Fun Facts on Food (Insecurity)
Food is one of the gettin’ by 9 F’s, which are evidence-based factors that interfere with receiving help.
Food insecurity has some obvious and not-so-obvious effects on a person. A person who has uneven access to food
Is 30 to 58% more likely to have depression, especially men
As an adult, is more likely to develop an eating disorder, such as binging or binging-purging
In urban areas, is more likely to be around gun violence (rural areas do not have this link)
As a child, will not reach physical, mental, and social potential and is more likely to be obese
As a white or Hispanic woman, is more likely to be obese (men and women of other ethnicity did not have this)
Solutions tend to focus on food and not on the insecurity part of the problem. Yes, it does help to provide food, but food is the tip of the iceberg compared to the stress of food insecurity.
A randomized controlled trial of the Mediterranean diet found that high-income people got heart health benefits from the diet. Low-income people eating the identical high-quality diet did not.
The study shows that eating better for better health works better for higher income than for low-income people. Low-income people’s health is shaped more by unpredictable, unstable life circumstances than by food. The low-income person’s many other heart health factors outweigh (so to speak) diet.
Think about a stressful day – your child gets sent home from school sick; you can’t miss work, or you will get another “strike” in your HR record; your car breaks down; and you get a notice about rent going up. After that kind of day, Twinkies for dinner is bad but carrots for dinner is not going to markedly boost your health either.
In short, everyone’s health happens in their life environment. We can’t improve health and ignore the environment. A better diet doesn’t improve the person’s environment. What’s the answer? Certainly food is better than hunger, and at the same time, we need to address food insecurity’s root causes, such as low-paying jobs and high housing costs. These may seem remote from the immediate problem of hunger but the hunger will never end unless the upstream sources are diverted.
