The Cost of Good Health

Now I have just come back from the grocery store and I'm compelled to write about something that has been irritating me for a while. I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels the way I do.

I like to think of myself as someone who generally watches what they eat. I wouldn't call myself a dieter, just someone that generally prescribes to healthy eating patterns. As I walked through the store to reload on my basic diet, turkey burgers, tuna, eggs, and ramen noodles (yea I said it), I was once again struck by how much these items actually COST.

As I walked down the aisles to pick up my items, I noticed that my high protein bars were going at $6 for a box of 4 bars, while as I continued shopping, one couldn't help but notice the proliferation of "2 for $3" specials on cookies. Or when I looked for my honey bunches of oats cereal, which is $5 a box for the family size, while the frosted flakes were going for 2 for $6 in the family size. It occurred to me, why does, in one of the fattest countries in the world, does it cost so much to eat healthy? With the yearly parade of health initiatives by celebrities and politicians, why hasn't anyone come up with the genius idea of discounting healthy products?

Studies show that much of people eating selections, especially for families, are based on monetary reasons. Quite simply, it is cheaper to buy a 24 pack of doritos variety bags than to buy banana chips for your children to take to school. I think back to my own childhood, and ponder that maybe the reason we had so many snacks around wasn't just because we liked them, but we couldn't afford to eat anything different.

This also led me to think about the food options in lower class neighborhoods. Studies show that poorer and nonwhite neighborhoods also have fewer fruit and vegetable markets, bakeries, specialty stores, and natural food stores. Also, poor children have higher rates of obesity (around 20 percent of all poor children) than do nonpoor children (around 15 percent). To make these numbers more real, one study found that, while 58 percent of food stores on New York City 's Upper East Side stocked the low-fat, high-fiber foods health professionals recommend as part of a diet to control diabetes, only 18 percent of stores in East Harlem stocked these foods. Also, in the Detroit metropolitan area, for example, the poorest African American neighborhoods are an average of 1.1 miles further from the nearest supermarket than are impoverished white neighborhoods.

I don't know about you, but to me this is a PROBLEM. I'm just ranting...I'm done now.