Poor kids likely to eat more sugar. Why?

Here’s a follow-up to my last post:

The deck really is stacked against poor kids in terms of risks for obesity. Not only are they less likely to be breastfed, which can help prevent obesity, but they’re significantly more likely to have high-sugar, high calorie diets.

Lots of sugar, not much fruit…                      (Photo by Dominic)

Why? Because sugar is cheap and convenient, and poor kids tend to live in neighborhoods where convenience stores–with their snack-and-proccessed-food-heavy offerings–dominate the local market scene. The politics of of American farming has a lot to do with our unhealthy way of eating, too.

The good news is the increase in local efforts to bring fresh fruits and vegetables to the neighborhoods where they’re most needed. Here in Santa Rosa, CA, we have the Megan Furth Harvest Pantry, a mobile, miniature produce market that distributes healthy foods, as well as nutrition education, to needy families with kids five years old and younger.

Megan Furth Harvest Pantry

You can find other examples all across the nation, like this one in St. Paul, and this one in New York. Still, until the big-box grocers venture back into the poorer neighborhoods they abandoned long ago, far too many children will have sugar-heavy, unhealthy diets.