How often do nutrition experts sing the praises of kale, quinoa, and chia seed pudding? Rhetoric encircling our nation’s health declares that the chronic conditions ailing us today are chiefly preventable, bolstering the paradigm of personal choice. You can take control of your health, we hear. Just channel that inner discipline, and eat your vegetables.
Sitting down to a bowl of coconut milk chia seed pudding sweetened with a touch of organic maple syrup and fair trade dark chocolate cocoa powder, I cannot ignore another pivotal ingredient I taste: privilege.
Imagine a life where everyone comes home to a candle-lit table set with a local, organic, and sustainably-produced evening meal. Fresh vegetables juxtapose high-quality protein and a healthful source of fat, perfectly seasoned with spices and herbs. Crisp apples populate the fruit bowl, and grass-fed ice cream sits in the freezer for a creamy, sweet treat. No one fears going hungry because cupboards and refrigerators are always full.
This charming image, unfortunately, represents a wistful daydream rather than a feasible reality for most. Living in this world means that recommending over and over to ‘eat your fruits and vegetables’ cannot be the sole solution when it comes to advancing health. Discussions that overlook food availability, accessibility, and affordability do more harm than good when they perpetuate the idea that healthful choices fall exclusively under the realm of personal responsibility. Before criticizing what people eat, it’s important to consider the many layers of privilege tossed into the dressing of that nourishing kale salad.
The United States Department of Agriculture defines food secure households as those with “access, at all times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members.” Their statistics tell us that 18 million U.S. households, or 13.5 percent, experienced low food security or very low food security at some point or another in 2023. Dig a little deeper, and these figures ebb and flow considerably. Among single mothers, for instance, the prevalence of food insecure households jumps to an astonishing 35 percent.
Access, in and of itself, provokes a multifaceted conversation. It must extend far beyond financial resources to include things like access to grocery stores, farmer’s markets, community gardens, dependable transportation, safe housing, well-stocked kitchens, nutritional knowledge, time, and energy to cook. Imagine how high the numbers would soar if food insecurity statistics took all of this into account. When you’re struggling to put food on the table, the types of vitamins in a carrot or the amount of sugar in a glass of orange juice suddenly might not seem so important.
The cultural discourse surrounding health falls flat when it ignores the issues of privilege, access, and food justice inextricably intertwined with how we feed ourselves. It manifests in judging people by their health status and food choices. It presents a myopic understanding of health that rests upon a foundation of shame and blame, excluding an inexcusable number of people for whom chia seed pudding tastes like unattainable privilege.
Instead of ending the conversation at the individual level, let’s discuss food and nutrition in a way that includes each and every one of us and works toward setting a place at the table for all. When we promote health, we need to first promote access. Social justice. Equity. Because “just eat your vegetables,” as it turns out, is rarely that simple.
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