Newswise — New York, N. Y.  -

Leading a busy life makes it tough for anyone to find the time to buy and prepare healthy fare, such as fresh produce and other nutritious foods. Add extreme financial stress, say New Yorkers telling their stories in the new, New York Academy of Medicine report “Food and Nutrition: Hard Truths about Eating Healthy,” and it can be nearly impossible to maintain a healthy diet.

The latest and final report in the Academy’s “City Voices: New Yorkers on Health” series, “Food and Nutrition: Hard Truths about Eating Healthy” also shows that while food stamps and food pantries are critical resources, they are falling short when it comes to helping low-income New Yorkers maintain healthy eating habits.
“A majority of the low-income New Yorkers we surveyed, 66 percent, told us they were concerned about affording healthy food. Another 36 percent said that healthy foods were seldom available in their communities, and while they wanted to eat healthy, this environment made it difficult, if not impossible, to eliminate the preventable disparities in diet-related diseases and mortality between high- and low-income New Yorkers,” said Jo Ivey Boufford, MD, President of the Academy.

“I spend all my money on food, all my social security. And … I’m not buying really good, nutritious food… the obstacle of having to work with food stamps, work with my rebate cash, sometimes I just need to put food in my mouth.” – City Voices Focus Group Participant

Seeking Change in Available Resources
The challenges of balancing food costs and availability aside, low-income residents revealed a strong interest in adopting healthier diets, but many also reported that even local food pantries were stocked with foods that made it harder to eat right.

Many of these seniors … can’t even afford to buy food, so they’re going from one pantry to the other to try to get sufficient foods. But as we know, canned goods, a lot of canned goods, are not good for our community. There’s a lot of salt in canned goods, and that’s what you get largely through the food banks. You get a lot of canned goods because their shelf life.” – City Voices Focus Group Participant

The “Food and Nutrition: Hard Truths about Eating Healthy” focus groups and surveys include the voices of low-income adults from the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens. The work is part of the Academy’s ongoing effort to give low-income city residents an opportunity to express their needs and viewpoints about what is needed to make their communities healthier places to live.

Through the Academy’s Designing a Strong and Healthy New York (DASH-NY/NYC) initiatives and our partnerships with government and community organizations statewide, we work to advance policies and programs that address food insecurity and the lack of access to nutrition education in many economically distressed urban communities.

One local organization that works hard to improve access to healthy foods in East Harlem is SCAN. The group was awarded $25,000 at the June 11, East Harlem Health in Action Summit, an project the Academy sponsored with several partners, to continue their work in East Harlem. SCAN runs the Get Healthy, East Harlem: Pop-Up Healthy Food Café events and intergenerational cooking labs.

“Utilizing our longstanding relationships with New York City Housing Authority parents, children and seniors, SCAN has adopted a bottom-up organizing campaign to positively impact health and wellness in East Harlem. Our very first step is to listen to our children, parents and community. Through this activity, we hear and see what and how to impact our community folks. Such listening has produced an award-winning video The Healthy Dance as well as an East Harlem Cafe to be located at our SCAN Lehman Cornerstone,” said Lewis Zuchman, Executive Director of SCAN.

Acknowledging the importance of allowing community members to lead efforts to address local health issues, “Food and Nutrition: Hard Truths about Eating Healthy,” includes personal narratives from New Yorkers, as well as observations from leading health advocates. It is based on a Community Needs Assessment that included nearly 3,000 New Yorkers and was translated into 10 languages. To read the entire series, visit www.nyam.org.

About the Academy
The New York Academy of Medicine advances solutions that promote the health and well-being of people in cities worldwide.

Established in 1847, The New York Academy of Medicine continues to address the health challenges facing New York City and the world’s rapidly growing urban populations. We accomplish this through our Institute for Urban Health, home of interdisciplinary research, evaluation, policy and program initiatives; our world class historical medical library and its public programming in history, the humanities, and the arts; and our Fellows program, a network of more than 2,000 experts elected by their peers from across the professions affecting health. Our current priorities are healthy aging, disease prevention, and eliminating health disparities.