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Is Eating Healthy Too Expensive?

Many experts agree that buying healthy food has a barrier: the price. By eating nutritious foods, the world’s current obesity epidemic could be reduced drastically, but unfortunately, there may be a reason for why certain socioeconomic groups are more overweight than others.

The Harvard School of Public Health has now conducted research to see whether it is too expensive to eat healthy if you are making less money.

The short answer is yes, it can be.

Mayuree Rao, lead researcher in HSPH’s study, found that lean meats compared to fattier pieces of meat were globally more expensive. She was able to study 10 different countries, convert the food prices between countries and adjust the prices to correlate with inflation.

She found that although the level of difference varied, there was in fact a correlation between the more nutritious and healthier versions of food and the price. Generally, lean cuts of meat cost 29 cents more than the fattier cuts.

Grains, dairy and snack foods have less of a price barrier and often are enhanced with added vitamins and nutrients. This does not necessarily make them healthier though. Many snack foods and cereals have added vitamins and minerals, but are also high in added sugars, fats and are not made with whole grains, but instead refined grains.

Diets that were most beneficial and balanced with lean meats, vegetables, fruits and dairy cost approximately $1.50 more a day than the unhealthy options.

This may seem like a minimal impact to your wallet, but it is actually almost $50 more a month spent on groceries. For families that are on a tight budget it is understandable why the fresher and healthier choices are sometimes skipped over for the less nutritious, but more affordable options.

For low-income areas, healthier options like full-service grocers are not available. Residents are forced to use convenience stores, which do not always have fresh produce, and when they do, the fruits and vegetables available are not always the best quality and are therefore less appealing.

The availability of full-service grocery stores may be the answer. With more options that are accessible, low-income communities will be able to get some on-sale items and not have to resort to buying convenience store foods or buy meals from fast food restaurants.

– Becka Felcon

Sources: Food Research and Action Center, CNN
Photo: The Good Calorie.com

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Smoking: A Survival Method?


According to a study by The Population Health Metrics, people living in poor neighborhoods are more prone to smoke at higher rates than those living in wealthier communities. An estimated 25% of adults with less than 12 years of education smoke cigarettes.

One survey shows that most people living in poverty want to quit smoking, but unfortunately it’s not as simple as “just quitting”.

Tobacco companies have been proven to promote smoking in lower income communities by lowering the price of cigarettes and flooding the neighborhoods with cigarette advertisements. In some cities, like Philadelphia, one can buy cigarettes for about $5 without tax.

The director of policy and planning for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, Giridhar Mallya, stated that those living in poverty smoke to comfort his or her depression and stress.

For some, smoking is not just a coping method, but also a survival method. Lindell Harvey of Crum Lynne, Delaware smokes when he has run out of food.

Smoking enables the body to fend off the feeling of hunger. In Camden, New Jersey, 51-year-old Elaine Styles, a day-care worker who was laid-off, smokes so she doesn’t feel like she has to eat, “I make sure my family eats, then I have a loosie and go to bed.” A loosie is a single cigarette sold for about 50 cents.

Many wonder though, how do people living in poverty afford such an expensive habit? Buying cigarettes in low-income neighborhoods costs an estimated $1,000 a year with approximately 14% of income spent on cigarettes a year.

Nicotine triggers the part of the brain stem that causes one to feel comfort and safety. There are reasons behind the addiction that make sense once the dynamics of poverty are taken into account: the hopelessness of feeling trapped and the “limited sense of having a future,” says Elijah Anders, a Yale University sociologist.

There is hope for the future, though. Rates of smoking have dropped about seven percent between 2004 and 2012, with lower rates of teen smoking and a decline in adult smoking.

With more focus on poverty issues, the numbers are expected to steadily drop within the next few years.

– Becka Felcon

Sources: CNN, CDC, Philly
Photo: Blogspot

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My Reasons for Writing and Why You Should Write Too

I decided to write for The Borgen Project not only because I want to disseminate interesting developments from all over the world for everyone to read, but also because the act of writing itself also contains many heath benefits. Quite frankly, it is very pleasant.

