!) the idea that these women develop eating disorders because they have a heightened sensitivity to the media's toxic portrayal of the "ideal body type", particularly on image-driven platforms across social media. Not only does this stereotypical narrative exclude Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities who have a higher likelihood of developing eating disorders, but it's also problematic in its assumption of a single, causal link between media consumption and eating disorders. While it's important to be critical of the media we consume, this assumption disregards the multifaceted nature of eating disorders and reinforces recycled discourse about eating disorders that leave many people completely unrepresented.

I can't remember a time when I didn't struggle with body image. From a young age, I had an unhealthy relationship to food, engaging in a cycle of restriction and binging that only deepened my feelings of shame when I looked in the mirror. These habits continued into my adolescence, but I was never forced to address them until I was living independently as an adult. After moving out of university residence and off of their pre-paid meal plan, I quickly realized that affording adequate, nutritious food off-campus was almost impossible for me. I was enrolled in a full course load, heavily involved on campus, and working twenty to thirty hours a week to support myself financially. On my busy days, it wasn't atypical for me to get home from a midnight shift, eat a slice of bread, and begin the long, painful task of trying to fall asleep, hungry.

But even on the days when I did have enough money to buy groceries, my disordered eating habits continued. The stress from experiencing food insecurity left me feeling isolated and out of control, and I coped with this by obsessing over calories and continuing to restrict my eating. It felt good to be choosing not to eat, rather than be forced into hunger. After long periods of restriction, I would binge on junk food past the point of feeling full, until I was in physical pain. The next day, I would feel intense shame and regret, and would immediately attempt to purge my intake with overexercise or fasting. I couldn't eat without thinking about either calories or money, or both.

In a setting where missing meals was not only normalized (where spending twelve consecutive hours in the library without food is an unofficial university sport), but glorified ("if you skip dinner, the drinks will hit you faster"), I felt like I couldn't speak out about my experience. I felt ashamed, isolated, and confused. How could I have an eating disorder, when I couldn't even afford to eat? Did I even have an eating disorder, if I had binging episodes that lasted multiple days? How did this happen to me, and why wasn't it happening to anyone else?

My experience with eating disorders did not align with the dominant narrative so often represented in mainstream media. While I did (and still do) struggle with issues of body image, my eating disorder was not a response to Kendall Jenner uploading a new Instagram post. I didn't relate to any representations of eating disorders, and this made me question whether I even had one at all. I had no idea what "food insecure" meant, and didn't yet understand how my increasingly disordered eating was a way for me to cope with the stress of food insecurity. In fact, most people still aren't aware of this connection.

Food insecurity is a significant risk factor for developing disordered eating habits. In a study conducted in 2017 and replicated in 2019, psychologist Carolyn Becker and her colleagues reported that people who are food insecure experience high levels of food restriction and binge and purge habits. Becker's work challenges stereotypes about eating disorders, and fills a large gap in research in this field, which did not previously address poverty or food insecurity on a systemic level. The link between food insecurity and disordered eating needs to be fully explored, but it's clear that stress and shame play an important and detrimental role in this relationship.

The newfound link between food insecurity and eating disorders also highlights massive oversight in research on, and understandings of, eating disorders. The stereotype of the upper class woman in discourse around eating disorders is supported by research because the research is being conducted in settings that are only accessible to wealthy people. For example, most research projects in this field recruit participants from within eating disorder clinics, thereby excluding anyone who doesn't have access to those settings. People experiencing food insecurity are unlikely to be able to afford access to the medical and psychiatric resources necessary to diagnose an eating disorder, let alone treat them. While new research like Becker's shows potential to change the way we research eating disorders, it's equally important that we change the way we represent and discuss them, too. For instance, even within the population of people who experience food insecurity and disordered eating, there is a huge diversity in experiences. For some, food insecurity stems from poverty, while for others it may have more to do with access, if they are located in a food desert: an area with limited or no access to nutritious food. This difference may also play a role in shaping people's experiences of their eating disorders, and require a different therapeutic approach. In shifting our representations of eating disorders, we can provide people with the information and resources necessary to prevent and treat disordered eating.

It was only two years after my experience living through food insecurity and an eating disorder that I discovered one of my closest friends had been going through the exact same thing at the same time as me. She, like me, had felt too ashamed and isolated to reach out.

Writing this piece has been extremely challenging. I'm exposing parts of myself and my experience that I have never been open about, and it feels terrifying to be so vulnerable. But I hope that sharing my experience and shedding light on the experiences of so many who have been, or still are, in my position, might encourage people to rethink their understanding of eating disorders, and start a much needed conversation.

