Food in Newark - Case Study Example

FOOD IN NEWARK affiliation FOOD IN NEWARK Introduction Food security is the of having consistent access to adequate, wholesome and affordable food to maintain an active as well as a healthy life (Michele Ver Ploeg, 2015). Race refers to subdivision of human kind in terms of physical traits. Research has shown that despite the global issue of food insecurity, it mostly affects the minority population who records a higher number in food security compared to the majority group. The connection between race and food security reveal that there is a structural conflict between the racial groups. The connection favors the majority and the advantaged in the society, especially the white suburban groups. Gender, on the other hand refers to the state of being a male or a female. Food insecurity has a great on children and restaurants . The income of an individual is directly nexused to the food stability. The middle and high income are food secure and have a smaller proportion of food insecurity arising from measurement problems. A smaller proportion among the middle and the high income individuals tends to appear as a result of erratic response and misunderstanding. Some of the individual found in this group have food security due to uneven household changes due to the existence of multiple economic units in the similar household. The low income earners such as Newark, located at the center of New Jersey, it is the largest city in the State. It is has five geographical subdivisions within which there are urban and suburban districts. Socio-economically, the five geographical wards of Newark are segregated between the lower and upper income earners (Googlemap.com, 2015) earners. Statistics has shown the high income earners are constitute around 38.5% and are associated with high education levels (Nicholson, Gómez & Gao, 2011). These people have also occupied the most prominent jobs like medicine, engineering, business management and media. Their monthly salaries and wages is averagely $87, 625. The remaining 61.5% is mostly composed of middle earners making around $49, 195 of salary and a little percentage of low class earners making $23, 500 in wages and salary (Awokuse, 2011). Newark is rich in culture, this is because of the vast and varied human races it holds. Out of the estimated total population of 278, 427 people, white account for 26.3%, black or African American 52.4%, American Indian or Alaska native 0.6%, Asian 1.6%, Hispanic or Latino 33.8% and native Hawaiian 11.6% (Awokuse, 2011).. Newark is endowed with many white-collar jobs like insurance, health-cares and financial institutions. Service is industry is rapidly developing in Newark and almost replacing manufacturing industries. Transportations industry provides approximately 17000 jobs making it one of the largest businesses in Newark. Other major resources of Newark are Port Newark and insurance institutions like Prudent Financial, Mutual Benefit Life and American Insurance Company (Heynen, Kurtz, & Trauger, 2012). There is a vast and a comprehensive network of public schools that are under government. Statistically, there are approximately 80 schools that have enrolled more than 35000 students and provided jobs for around 2500 teachers (America, 2013). Some of the Newark Public Schools District are: Ann School of Mathematics and Science, Branch Brook Elementary School and Science Park High School. Health services in Newark are categorized into environmental health, health planning, medical care services, social and medical and prevention services. Each works to ensure that better health standards are kept (Heynen, Kurtz, & Trauger, 2012).. Tang’s article on “Food environment around school and students’ weight status: a study of four New Jersey low-income communities (Master’s Thesis)”, explores how the understanding of Newark is shaped through the food that the citizens eat, sell and grow. This assigned article will discuss the issue of food security in the context of controversial topics of gender, race and class. These issues are explored from diverse perspectives both in the opposition as well as in favor of the given objectives painted on the city’s background. Survey conducted in the years 2009-2011 show that, 17% of the children living in the U.S were obese. Given that the total population of U.S. is about 8 million people, these means that around 1 360 000 children were obese when the survey was being done. Furthermore, causes in obesity in children was not only limited to public health, but it was also nested in culture from where the child comes from, government policies, community, family and home and finally school and peers. As a result of obesity, many other complication like hypertension, coronary heart diseases among others, have been on the rise (Roy, Janal & Roy, 2011). The following are statistical outcomes obtained from a study that used five data sets levels: 1 student-, 2 neighborhood- and 2 school-levels respectively, to use to investigate presence food environments and the rate of obesity in children. Table 1: Statistics of Student BMI z scores by School Levels School level Mean S.D. 25th %-tile Median 75th%-tile Pre-school & Kindergarten 0.73 1.154 0.036 0.784 1.559 Elementary School 0.775 1.12 0.034 0.823 1.654 Middle School 0.859 1.046 0.151 0.924 1.692 High School 0.762 1.04 0.065 0.766 1.551 All School-Levels 0.784 1.096 0.063 0.829 1.634 Source: (Coleman-Jensen,(2015).  