OBESITY, HUNGER, AND CHILDREN

Choosing to eat healthy foods, like fresh fruits and vegetables, is something you probably take for granted.  To solve the childhood obesity crisis, kids' access to healthy foods, such as locally grown fruits and vegetables must improve and increase.  Fruits and vegetables are what I call REAL FOOD, as opposed to artificial foods, loaded with salt, sugar, and the bad fat, like you find at many fast food restaurants. 

I may be "going rad" on you, but what people buy from the dollar menus at fast food restaurants is not real food because it has no nutritional value.  Something stripped of all the fiber (white flour), fried in fat, and sprinkled with salt and seasonings designed to get you addicted, is not real food.  Yet, people struggling to feed their children, opt for the dollar menus because it is quick, easy, and cheap. It's also a major contributor to the childhood obesity epidemic. 

Something else you should know.  According to an article in the December 3, 2011 issue of the Vero Beach Press Journal, 18% of residents and 30% of children in the Treasure Coast of Florida DON'T REGULARLY KNOW WHERE THEIR NEXT MEAL WILL COME FROM.  

Hunger in America and obesity in America are directly related.  It has to do with access to healthy foods, access to locally grown foods, economic security, and jobs.  If you don't have a job, you have less choices about what to eat.   

Enter Judith Cruz.  Her job just got bigger.  Judith has just been appointed to Feeding America's strategic planning committee "to help formulate the national hunger relief agency's next 5-year plan to close the country's meal gap."  Judith is the CEO of our Treasure Coast Food Bank which provides a stop-gap solution for several counties here on the southeast coast of Florida.  Her Food Bank is part of Feeding America, which is an organization where I will soon be doing healthy cooking classes (they don't know it, however).  Judith deserves our support and ideas.  She is looking at long-term solutions to hunger in America.  Hunger and obesity go hand in hand.

To repeat the key point:  on the Treasure Coast of Florida 30% of kids don't regularly know where their next meal will come from.  Access to healthy food is something most people take for granted.  Yet for almost 1 in every 3 kids here, they are worried about access to ANY food, let alone healthy, fresh food. 

Hunger in America.  Obesity in America.   Be part of the solution.  Go to http://www.feedingamerica.org/ and http://www.stophunger.org/. 

Growing Healthy Kids is a movement to improve the health - and lives - of America's children, one child and one garden at a time.  Because failure is not an option.

Nancy Heinrich
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.

Recent Study Reveals Kids Who "Struggle with Hunger"

In the August 26th Vero Beach Press Journal, journalist Lisa Bolivar reported on the findings of a study released the day before. According to the Treasure Coast Food Bank and Feeding America, a national hunger relief organization, about 30.5% of kids in the Treasure Coast region of Florida �struggle with hunger.�

The findings centered around a term I hear more and more frequently: food insecurity. It means a lack of a stable food supply.

We must find the courage to talk about food insecurity. Why? Because all kids deserve access to food. Healthy food. Fresh food. Good food.
So let�s talk about food and kids. Why is there food insecurity? How can we morally allow a child to go hungry?

I choose to teach kids and families how to prepare healthy meals and snacks economically using fresh foods. The dollar menu at McDonalds is not the answer to our food insecurity crisis. We have a problem and we have to talk about it. Call your neighborhood elementary or middle school principal and ask them how many kids they serve are in situations where they are �food insecure� and go home to empty kitchen shelves, if they are the lucky ones who have a place to call home.

If we are going to solve the childhood obesity crisis, where kids are eating too many calories and too much fat, white flour, white sugar, and salt, we must talk about food. Too much of it for some. Too little of it for others. Not the right balance for many.

Food and shelter are basic rights. If we don�t have access to good foods, then how can we expect kids to achieve the greatness that each child is capable of?

It�s time to do something to protect the health - and lives - of America's children. What will YOU choose to do?

Nancy Heinrich
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.

"Because failure to reverse childhood obesity is not an option"