Empoword

Additional Readings 442 less healthy alternatives. People may not even have access to unprocessed foods, like fruits and vegetables, if they live in poor neighborhoods that do not have a grocery store or supermarket. The lack of access to affordable, healthy, and unprocessed foods leads to an increased rate of obesity for low-income people, and current policies and interventions are not effective and need to be changed to help decrease rates of obesity. Obesity has been a problem in the United States for a long time. In the 1980s, the number of obese people began to increase rapidly. The percentage of obese adults went from 15.0% in 1980 to 32.9% in 2004, more than doubling (Hurt 781). Obesity can be extremely damaging to the body and can lead to other chronic diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension. It is clear and has been for a long time, that obesity is an epidemic in America, and researchers are trying to find the cause. Obesity is commonly associated with people picking food solely based on taste and not on nutritional content, leading them to choose delicious junk food over nutritious vegetables. While this is true for some, the rates of obesity were found to be higher in American counties that were poverty-dense (Levine 2667). This is not the only study to find that obesity affects the poor more than others, as a study ran by U.S. Government found that rates of obesity and diet-related chronic diseases were highest in the most impoverished populations (Story 261). Obesity is affecting those who are least able to cope with it, as obesity and related chronic diseases can have a serious economic impact on people, especially those with diabetes. People with diabetes spend around 2.3 times as much on general medical care a year than someone without diabetes, and on average a diabetic person spends about $7,900 a year just on medical expenses associated with diabetes (Yang 1033). These costs are extremely damaging to low-income people who may already have trouble getting by as it is, and it is important that the economic causes of obesity are examined so that policies and interventions can be designed to help protect public health. Higher rates of obesity in low-income areas has been associated with a lack of access to healthy foods. Many of these low-income areas are classified as food deserts, meaning there is nowhere to buy fresh fruits, vegetables, or other unprocessed foods. The nearest grocery store or supermarket can be over a mile away, as it is for Casey