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Eating Disorders and Food Insecurity - maggie

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Eating Disorders and Food Insecurity is the third in a four-part series on eating disorders for Mental Illness Awareness Week. This series contains discussions of body image and mental health which may be difficult to engage with for some. If you need support, visit the National Eating Disorder Info

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This piece of art shows an apple with a dollar sign tied to the stem. This illustrates the idea that food, especially fresh produce as well as other nutritional food options, cost money. The high price of food is a major cause of food insecurity. Low-income individuals are not able to acquire the resources needed to maintain a healthy diet. If they are able to purchase food, it will most likely be fast food or other forms of unhealthy, high in fat and sugar, foods. This, in turn, leads to many undesirable and life threatening health outcomes such as obesity and heart disease. This lack of access creates inequality because low-income people are more prone to the negative health outcomes, largely based on their location.

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This video featured interviews with mothers who’re living through the struggle of food insecurity. It states that there is a disproportionate struggle in who is being affected by food insecurity, primarily affecting the African American community. One mother stated how their one local grocery store within walking distance had shut down in January, even before the pandemic, so now their only grocery store option is Walgreen's. There are no healthy food options, and the food available will occasionally be expired or high priced. Not all people living below the poverty line experience food insecurity and people living above the poverty line can experience food insecurity. With food insecurity often comes other overlapping problems such as a lack of affordable housing, social isolation, chronic or acute health problems, high medical costs, and low wages. Food insecurity effects all people, however, seniors, children, rural communities, African Americans, and Latinos are affected most.

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One reason America has become an obese nation is an extremely efficient food industry. Processed, unhealthy food is so widely available and affordable, whereas healthier foods such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grain products are more expensive. This shows why low-income families consume much more unhealthy foods, high in fat and sugar, because that’s all they can afford. As shown in the photo, a simple salad such as the one shown is five times the price of the burger, and is less filling, so why blame someone on a budget for choosing the cheaper and more filling option? However, this causes these food insecure individuals to become obese, leading to other health effects. The system is setting them up to fail, creating inequality. They lack access to the nutritional options simply because they are priced so high. This issue largely effects communities of color, as the fast-food industry targets them.

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Food Farmacy Article

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AMSTERDAM - Catholic Charities of Fulton and Montgomery Counties, in partnership with St. Mary's Healthcare and Alliance for Better Health, today announced the launch of a Food Farmacy at St. Mary's Memorial Campus. The Food Farmacy is a type of food pantry which specifically serves food-insecure individuals with health-related issues who have been identified within the St. Mary's Healthcare system. This innovative approach to combating issues of food insecurity aims to address immediate and long-term nutritional needs of qualified individuals.

Unlike a food pantry, the Food Farmacy is staffed with a registered dietitian and a case manager. Participants receive food along with comprehensive nutrition education to improve health. Referred individuals work with Food Farmacy staff to receive healthy foods, including fresh produce and other nutritious food items. The dietitian will recommend food tailored to underlying health issues and educate participants to make informed health-conscious and budget-friendly food decisions, which can improve health long-term.

"We began our partnership to implement the Food Farmacy over a year ago to address food insecurity and chronic disease management in our community. The Food Farmacy not only offers access to healthy foods, but participants also receive personalized education that is critical to ensuring a successful journey towards improved health," said Margaret Brodie, St. Mary's Healthcare VP of Mission.

"Catholic Charities has a long history of working with both St. Mary's Healthcare and Alliance for Better Health to provide services in our area. It makes sense that, once again, our organizations would come together to help people with this Food Farmacy," said Mary Carpenter, Executive Director of Catholic Charities of Fulton and Montgomery Counties. "We're grateful to call them partners in this endeavor and I look forward to seeing the impact it has on the long-term health of the participants."

Food insecurity is an area of concern in Fulton and Montgomery Counties, where St. Mary's operates. Before the pandemic hit, the region had a Food Insecurity Rate of 13% - above the national average, according to data from Feeding America*. This has only gotten worse as food insecurity has increased in the past year and rural counties are seeing higher rates of food insecurity overall.

"Alliance for Better Health is focused on finding ways to improve the health of the people and communities we serve," said Jacob Reider, MD, CEO of Alliance for Better Health. "Addressing food insecurity in a creative and sustainable way is one of the pillars of our work, and we are pleased to be collaborating with Catholic Charities and St. Mary's Healthcare toward better health for all."

"We're thrilled to bring this innovative, proven model to Montgomery County. Now, people in the St. Mary's Healthcare system will be able to visit the Food Farmacy much in the same way they'd see a doctor for preventative health care," said Vincent W. Colonno, CEO of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany. "Access to nutritional education and healthy food is important when maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Catholic Charities has operated food pantries and meal programs for decades and have found this innovative approach helps to create healthier outcomes for the people we serve."

