The Healthy Food Financing Initiative Aims for Freshness
On Friday, the Obama Administration announced the details of its new Healthy Food Financing Initiative, funded with over $400 million to expand access to fresh, healthy food in underserved rural and urban communities.
It might sound strange that some neighborhoods need help getting grocery stores, but it's a real problem around the country. Imagine for a moment you're a child in the inner city, in Philadelphia or Atlanta, where the only place to buy food in your neighborhood is a corner convenience store that sells mostly beer and Doritos.
Fresh vegetables aren't available, so you eat whatever you can find — fast food, salty snacks, and soda. Even at school you eat fruits and veggies rarely; the free lunches the public school feeds you are usually pizza or sad-looking burgers or tater tots, which, in fact, the school system might well consider a vegetable course.
Because of this, your nutrition is poor, leaving you tired and distracted. You can't concentrate in school, so you're falling behind. Not only that but your health is in considerable danger; you're overweight and showing signs of pre-diabetes. There's very little you can do to change things.
With that picture in mind, consider for a minute how revolutionary it would be if markets selling fresh fruits and vegetables — along with a full complement of the staples one needs to cook proper, healthy meals — moved into these neighborhoods. Such a change could, quite simply, save a whole lot of lives.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the details of the new program. The Healthy Food Financing Initiative is a partnership between the Departments of Treasury, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services.
The issue of childhood nutrition and obesity has been gaining momentum lately, with several high-profile personalities coming out in support of action to create a healthier future for our children. Joining Geithner and Vilsack was First Lady Michelle Obama, whose newly launched Let's Move! campaign aims to end childhood obesity within a generation.
Former President Clinton is also speaking out; he recently participated in a press conference to promote Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a joint venture between the Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association. Chef Jamie Oliver is also taking a stand. With the wish that came along with the 2010 TED Prize we won, he requested help in starting a movement to educate children about food and empower people to fight obesity.
Everyone agrees that drastic measures are needed to fix this problem. As Geithner remarked in announcing the details of the Initiative, "we need to do more than simply recreate the economy of the last decade, the one we had before the crisis. That economy left a lot of people behind. We all know that even when times were good, they weren't good everywhere."
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