Local Views

BESITY AND OTHER possibly food-related ailments like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease make headlines about as often as does Britney Spears or Mars, which means they're big news. Evidently, Americans aren't the fittest bunch out there, and if you're from a lower-income neighborhood chances are even better than average that some food-related ailment lurks around the corner.

In 2001, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reported grim statistics for under-served neighborhoods like East Harlem. That year, death rates for all causes, including diabetes, were higher in East Harlem than in New York City as a whole. And heart disease was the leading cause of hospitalization of adults in East Harlem. In 2001, there were 1,755 admissions.

Just south of this neighborhood is the affluent Uppper East Side. That same year, the death rates for most causes were lower than that of New York City as a whole. There were 25 deaths attributed to diabetes, which is often linked to obesity. In East Harlem, the number was nearly double that.

Joel Berg, the executive director of the New York City Coalition Against
Hunger (NYCCAH) attributes the disparity to both a lack of education about nutrition and a lack of access to healthy, nourishing food.

"In lower income communities there often aren't nutritional alternatives," he says.

Kathleen McTigue, a program coordinator for the city farms initiatives of Just Food (a non-profit organization that according to its web site "works to develop a just and sustainable food system in the New York City region") adds
that many in the city simply don't know how to prepare a nutritious meal. Many New Yorkers wouldn't know what to do with an eggplant, she says. Furthermore, in lower-income neighborhoods, residents may often not have the money upfront for healthy grocery shopping, she adds.

To find out what New Yorkers in or from some of Manhattan's lower-income neighborhoods had to say about their eating habits, NYC24 headed to the streets. We talked to New Yorkers in East Harlem where according to 2000 census data the per capita income is $17,740 and 34 percent of residents live at or below the poverty line; on the Lower East
Side, where per capita income is $15,708 and 30 percent of

Click for larger display of comparative incomes.

residents live below the poverty line; and in Chinatown, where the per capita income is $12,768 and 28 percent live below the poverty line. In comparison, per capita income in Manhattan averages $46,371, according to the 2002 American Community Survey Profile published by the Census Bureau.

Tag along and hear what New Yorkers have to say:

The following audio clips (.mp3 files,120-880 kb) run from 15 to 45 seconds PHOTOS: Lane Johnson

Moni Queharvey, 22, sounds off on fast food and why she eats what she wants.

Dylan Yeats, 22, a student at NYU, talks about rotting veggies.

Marissa Palmerton (left), 20, and Katie Chanler, 18, discuss their eating habits.

Jose Fortuna, 22, says his Spanish culture plays a large role in dictating his diet.

Hazel Song, 24, talks about $10 salads and $1 dumplings.

Carla Ullman, 33, gives us the final word on the Noodle House in the Lower East Side.

Sounding off on Food

UTRITIONISTS SAY THE practice of eating a certain way plays a role in poor diets and health. Others say a problem is a lack of options. Here, East Harlem Residents tell it like it is. The following audio clips (.mp3 120-880 kb) run from 15 to 33 seconds.

Sean Jamal Lawrence, 28, says he is racing for time -- and food.

Lucy Lamond, 24, says being pregnant drives her to eat everything.

Jason Romero, 23, is happy with his "cuchifritos."

Christine Camilo, 35,struggled as a vegetarian.

Raul Rios, 41, complains that it's hard to avoid fast food when it's in your face.

Food Insecure

VERYONE KNOWS WHAT it means to be hungry, but not everyone knows what it means to be "food insecure." Most Americans can afford the $37.50 a week that it takes to be food secure, which means that one can essentially afford all the food one needs. Joel Berg, the executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH) says that the USDA coined the terms food secure and food insecure to reflect the reality that while there is not mass starvation in the United States, there remain people who must routinely choose between buying a meal or paying for some other necessity such as
rent.

The average food insecure person, Berg says, spends $27.50 a week on food, which means the average food insecure person would have to increase their weekly food budget by some 36 percent to be food secure. The term food insecure comprises both those who are insecure with hunger and those who are insecure without hunger. Insecure without hunger refers to those who don't have a constant stream of meals, while insecure with hunger is more serious, says Berg.

"You know it when you see it," he says, and thousands of New Yorkers volunteer so that there might be less of it, he adds.

New York City has some 1,000 soup kitchens and food pantries, and more than 70 percent of these agencies have no paid staff, according to the NYCCAH.
Recently, Berg says the agency has been struggling to serve rising numbers of people in need of food and increasingly have been forced to turn away the hungry.

Food pantries and soup kitchens depend upon a medley of local, state and federal aid. The NYCCAH's web site explains the precarious funds and provides
a list of the city's food pantries and soup kitchens, as well as the ways in which one can help those that are food insecure: visit NYCCAH

Visual Aids

Kathleen McTigue, a program coordinator for the city carms arm of Just Food, says she regularly hears complaints from residents of low-income neighborhoods that only low quality fruits and vegetables are available. Here Harlemites pick through fruit from a street vendor on West 125th Street. PHOTO: Lane Johnson

Experts and locals agree: Low-income neighborhoods are replete with not-so-healthy food. PHOTO: Lane Johnson