Before we begin, I would like to disclaim any expertise in psychology on my part. However, there have been numerous studies on the benefits of writing. First of all, have you been noticing that you are learning new things and forgetting some of the old ones all the time? Writing helps you to remember and going back through your journal or diary can help you refresh your memory. My apologies if the following information may bore those who do not take great pleasure in reading about the human cerebral anatomy, but our brains have an involuntary information intake filter. This filter determines which sensory inputs (sights and sounds, for example) to register and if the brain is under a lot of stress, this filter will work in a very particularly selective manner. This is because your amygdala—that’s one of the pink gooey gummy things in your brain (scientifically speaking)—conducts information to the lower reactive part of the brain when you are under stress. To put it briefly—you are welcome—stress puts you into the fight or flight mode and when you are in that mode you do not remember information very well.

So, this is where reasons for writing comes into play. First, it reduces your stress (yes, it actually does, I swear). Writing about your traumatic or stressful experiences (expressive writing) helps you cope with these emotions. Just 15 minutes to 20 minutes of writing several times a week is sufficient. I mean, if you have time to look at photos of cats, I am sure you will have some time to spare for writing. It’s good and good for you.

Furthermore, in AIDS patients, expressive writing helps to improve memory and sleep and to reduce the viral load and helps with post-surgical recovery. A test conducted on cancer patients also revealed that writing makes the subjects feel better both physically and mentally. In fact, there is even a name for the medical use of writing to facilitate recovery. It is called journal therapy.

Writing not only helps you, it can also serve to help others. The United Nations estimated that around 774 million adults 15 years old or above are illiterate, and 493 million of them are women. Much of these figures come from developing countries or underdeveloped countries. Part of what writing with The Borgen Project does is give a voice to those who cannot express themselves to the international public. Writing about the issue of global poverty puts a human face on the sufferings of those whose lives might otherwise be grossly abbreviated as numbers after the sports news coverage. It also helps to raise public awareness of the fact that beyond our immediate surroundings, there people who are going through inconceivable ordeals.

However, when writing about poverty, I personally always keep in mind that I should write about the subjects respectfully and, as much as it is possible within my capacity, to preclude any vertical power relation. By perpetuating the idea that certain groups of people are dependent on the collective discursive “us” and that they owe this “us” their livelihood only serves to further stigmatize poverty, the poor, and the underdeveloped world.

Lastly, if you like posting pictures of your cakes and coffee on Facebook, love hoarding “likes” from your friends, take delight in posting on your Twitter or all of the above, you are already halfway there. Start a blog, write for social change, send your writing to your local gazette or simply keep a journal for yourself to read. It is good for your health, it is free (pen and paper not included), it’s fun, it doesn’t hurt anyone, it makes you happy and it has no sodium. Not a lot of things do all that these days.

– Peewara Sapsuwan

Sources: Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, Lifehacker, The New York Times, The UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Scientific American, The George Lucas Educational Foundation
Photo: Antonio Siber

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Saving Calories & Lives

In recent years, technology and applications have had an increasingly philanthropic purpose. The latest of these technologies is the Share Your Calories application. The app was designed by Catherine Jones, a well-known author of nutrition cookbooks, Elaine Trujillo, a leader in nutrition, and Stop Hunger Now, an international agency aimed to end hunger across the globe.

The app can be used to help people lose weight while simultaneously providing food to people harmed by natural disasters. By adding a philanthropic purpose, the designers of the application aimed to give users another goal as well as more motivation to eat healthier. Studies also show that spending on others makes us happier than spending on ourselves, so the application, in and of itself, allows users to feel lasting happiness.

The application allows users to monitor their daily activities and food intake through a calorie bank determined by bio-data. If they do not consume all the calories in their calorie bank, the user has the option to convert the extra calories into monies. Once they have accumulated $12, the user has the option to donate to Stop Hunger Now.

Each Stop Hunger now high-protein dehydrated meal is equivalent to 250 calories and 25 cents.

The financial contributions from the Share Your Calories App go toward Stop Hunger Now meal packaging events. Each of these meals contains rice, dehydrated soy and vegetables as well as a vitamin-mineral pack. These meals are easy to store and have a shelf-life of 2 years.

