Being obese in the United States is not rare, but it is detrimental to the overall health and economy of the American public. The U.S. spends $100 billion annually on obesity related medical issues. On March 3, 2014, I attended a Roosevelt House event called Transforming Food Policy: Can New York City Become a Model for Smart, Fair Municipal Food Policy for the Nation? The panelists included Dr. Tom Farley, Former NYC Commissioner of Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in the Bloomberg administration, Melony Samuels from the Bed-Stuy Campaign Against Hunger, Caitlin Selemni from the NYC Food Forum, and NYC Councilman Ben Kallos, and was moderated by Professor Nicholas Freudenburg. Some of the main points Dr. Farley pointed out were the need for universal healthcare reform, as well as pushing for public policies to strengthen public health, which include ending transfats in fast food restaurants, which he helped to implement while in the Bloomberg administration.
The speakers that followed discussed the impact one’s socioeconomic status has on that individual’s likelihood of becoming obese, where lower income individuals — especially those in food deserts, which are locations that lack low cost healthy food options — are more likely to become obese. Dr. Farley debated this with the fact that poor individuals are not the only populations affected by obesity and that food deserts are actually “food swamps”, defined as locations with excess access to unhealthy and fast food restaurants.
Listening to the discussion between the two sides, it became apparent that neither side was completely right or completely wrong. In tackling obesity, there needs to be an approach that targets the entire population, taking into account the risk factors that factor into obesity and its co-morbid diseases. One part is addressing the issue of access to healthy foods, and another is the need to incorporate health and food education into school curriculums. Councilman Kallos revealed proposed plans to extend the hot lunch program, and possibly create a dinner program, which would also incorporate parents.
This is a step in the right direction, as there is a strong need to extend the lunch program to all individuals, because while there is a poverty line, it isn’t inclusive of all factors that are incorporated into cost of living. One way of incorporating all of this is to first extend the hot lunch program to all individuals, extend the school day to 5 pm, as many advocates have pushed for in the last decade, and then create a hot dinner program that invites parents to join their child for dinner by coming to school. These policy ideas have many benefits: they encourage students to stay in school during what are traditionally after school hours, which is the time a student is most likely to get into trouble. Councilman Kallos suggested that New York City would like to send food home to parents, but providing students and parents dinner at the schools fosters parental engagement with the student, the community, and the school while providing them with a healthy meal. By creating the nutrition program at night and engaging parents to participate, it promotes parental action in caring for their own health and that of their children.
This plan isn’t flawless, but it addresses the issues of both poverty issue and the shortcomings of public education, as well as incorporating access to healthy food for all children. Obviously there needs to be more work done in preventing access to unhealthy food, but overall the method above addresses many aspects of obesity and strategies to prevent it. Hopefully the de Blasio administration can develop a clearly defined inter-agency food policy task force, as proposed in the event, that would create meaningful change.