Though all people and communities deserve equal opportunities to be healthy, there are many barriers to good health in communities across the U.S. Low-income communities, particularly those of color, face a disproportionate number of barriers.
St. Francis Hospital in Hartford co-hosts a town hall meeting on Tuesday titled, "Is Food Making Us Sick? A Conversation About Food and Our Health" with a panel of experts who will talk about food and health. WNPR's Diane Orson spoke with bariatric surgeon Dr. Nissin Nahmias, whose work centers on people struggling with obesity.
Dr. Nissin Nahmias: Obesity is intimately related to inequity, and it’s very prevalent in the poor, irrespective of their ethnicity. Poor people tend to be obese because they tend not to have the resources to buy food that is healthier.
We know that good things always cost a little more. It doesn't translate like other things -- like if you were to buy a car, you could buy an excellent, cheap car that is effective and efficient. You cannot do that with healthy food. You must find a middle ground -- you must find the food that is appealing, that is tasty, that is affordable, that is a part of everybody’s culture. It doesn't exist.
We have to make sure that people have the education -- they know the food they like to eat, and they know how many calories what they choose has. We need to understand their financial hardship.
Diane Orson: How do you talk to your patients about improving their diets?
I don’t tell people what to do. I listen. When you listen, you understand the background; the ethnicity. You understand the family circumstances that led to obesity.
We know that low-income communities, rural communities, and communities of color can be disproportionately affected by limited access to healthy food. What can be done about this?
That’s a great point. The problem cannot be simplified. We cannot just tackle the issue: “We’ll just provide healthier choices, and people will actually choose them.” That is very simplistic. In reality, we need to first go into those communities, and understand the people we’re talking about, because we don’t know them. We don’t sit in their household. We don’t know their problems.
You know, it’s good to be jolly and optimistic about things, but only when you sit [at] their dining room table and you understand what goes on there, you can have an idea of how to help them best, if they want any help or not.
When it comes to, for example, the community that you talk about, there are multiple ethnicities even within the African American community itself. You will have people that come from the Caribbean islands; people that come from Africa itself, from the south of the country; people that were born in Hartford. All of this different ethnicity within the same racial group brings a lot of differences to the table when it comes to what they eat.
The most important thing is building a relationship that is open with the community, and talking about how to make this more affordable, because the problem is not simple.