These meals are currently distributed through host-organizations, but the funds from this application will also allow smaller groups and businesses to participate.

This application hopes to bring in $95,000 to build an android app, provide basic nutrition information, translate the app into different languages, etc. The Stop Hunger Now effort is supported by the Medical Science Foundation, TruBios Communications, iSO-FORM, The Ohio State University Food Innovation Center and the Experiment.

– Lienna Feleke-Eshete

Sources: IndieGoGo, FoodTank
Photo: Irish Red Cross

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Poverty in Italy

Italian_Poverty
Whenever there is mention of Italy, one is usually prompted to daydream to the romantic capital of Rome, to splendid and sunny Sicily, or even to the venerable Vatican. Seldom does poverty come to mind – thus, it may come as a surprise that Italy has, in fact, the highest amount of impoverished children in Europe—in which it is also the third largest economy.

As many as two million children are estimated to live below the poverty line in Italy, many of whom never even get the chance to attend school; those who do, on the other hand, often drop out to pursue a minimum wage job. Sex trade is, furthermore, rather common here, while access to hot water and other basic amenities is not.

According to UNICEF, a staggering one in two children in Italy live in “absolute poverty,” their parents unable to supply them with even the simplest of items such as Band-Aids. The aforementioned Sicily, a population tourist destination for its beaches, tanning and shopping, houses 32 percent of the poorest of Italy’s population. There is also a pressing lack of public child care services, which reportedly receives but 1.1 percent of the country’s total GDP. The ongoing economic crisis has only fostered these issues; however, UNICEF, among other concerned organizations, deems the country’s inattentiveness to its children’s futures as detrimental to the entire nation as a whole.

The divide among wealth is particularly evident within the northern and southern regions, the latter being the poorest area. Notably, the majority of sick children, regardless of origin, receive treatment in northern facilities, indicating the lack of- and poor quality of such in the south.

Moreover, in a study conducted in 2013, it was determined that a total of nearly five million Italians (or eight percent of the entire country’s population) live in absolute poverty. Despite Italy being filled with sunshine the year round (unlike some other countries in Europe, such as the ever-successful Sweden,) it is evidently one of the most unhappy nations out there. In this year’s World Happiness Report – surveying 156 countries – Italy places in at 45; while the United States (considerably bigger and more diverse, thus expected to do worse statistically rather than better than Italy,) comes in at 17.

Although nine out of 10 of the world’s poorest countries are currently located in Africa, and although Asia and India are other regions that are highly impacted by poverty, Italy, often perceived as luxurious and comparatively well-off, is also in current need of aid. It is suffering and while not being third-world, certainly remains below the current acceptable quality-of-life level, particularly so in Europe.

– Natalia Isaeva

Sources: The Local, The Daily Beast
Photo: RT

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Rwanda Redefines HIV Care

HIV_Care_in_Rwanda
In a country where just 20 years ago, genocide claimed nearly one million lives, the Rwandan government has revamped HIV treatment for the poor by reforming the standards of successful care.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, there are now over 7.5 million people receiving antiretroviral therapy, 150 times as many as a decade ago. Medications have become easier to manage and overall, more effective, forcing some patients to take no more than one pill each day. Also, HIV testing has become much more widely available and the virus is being detected at an earlier stage before the circumstances are too dire.

In Rwanda, many HIV patients are taking their medications as directed, medication which suppresses the virus in their bodies to the point where it is essentially non-detectable. Success here is achieved when the HIV positive individual can earn a living, support their family and care for their community no differently than uninfected individuals. Furthermore, patients who would have previously been hospitalized with severe complications of HIV are now receiving regular preventive care.

The steps forward being taken in this small country are undeniable. Compared with 54 percent of medical patients worldwide, 91 percent of Rwandan patients who require HIV medications have access to life-saving treatment. Even more encouraging, 98 percent of women undergo HIV testing during their prenatal visits. In a country with only one doctor for every 17,000 people, nurses and community health workers have been trained to provide HIV services that were before, only available from physicians. Aggressive media campaigns by the government and other international organizations remind and encourage the public to “Know Your Status” while targeted outreach programs concurrently focus on the high-risk groups.

