A.I DuPont High School 10th grade

Inadequate Access to Healthy Food

Hello my name is Kayla Blyden I’m 15 years old, I go to Alexis I DuPont High School and I work at DuPont Environmental Education Center of Delaware Nature through a program called Trail Ambassador. I’ve recently just started working here and I’ve learned a lot so far, since I’ve been here, we have watched a documentary about healthy foods. In that documentary I learned that there are more liquor stores and gun shops than there are grocery stores in the United States and that is what inspired me to write about this topic.  It may be difficult for some to believe that not all people have the same equal access to healthy food options but to others this does not come as a surprise. It is important for everyone to receive a healthy diet on a daily basis. A person’s diet should consist of consumption of vegetables of all types, fruits, grains, low-fat or fat free dairy, protein foods and oils while also paying attention to portion size. However, this is found to be more difficult in black and brown communities, according to health.gov “Distance to grocery stores and lack of transportation are barriers that can inhibit access to healthy food options”. Most people might not think this is a problem, but this is an enormous issue. Without having access to and or eating healthy foods it increases the probability of obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and many more health problems.              

Black and brown communities not having access to health food options is a small portion of the bigger issue, which is that our communities are looked down upon as more “rough” or “sketchy” so big grocery store chains like Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s chose not to build stores in our communities. Furthermore, it is not fair to the younger generation and the new up and coming generations because if their families are kind of wealthy or live in a “good” / “white neighborhood” they most likely will have unlimited access to healthy foods they need. But for people that are not as lucky to have wealth do not have the same access to healthy foods. From doing more research, according to health.gov “Access to foods that support healthy dietary patterns supports health not only at that point in time but also across the lifespan and possibly for future generations”. As you can see this is just not a now problem or a later problem or even a problem that we can just brush off. This will affect ourselves, our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. If we do not fix this problem, we will not be able to give our children the best lives possible and the lives that they deserve. I feel as if this is a problem that the government should be responsible for finding the solution to. I would like to end with a quote from Virginia Woolf “One Cannot Think Well, Love Well, Sleep Well, If One Has Not Dined Well.”