A Short Note On Diabetes And Its Effects On Health

Imagine you are at a table with two other people, by 2050, one of you will have diabetes. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention predicts that by 2050, 1 in 3 Americans will have type 2 diabetes (Fleck). Diabetes costs Americans about $174 billion annually (Chan). Type two diabetes is caused by a combination of genes and unhealthy eating habits. Healthy foods are inaccessible to low income children, which has a negative impact on their health. There are programs in place to aid these low income families, but these programs are underutilized, The programs need to expand and improve to better serve their communities. Primarily, healthy foods are inaccessible and unappealing to low income families, because of the culture of the†¦show more content†¦need to, â€Å"Ensure that residents can access healthy and affordable food through public transportation—by realigning bus routes, providing free shuttles, or other means† (Let s Move). By focusing on aff ordable public healthcare, the voters overlook the deeper problem of an unhealthy diet putting more strain on the medical system than is necessary. There should be government subsidies for putting supermarkets in low income areas, because as of now, these areas are food swamps or food deserts. A food swamp is a place where there is a lot of unhealthy food in an area, while a food desert has very few food options. There was an act to make school lunches more healthy, which in theory should make the lunches more healthy, however there are still unhealthy options, and a fairly small number of schools has adopted the new standards. The website livestrong.com has a goal to help people get into good shape, and become better educated on health. Livestrong contributor Carly Schuna writes, â€Å"Not all schools implement the NSLP and not all students eat the healthier choices schools do provide† (Schuna). If there were only healthy options, children would get at least one full healthy meal per day, which would contribute to healthy eating habits in the future. There are barriers that are hard for low income families to get over to get healthy foods, however improving and expanding public transport or giving government subsidies to make low