Rwanda is one of the first sub-Saharan countries to nearly eradicate the transmission of HIV from mothers to their newborns. Due to this, the number of new HIV cases has been cut in half during the last decade, and perhaps soon, it will fulfill the dream of accomplishing an “AIDS free generation.”

– Sonia Aviv

Sources: The Atlantic, The World Bank, BWH Global Health
Photo: AIDS Health

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Okonjo-Iweala & Truth about Foreign Aid: It Works

foreign aid
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, as former Finance Minister of Nigeria and as a managing director of the World Bank, is no stranger to managing the correct use of funds.

Okonjo-Iweala combatted corruption in her home country of Nigeria by establishing economic reforms and facilitating government transparency. As a consequence, Nigeria became alluring to foreign investors. According to Forbes, “Nigeria is the third largest economy in Africa with nearly $50 billion in foreign reserves.”

In a 2007 Ted Talk, Okonjo-Iweala discussed the importance of correctly managing funds, in particular, that of foreign aid. And yet, aid alone is not enough; local participation brings about the necessary solutions to improve development.

Writing for The Guardian, Okonjo-Iweala sites the importance of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria in reducing Malaria and Tuberculosis deaths as well as HIV infections.  The G8 supported endeavor resulted in 4.2 million people treated for HIV, 9.7 million for Tuberculosis and 310 bed nets for Malaria prevention.

The Global Fund was established in 2002 to fight and reduce Malaria, HIV/AIDS, and Tuberculosis infections and deaths. As a multilateral aid fund, originally conceived in a G8 summit in Okinawa, Japan, the Global Fund contributed to improving global health and development saving around 9 million lives.

In Nigeria specifically, 45 million bed nets and 8.1 treatments of artemisinin-based therapy prevents and treats Malaria.

The combination of foreign aid working alongside local actors echoes the hope that Okonjo-Iweala discussed in her Ted Conference. Similarly, the Global Fund mobilizes funds from donor countries, the private and philanthropic center, social enterprises and individuals themselves. It is with the collaboration of all sectors that aid can truly improve the situation in both short and long term.

– Miles Abadilla

Sources: Forbes, The Global Fund, TED, The Guardian, The Global Fund, TED
Photo: Giphy.com

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Cancer Cases at All Time High

Cancer cases
According to the World Health Organization, Cancer cases are soaring each year. Data indicates an upward trend from 12.7 million cases in 2008 to 14 million in 2012. Cancer related deaths have also increased from 7.6 million to 8.3 million since 2008. With these growing rates, there is a desperate need for advances in diagnosis and detection of cancer.

An IARC report has shown a connection between increased smoking, obesity and cancer rates. This report also predicts a rise in cancer cases to 19.3 million by 2025. Several types of cancer kill every year but the most common cancer affecting thousands of women worldwide and is a leading cause of deaths in developing countries is attributed to breast cancer.

Developed countries do not have the clinical advances required to stop the disease at an early stage. Several people living below the poverty level don’t even know they have breast cancer since clinics are scarce. The Word Health Organization has also claimed this urgency for treatment of breast cancer in developing countries as thousands die from late detection. In 2012, around 522,000 women from around the globe died of this disease. Lung cancer is also among the top most common cancers worldwide, about 13% of total cancer cases. The large amount of lung cancer rates has been linked to both increased smoking from adults and young adults alike. Longer lifespans also contributes to these spiking rates according to the BBC.

Several health leaders from IARC believe that these growing cancer rates can be changed through preemptive action seen before with cervical cancer and access to the HPV vaccination. They hope that national programs for screening can produce similar excellent results and by giving easy access to treatment or detection centers, several will be able to beat other forms of cancer.

– Maybelline Martez

Sources: BBC, NY Daily News, Global Post
Photo: Giphy.com

Maternal Mortality in Afghanistan

Maternal Mortality in Afghanistan
In recent years, Afghan women have achieved significant social, economic, political and cultural gains that affect their quality of life. Despite these improvements, the country is still burdened with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. According to UNICEF, 1,800 women die for every 100,000 births; most of these deaths are highly preventable, making it a serious public health concern.

