White House hunger strategy hopeful

On right track

The recent conference held by the White House on hunger and health placed a spotlight on an issue that our region has been confronting for a while: How do we empower consumers to make and have access to healthy choices?

The Biden administration acknowledged that the federal government alone cannot solve the problem. It called upon both the public and private sectors to step up, and that is the smart approach.

Being overweight or obese puts a person at greater risk for serious health problems and contributes to increases in medical costs for treatment of related diseases such as high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes.

Arkansas is a case in point. According to the latest data from Aspire Arkansas, 40 percent of students in the state are overweight or obese, with Hispanic students at 51 percent and African American students at 43 percent. Worse, 71 percent of adults were overweight or obese, well above the national average.

This is not just a problem for Arkansas. As the White House’s national strategy report observed, “people who lack access to food outlets that sell healthier foods tend to be lower-income, Black, or Hispanic; live in rural areas; and are geographically concentrated in the South.”

Nearly 40 million Americans live in areas where grocery stores are not nearby. Inadequate transportation and lack of affordable, healthful options contribute to food and nutrition insecurity.

Many people in the rural South lack adequate access to nutritious food options like fruits and vegetables. Corner stores are often the most convenient place for people to

get their groceries. These stores often don’t carry a variety of good food or beverage options for families.

And we also know that the droughts we’ve been experiencing can negatively impact proper nutrition by making it more expensive to buy local crops.

Public-private partnerships in which community-based public health groups and businesses work together can help address some of the health and nutrition challenges families face.

One example of this in action is the beverage industry’s efforts to support families in their efforts to reduce the sugar and calories they get from beverages. Arkansas beverage companies are working with local partners in Little Rock, like the Derek Lewis Foundation, to get people to try more beverage options with less sugar or smaller package sizes. The results are promising.

The latest data show that beverage calories per person in Little Rock are down 11.2 percent since 2015. For the past four years straight, people in Little Rock, where the obesity rate ranks in the top 20 percent of metropolitan areas in the country, have been turning to more low- and zero-sugar beverages made and marketed by beverage companies, and shifting away from full-calorie drinks.

The White House also called on food and beverage companies to provide students more access to products lower in added sugars. Here again, the beverage industry worked with schools to remove full-calorie beverages, which led to a 94 percent decrease in beverage calories in schools.

This is an example of how we can work together to improve access to healthy choices. Much more needs to be done, but the Biden administration should be commended for recommending a common-sense approach to bolstering access to healthy choices in our communities.