"New Study"

I'm equally as perplexed as Meghan about the source of this new study. Why does it matter that the participants were black, when we don't even know their income level? For all we know, these people are middle-income, which doesn't really show us how food deserts affect those in the low-income bracket (unless they mentioned the income bracket of the participants in the article somewhere and I missed it, which is likely).

I still hold that education is crucially important in shifting this nation (especially those of lower-income levels) to healthier diets. So many of the people I encounter at my site do not understand the health differences between processed and whole foods. They understand that fast food is unhealthy, but they don't understand that homemade desserts can be equally unhealthy, or pasta with bleached-white flour, or fried foods. Just because something is prepared in a kitchen does not mean that it's natural or healthy - and that's a fact that millions of Americans, especially those middle-aged and older, are missing out on. In recent years, health education has certainly improved and become slightly more accurate, with the implementation of visuals such as My Pyramid and My Plate (not that I'm totally in love with either of these nutrition programs, but they're a start). However these curricula (sp?), while they do reach younger people, miss a huge demographic of adults, whose nutritional understanding has not evolved with the evolution of processed foods in this nation. For this reason, I think one of the best places we can start in tackling this issue is getting educational information out there for low-income families on nutrition. I know that some educational programs exist that reach out to poorer demographics, but there's still plenty of room to grow.

Sydney