Nutrition, Health and African-American Children

Unbalanced Health Statistics

What about African-American children? This is a query associated with civil rights issues and the achievement gap, but does not instinctively come to mind when delving into the disparities regarding nutrition and health within America. However this is an issue in need of redress, with obese Americans being disproportionately represented by people of color, and blacks comprising the largest group of children with Type II diabetes. It is apparent that blacks are being affected by some societal pressures to eat more, eat more unhealthy foods, and thus gain increasing amounts of weight, but what is the linchpin?

Problematic Factors

Taking into account the current situation, it can be argued that the overexposure of blacks, especially black children, to unhealthy food advertising, lack of healthy alternatives to fast food within the black urban communities, and overall limited information availability to the black community regarding healthy eating habits are the leading factors in the “obesification” of the black community.

It is at once apparent that one of the major factors in this crisis starts with schools, where children are first exposed to nutritional standards. One of the main issues that urban cities face, which are generally comprised of minority constituents, is underfunding. While suburban upper middle class communities are able to focus more on local taxation to support the school system, poorer urban communities are more federal-funding dependent. Furthermore, for many schools serving a la carte items, which are generally high in sugar and fat, these foods are actually less costly than federal lunches, leading many urban schools to rely on these unhealthy alternatives to raise revenue.

Additionally, corporate influence plays an exceedingly prominent role in the life of urban black students. Not only are more snack and fast food ads advertised on black oriented television networks than other channels, but most children watching six hours, or more, of television a day are black. Furthermore, as reported by the “Children, Obesity and Associated Avoidable Chronic Diseases” project, the majority of television food advertising is for unhealthy food, further promoting a toxic food environment.

Research by the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity reveals that more food corporations are coming into schools to fill in sponsorship and funding gaps left by state and federal underfunding. This results in students being overexposed to slogans, labels, and overall marketing by these unhealthy food corporations on a daily basis. This proliferation on all sides by corporate advertising undoubtedly leads to an over-consumption of these generally unhealthy products.

Signs of Progress

While the situation is bleak, it is not hopeless. One of the issues that need to be addressed is that obesity takes different forms within different American communities. Traditionally, urban centers are characterized by unhealthy foods, with healthier food corporations shying away due to perceived lack of interest or increased costs. However, they don’t take into account that without proper education about the ill effects of an improper diet and lack of exercise, the urban populace would be generally ignorant to the adverse situation of their food environment. This is why initiatives to promote information about the benefits of a healthy, nutritious lifestyle are so important to combat the growing levels of noncommunicable diseases within the African-American community.

It is reassuring to see that some progress has been made, with the U.S. Department of Education recently offering physical education program grants to schools and community organizations in an attempt to decrease levels of obesity in poorer students. Additionally, more focus needs to be placed on the adverse effects of food marketing to children in schools, by continuing with initiatives such as the removal of soft drinks and foods of minimal nutritional value from elementary schools. In America, a land where so much depends upon the health of the populace, we can not afford to ignore the detrimental effects obesity within the black community has on our society as a whole.

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