The past decade has seen nonprofits, government officials and foodies across California do everything possible to get poor people off their junk-food- and processed-food-heavy diet and eat healthier. And the push seems to be working: A report sponsored by the California Endowment shows that one of the programs it helped to fund helped change the eating habits of poor Californians, especially in public schools.
But has the program helped trim the waistlines of obese Californians? Nope.
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One of the main problems, according to the report, is trying to convince local grocery stores to stock better food choices. It's “difficult to implement and particularly challenging to sustain [healthy eating habits] in the absence of policies that give store owners incentives to make changes that significantly shift the balance from unhealthy to healthy foods,” according to the study, which you can find here. Very true. Although farmers' markets continue to proliferate, we gotta get them where the Mexis, Okies descendants and African-Americans live, son!
As for students, their BMI index remained the same over the two-year report, largely because the funders felt there wasn't enough “time and intensity of effort required to achieve measurable outcomes.” Huh? One of the main problems? Not enough P.E. time, or waste of it. There was positive news, as well: If you push enough, you can change perceptions of healthy food among the poor and get them off that Flamin' Hot Cheetos fix once and for all.
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