Poverty and obesity directly correlated

Valleycentral: 07.25.2013

Michael Seifert of the Rio Grande Valley Equal Voice Network said there is a direct correlation between hunger due to poverty and obesity.

Low-income people have less access to healthy, more expensive food and are becoming ill with deadly diseases like diabetes.

“Obesity and diabetes is extraordinarily expensive to the whole community, just as eating healthy is extraordinarily difficult for people to afford, that don’t have that kind of disposable income,” Seifert said.

A room full of spectators viewed the documentary “A Place at the Table” Thursday in Brownsville, which deals with hunger and obesity in the U.S. today.

Sister Phyllis of Projecto Juan Diego, said it’s going to take a systematic change to impact these problems.

She added it could start with stores lowering the price of healthy foods and increasing the price of unhealthy ones. Read more