Prescriptions for healthy food

One reason why fast food restaurants are so appealing to low income families is because of the amount of food a family can get for a dollar. Families with limited amount of money to spend on food often rely on cheaper, higher calorie foods in order to maximize calorie intake for amount of money spent. This can cause over consumption of calories and an unhealthy diet that leads to obesity and other health problems. A new pilot program in Boston hopes to compete with fast food. By making healthy food less expensive, it is now possible for low-income families to afford the healthier option.

In this effort to combat obesity in children, doctors at three health centers in Boston are encouraging children of low-income families to use local farmers’ markets as a preventative approach to health problems. Doctors are providing coupons amounting to $1 a day for each member of a patient’s family to be used on healthy options at these markets. The goal is to amend eating habits. The doctors hope to augment the amount of fruits and vegetables the kids are familiar with and will eat and increase their intake of fruit and vegetables by one serving a day.

This program is a great effort to make healthy food more affordable; though can it have a long-term influence on reducing obesity? The program not only relies on families getting to the markets to use the coupons, but also on families increasing their fruits and vegetable consumption and cutting back on their intake of junk food. It may take more than just a voucher for healthy foods to alter many years worth of poor eating habits.

Access to the markets also raises a concern. Lowering food cost can only be successful if the families are able to get to the fresh food; and what will happen once the farmers’ market season ends? Will the families revert back to their old snack habits without the access to affordable healthy food during the winter?

The doctors will be monitoring participants from 50 families, determining the effects on eating patterns and health indicators such as body mass index (BMI).

To read about the program, click below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/business/13veggies.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=obesity&st=cse

Is it possible, fresh and healthy food available on every corner…?

Northwestern Medicine and Near North Health Service Corp. has partnered with Walgreens in a new pilot program designed to improve access to affordable, healthy foods for diabetics living in food deserts. The Greenlight Select Program provides practical tools to help manage their health. Diabetics will receive food “prescriptions” from the Komed Holman Health Center that act as discounts on produce and other nutrient-rich food items. The patients may use these prescriptions at the Walgreens located at 67th and Stony Island.

The fresh food center is not only designed to benefit diabetics. This Walgreens location is one of ten Chicago stores that have been redesigned to include new food items, assisting consumers in neighborhoods where healthy food is scarce. The modification strives to eradicate food deserts inflicting the more than 600,000 Chicago residents (according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) who live in neighborhoods with limited access to grocery stores with fresh, healthy food. The enhanced Walgreens is now selling about 750 new food items that include fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, whole grain cereal, frozen meat and fish, and rice and beans.

While there will only be ten expanded Walgreens by the end of August, this is a positive step in Chicago. Selling healthy and fresh food at Walgreens seems like a great idea since there seems to be one on every block and has the potential to reach a large percentage of the population. Even though Walgreens is not aiming to be a full service grocery store, they are providing a variety of choices of healthier food and the chain plans to expand its fresh food center to about 400 stores across the country in the next few years.

Is it possible that with the expansion of this program, fresh fruits, vegetables and healthy food will soon be like Starbucks coffee… available on every corner?

To read more about the Greenlight Select Program and the fresh food center now available at some Walgreens locations, read these articles.

http://www.suntimes.com/health/2593662,diabetes-greenlight-walgreens-northwestern-081210.article

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/health/daley-walgreens-chicago-food-desert-100499829.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129160851&sc=emaf