Sarah Valachovic, LPN at the St. Mary's Gloversville Health Center, said "I have referred many patients to the Food Farmacy. I think that it is wonderful that they can receive fresh food that is nutritious and can help them maintain a healthy lifestyle even while they may be struggling to obtain foods at times. Being able to meet with a dietician is also a very useful component in helping our patients. I had a patient who is diabetic. He was struggling with his A1C and hopefully by getting some fresh food this will help to set him on the right track."

The Food Farmacy is available daily Monday through Friday to anyone with a referral from St. Mary's. Catholic Charities staff at the on-site Food Farmacy, including the registered dietician and case manager, will be on hand to assist with dietary and nutritional needs.

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food farmacy brings health-focused nutritional support

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Food Farmacy brings health-focused nutritional support

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AMSTERDAM - Catholic Charities of Fulton and Montgomery Counties, in partnership with St. Mary's Healthcare and Alliance for Better Health, today announced the launch of a Food Farmacy at St. Mary's Memorial Campus. The Food Farmacy is a type of food pantry which specifically serves food-insecure individuals with health-related issues who have been identified within [...]

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Locally, in Amsterdam, New York, a hospital created a "food farmacy" specifically aimed at people with food insecurity who have significant underlying conditions. This is a new, unique idea aimed to fight for a good cause. The Food Farmacy is different than a food pantry because it’s staffed with a registered dietitian and a case manager. Those in need will receive food and a comprehensive nutrition education to improve their individual health. They will then work with the Food Farmacy staff to obtain healthy foods such as fresh produce and many other nutritional items. People also receive professional help from a dietician who will recommend food tailored to their underlying health issues and educate the participants so they can make informed health-conscious and budget-friendly food decisions, which can improve overall health long-term. This helps low-income individuals and gives them everything they need in one space.

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Where Eating Healthy Means Trekking Out Of A Food Desert | WAMU

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Privacy Overview This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

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The USDA deems an area to be a food desert if it is a low-income community, they have no access to a vehicle, and the grocery store is more than half a mile away. These people have limited access to healthy, fresh, and affordable food. The video describes show it is both an economic and racial issue. People must take several busses and lug back weeks’ worth of food, taking hours. The narrator describes how the higher violence rates lead them to purchase only fast food or from corner stores. Leading chains avoid these areas because they feel there isn't enough money to be made. The woman in the video describes the situation as a "food apartheid", as it is planned and purposefully done. This demonstrates how based off of their location, race, and financial standing, they are being discriminated against and put at a disadvantage.

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This piece of art done by Shannon Wright demonstrates the inequality Black communities face relating to food insecurity. Most all food deserts consist of low-income communities of color. This image shows a young Black girl frowning while holding a fast food meal from McDonald's. She is looking at Ronald McDonald, the mascot, who is smoking. The sky and area around them is gray and dark. This relates to the environment because the food desert is also polluted. It demonstrates inequality because it is affecting a girl of color. The conflict is that the image implies the girl is sick of this fast-food, but it is her only option.

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This graph demonstrates how food insecurity unfairly represents mostly Black and Hispanic individuals and families. The yellow and orange lines at the top represent the high numbers of people of color while Whites and others represent the green and blue lines way at the bottom. Clearly there are disparities within the communities of color, outlining the idea of inequality. They are automatically much more prone to living in food deserts or being food insecure. Clearly these people are struggling and are in need of assistance that they aren't fully receiving, causing distrust in the government, which creates conflict among the U.S.

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As this diagram shows, food insecurity can cause many negative health impacts. The obvious one is an inadequate intake of vitamins. This can lead to an increased risk for various chronic diseases, as well as an increased risk for negative pregnancy outcomes. There have shown to be long-term deficits in children's socioemotional, cognitive, and motor functioning. The inadequate access to food also increases the risk for negative mental health impacts such as depression, substance abuse, and suicide. This is a prime example of slow violence as discussed in class. These health outcomes are severally effecting children, changing future generations. Although people may not see the effects immediately, these kids will grow up without the nutrients they need, may have deformities from pregnancy, could acquire a mental health disorder, and more.

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This piece of art done by Donte Neal really speaks about the dangers of the consumption of unhealthy foods. He uses a Black man in the photo to demonstrate how it is a racial issue, as these foods are targeted at their communities. He is eating gummies and drinking a soda that has a skull hanging over it, showing how it could lead to his death. The artist is showing how these foods are lethal and toxic by including the scary and angry faces of McDonald's and Sour Patch Kids, two popular cheap and unhealthy food options. The dark, boarded up, graffiti background also speaks to the environment.