The most common complication resulting in the death of the mother is post-partum hemorrhaging. Most Afghan women give birth in their homes, whether by choice or because of rural location. The differences in maternal mortality rates by region reflect the lack of resources and lack of access to health facilities. Most of the rural home-births are done without the presence of a skilled birthing attendant, increasing the risk for the mother.

UNICEF estimated that only 7 percent of women who died used a birthing attendant. Another challenge Afghan women face is access to hemorrhaging preventing drugs. Inexpensive drugs that simply don’t reach parts of rural Afghanistan where it is needed the most, due to conflict or allocation complications.

Afghanistan’s shortage of midwives and antihemorrhagic drugs are not the only two factors contributing to the high mortality rate. Lack of education, political participation, social and cultural practices also play large roles.

Women forced into marriages at a young age is not uncommon. Since contraception is not widely used, women also get pregnant at very young ages. When a woman is 14 or 15, the body is usually not developed enough to naturally carry a child. Women having children at a young age is arguably the greatest biological danger for a mother and her child. High maternal mortality rates directly effect infant mortality rates. When the mother of a newborn dies, the child only has a 1 in 4 chance of surviving the first year of  its life.

UNICEF and the Center for Disease Control make several recommendations aimed at improving the lives of women and reducing the maternal mortality rates: establishing health care services in rural areas that are equipped with essential drugs and able to perform cesarean sections, assisted deliveries and safe blood transfusions as necessary; increasing the number of trained birth attendants, midwives and nurses; providing education programs on recognizing pregnancy complications; and building and repairing roads to make health care facilities more easily accessible.

– Maris Brummel

Sources: New Security Beat, Huffington Post, UNICEF

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Social Determinants of Health

Medical Tourism
When most people think about the health of individuals, communities, and populations they think of access to healthcare. People in developing countries have a definite lack of access to doctors, nurses, drugs, and the latest medical technologies.  It is important to remember that the conditions people are born into also have a significant and lasting affect on their health. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of power and resources both globally and locally. These factors are known as the “Social Determinants of Health”

The social determinants of health are the social, economic, and political factors that shape the health of individuals, communities, and nations. Social determinants of health include both environmental resources such as housing, income and income distribution, unemployment, early life, education, and food insecurity.  They also include gender, ethnicity, class, and race.

The social determinants of health are responsible for health inequities. Health inequities are the large discrepancies in health status seen between countries and within countries. Wealthier countries in the developed world have much lower rates of infant mortality. The infant mortality rate is the number of infants who die before they reach age one, per 1000 births in any year.

The World Bank reports that Sweden, Norway, and Japan have an infant mortality rate of only two in 2012. The US is three times higher at six deaths per 1000 live births. Unfortunately, in many countries in sub Saharan Africa approximately 10% of children die before their first birthday. The infant mortality rate in Sierra Leone was 117 in 2012.

Another factor used to measure the health of nations that is largely impacted by the social determinants of health is life expectancy at birth. Countries in sub Saharan Africa fare the worst; Sierra Leone has a life expectancy of 45 years and Mozambique has a life expectancy of 49 years. High-income countries fare much better; Japan and Switzerland have average life expectancies of 83. The United States has an average life expectancy of 79 years.  Inequality within a country also has a large impact on the overall health of a nation. The U.S. has one of the highest rates of inequality in the world. This is why the US does not fare as well as other developed countries in infant mortality rates and life expectancy.

Health inequities are considered to be unfair and avoidable. It is widely considered that health inequities could be abolished with improved social policies and programs and great income iquality. At the World Conference on the Social Determinants of Health in 2011 the WHO developed five action areas for improving health equity:

1.    Adopt improved governance for health and development

2.    Promote participation in policy making and implantation

3.   Further reorient the health sector towards promoting health and reducing health inequities

4.   Strengthen global governance and collaboration

5.   Monitor progress and increase accountability

– Lisa Toole 

Sources: The World Bank, WHO, CDC, NCBI