I participated in the Childhood Nutrition Virtual Town Hall hosted by Feeding America in honor of celebrating September being Hunger Action Month and Childhood Obesity Awareness month.  The discussion lasted about 45 minutes, and there seemed to be one overarching theme: we need to make people more aware of childhood hunger and obesity, and health educators/promoters need to make people feel empowered in health programs. In the Cottrell text (chapter 1), it also says health specialists need to make people feel empowered; this will allow people to feel like they are a part of the changes being implemented.  I think empowering people increase people’s participation in such programs.  As human beings, we put effort into things we feel we are a part of; therefore empowering people is an important factor in health promotion in order to get people involved in the health program(s) being implemented. 

In the virtual town hall it was brought up how McDonald’s is now labeling the calories of all the items displayed on their menu, like we had discussed in class.  The discussion participants said putting calories on a menu is a good thing, but it also has to be paired with educating people about how many calories they should be having in a day.  Like Professor Maroto said, people may see something on the menu that is 800 calories and they may think, “That’s a good choice!”  When in reality, they are eating over half of the recommended caloric intake for one day.  “Seldom does behavior change based on influence from a single level…health education specialists must do more then just educate to help change behavior” (Sharma chapter 1).  Implementing new policies, will not fix the unhealthy behavior(s), educating people paired with this new policy is a step closer to eliminating the unhealthy behavior.  I think McDonalds could also offer a Nutrition brochure to their customers explaining how many calories a day an average male and female should be eating.  This would help educate people, as well as implementing the new policy of labeling the calories of their food.  Health specialists cannot just do one thing and think that it is going to fix the health problem; they need to attack the problem from multiple angles to really make a difference and see changes in the unhealthy behavior.

In class we talked about how it is a great thing to introduce new places to buy healthy food, but if people don’t know how to prepare the healthy food, they might hesitate to purchase the product because they do not know how to prepare it.  A program that was talked about in the virtual town hall was, “Cooking Matters.”  This program teaches parents how to prepare healthy food and make healthier meals.  With this program, parents will be willing to buy the healthier foods because they learned through hands on experience how to prepare that food.  In order to attack a health problem, I think health specialists need to change a multitude of things; therefore people will take advantage of the healthy food they are able to purchase and cook better food being consumed by them and their family.  Again, like the Sharma text (chapter 1) said, health specialists need to try and eliminate the health problem from a multitude of angles, not just one.

A caller in the discussion said located two miles west from where he lives is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods, yet two miles east there is a food bank in a region of low socioeconomic status.  This relates to the Unnatural Causes film we watched in class.  The film showed how in different regions of Kentucky, there were very different economic statuses, within miles of each other.  This caller relates to that film because within four miles, there is a complete shift in socioeconomic statuses; differences in socioeconomic statuses causes health disparities.  The socio economic statuses “shape life conditions, that, in turn influence health” (Adler and Rehkopf 20).  Because people live in regions of a lower socioeconomic status, they are at a disadvantage with their health status, due to the limited/poor resources surrounding them.  It is shocking to me how there can be such health disparities due to socioeconomic statuses within miles of each other.  I usually think of health disparities being in other countries, or even other states, but rarely do I think of health disparities being in neighboring towns.

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References
Adler, N.E., Rehkopf, D. H.  U.S. Disparities in health: descriptions, causes, and
      mechanisms.  Annu Rev Public Health 2008; 29: 235-52.  In the book: Shi, Leigy,
      Singh, Douglas A.  (2011).  The Nation’s Health (8th edition).  Sudbury, MA:
      Jones and Barlett. 
Cottrell, R. R., Girvan, J. T., McKenzie, J. F. (2012).  Principles and Foundations of
      Health Promotion and Education (5th ed.)  San Francisco: Benjamin Cummings.
Sharma, M. & Romas, J. (2012). Theoretical Foundations of Health Education and
      Health Promotion (2nd ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Barlett.
Smith, Llewellyn M.  (2008).  Unnatural Causes: In Sickness and in Wealth.  California
      Newsreel.  National Minority Consorita.

Field Experience