Table 2: Percentage of Obese Students by School Level and City Pre-school & Kindergarten Elementary School Middle School High School Obese 22.76 25.26 26.56 22.48 Camden Newark New Brunswick Trenton Obese 22.48 24.39 26.43 26.94 Source: (Mansfield & Mendes, 2013). In addition to the above tables, a total number of 28, 022 total students were recorded in respect to city, gender and racial. Out of this, 4379, 12360, 6017 and 5266 were from pre-school or kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school respectively (Coleman-Jensen, 2015). . Table 1 shows that the average mean and median of the BMI z ranged from between 00.7-0.8 and 0.8 respectively. Since the standard deviation and mean are closely related it means that the children were overweight (III & Yarnell, 2013). From table 2, the minimum and maximum percentages or obese children recorded were 22.48% and 26.94% respectively which solidifies findings from table 1 above that most children are obese. As to conclusion, the earlier on survey that was done in 2009-2010 on children between the ages of 2 and 19 indicated that 16% of the children were obese (Tang, 2013). Findings from this research correlates with that of 2009-2010. The percentage increment of approximately 6% shows that there has been a growth in number of obese children since 2010 up to now. Challenges Newark population has in accessing healthy food Majority of people in Newark have low incomes and as a result they can only access cheap food. These cheap foods are however associated with dense energy and high fat content. Low-income earners also have a challenge in accessing healthy food because they want to save a lot of money for other purposes, this makes them have less disposable cash for buying healthy food. This has consequently led to emergence of obesity associated with poverty, especially to children. In addition to that, availability of cheap and sugary food like chocolates have not only contributed to obesity but have also posed a challenge to accessing healthy food like fruits and vegetables, which are locally grown (Peters, Bills, Lembo, Wilkins & Fick, 2012). Another challenge to accessing healthy food has been scarcity. Healthy food has not only been expensive to purchase, but it has also been scarce. Those who have money purchase a great percentage of these food leading to scarcity of the same and hence a challenge in accessing it. Research has also concluded that people who are less educated have a problem of accessing healthy food as depicted by Newark population (Germine & Puffer, 1989). Based on a national survey on nutrition conducted in the US, it was observed that there was a great disparity in dietary quality across level of education. People who are less educated tend to ignore commendations for healthy diets and exercise that is the vice versa to well-educated people. It has been stated previously that Newark is composed of many people who come from different areas. This means that it is rich in culture. However, cultural differences have hindered people from accessing healthy food. Some people do not eat certain foods because their culture does not support it even though they food under concern are healthy ones. In addition to that, some religion forbids people from eating certain types of food (Billings & Cabbil, 2011). Due to this, accessing healthy foods become a problem. In the long run people end up consuming low quality food that makes them obese. Gaps in the literature: What are identified gaps in the literature? Tang (2013) noted that some of the research conducted was small in scale, which led to the researchers assuming some results. Some vital contents were missing in some literature and therefore the information that was obtained was incomplete. In addition to that, literature materials failed to provide relationship between community gardens, community health and fresh fruits and vegetables. This material simply gave qualitative information that reflected development and capacity building of community as a result of community gardens. Finally, The BRFSS data, to determine obesity, has a heavy reliance on self-reported height and weight. The participants included in the study specifically in telephone surveys have a higher tendency of over-reporting their height and underreporting their weight or both. This can lead to underestimation in the prevalence of obesity (Billings & Cabbil, 2011).. Secondly only the individuals who live in the households that have telephones are include in the surveys (Center for Health Statistics, 2015). The individuals dwelling in the households that do not have telephones may be different from those who have been interviewed. This presents some potential biasness in during the calculation of the obesity rates. Benefits: What the benefits of resolving this issue? According to the article, “Improving the Health of New Jersey’s Communities”, obesity is associated with most of the chronic and cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, when obesity is dealt with, Newark will have healthy growing population that will be able to build the city better (Beatriz, Sherry, & Alexandra, 2011). Furthermore, research has shown that, obesity contributes to daytime sleep and leads to stroke for both men and women. Finally, lack of food reduce concentration in class leading to poor performance and that is why it should be addressed. Best practice approaches to improving food security in communities Some of the practices that can be adopted to increase food security are food banks and emergency assistance programs, community kitchen and collective cooking, community garden and urban agriculture and good food boxes and markets (Tang, 2013)..Food banks are places where people charitably give food to assist the poor or people who cannot afford healthy food. From food banks, people can have access to healthy food even though they have low incomes. In community kitchens and cooking, people contribute, buy, cook and eat together. This makes it possible for those who can’t access heathy food, access it. Brown & Berger-Marshall (2013), suggests that, through collective eating, people are able to learn from one another. With sharing of ideas, people learn the art of appreciating healthy eating. Community garden is a collective cultivation of a common land. Thorough this practice, food supply increases and urban land is efficiently utilized (Center for Health Statistics, 2015) Good food box is a way of ensuring that people who have low incomes can access healthy food. This practice involve bulk purchase of food, by people who are well up, which is then sold at an affordable cost to community. Finally, through good food markets, people can now have access of healthy food in regions, especially remote ones (Elbel, Gyamfi & Kersh, 2011). This program aims at bringing famers’ markets closer to people. Role that community leader will play in the process Some of this practices like good food box involve distribution of food in remote places. Community leader may be involved in accompanying driver in transportation of the food. For programs that bring people together like community kitchens, community leader should be there to provide guidance on how things should be done (Zabetakis, 2013). It has been noted above that some people cannot access healthy food because they have limited understanding of the same. A community leader may be instrumental in providing education to people of the sort. Finally, a community leader is expected to support any activity that will ensure food security. They may do this by contributing some money or donating food to food banks. Church leaders and teachers also provide education to people who have little knowledge on issues of food security. Politicians, just like community leaders, tend to contribute money or donate food to various food banks. Future trends: What are trends being used to address this issue?  Several scholars have indicated that currently, community is being mobilized to improve their health. The current tool MAPP, which stands for Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships, enables community to effectively and efficiently manage the available resources and coming up with partnerships that would assist them in strategic planning (Peters,et al, 2012). ( According to the article, “Improving the Health of New Jersey’s Communities” the first goal MAPP is to create a healthy community. A healthy community is one that emphasizes on the spiritual, mental, and physical fitness of people leading to a quality life. (Mansfield & Mendes, 2013). There is increase in awareness of issue affecting the public as far as their health is concerned. When people know their health status, they make them appreciate systems within the health sector Additionally, people are cognizant on issues of food security. This knowledge on food security is advocated to campaigns and promotions that educate people on their healthy diets. Consequently, the awareness is also steered because the stakeholders undergo facilitation on elimination of food shortage and protection of healthy food choices. Finally, Newark is also borrowing the idea of promoting agriculture from other cities like Philadelphia (Kremer & DeLiberty, 2011). With agriculture, food will increase leading to its availability hence reducing hunger. Summary of the literature review: Summarize what was covered in this section The city of Newark is composed up of people from different races. The emerging issue that is facing it is obesity, especially in children between the ages of 2 to 19. Major cause has been outlets that offer unhealthy affordable food (Chen, Chung, Heo, New, Shannon, Wen, & Zhu, 2013). Model like MAPP, have been in introduced to offer solutions to health related issues. Other programs to support child food provision have been introduced. However, there are several challenges like lack of food, inconsistent food patterns that make this issue hard to solve. References Awokuse, T. O. (2011). Food aid impacts on recipient developing countries: A review of empirical methods and evidence. Journal of International Development, 23(4), 493-514. Beatriz, C. B., Sherry, S., & Alexandra, M. (2011). You get the quickest and the cheapest stuff you can: Food security issues among low-income earners living with diabetes. The Australasian Medical Journal, 4(12).. Billings, D., & Cabbil, L. (2011). Food justice: Whats race got to do with it?. Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, 5(1), 103-112. Brown, K., & Berger-Marshall, M. (2013). Mission possible: Tackling food insecurity. Retrieved from http://docs.schoolnutrition.org/meetingsandevents/anc2013/presentations/TuesdayJuly16/071613%20at%20845%20-%20Mission%20Possible%20Tackling%20Food%20Insecurity.pdf Center for Health Statistics,. (2015). State of New Jersey, Department of Health. Retrieved 24 January 2015, from http://www.state.nj.us/health/ch Chen, L., Chung, P., Heo, J., New, C., Shannon, S., Wen, C., & Zhu, B. (2013). Planning for a regional food system (Masters thesis). Retrieved from http://www.arch.columbia.edu/files/gsapp/imceshared/cce2119/UPSTUDIO_MANWELYAN_SP13.pdf Coleman-Jensen, C. (2015). USDA ERS - Overview: Definitions of Food Security. Ers.usda.gov. Retrieved from http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/definitions-of-food-security.aspx Elbel, B., Gyamfi, J., & Kersh, R. (2011). Child and adolescent fast-food choice and the influence of calorie labeling: A natural experiment. International Journal of Obesity, 35(4), 493-500. Germine, M., & Puffer, J. H. (1989). Origin and development of flexibility in asbestiform fibres. Mineralogical Magazine, 53(371), 327-335. Google.com,. (2015). Google. 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Mapping potential foodsheds in New York State by food group: An approach for prioritizing which foods to grow locally. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 27(2), 125-137. doi:10.1017/S1742170511000196. Roy, M., Janal, M., & Roy, A. (2011). Medical and psychological risk factors associated with incident hypertension in type 1 diabetic African Americans. Sandy Regional Assembly recovery agenda; Recovery from the ground up, strategies for community-based resiliency in New York and New Jersey. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3C24TN5 Tang, X. (2013). Food environment around school and students’ weight status: A study of four New Jersey low-income communities (Masters thesis). Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.A.110695 United States Department of Agriculture. (2014, September). Ranges of food security and food insecurity. Retrieved from USDA ERS website http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/definitions-of-food-security.aspx Zabetakis, I. (2013). Food security and cardioprotection: The polar lipid link. Journal of Food Science, 78(8), R1101-R1104. Read More