May 18, 2007
It's Tough to Eat Healthy in Harlem
In a real shocker, a City Health Department report released earlier this week shares that people living in Harlem have fewer healthy food options than their counterparts in other boroughs. The full report, available here, found that despite Harlem's many bodegas and corner stores, they were half as likely to carry low-fat dairy products and far less likely to offer as large a selection of vegetables as a grocery store on the Upper East Side.
And thanks to additional unhealthy findings, including the fact that Harlem has three times as many fast-food restaurants per person than in other parts of New York, a resident of Harlem is three times more likely to be diabetic or obese than your average Upper East Sider. As many as one third of the citizens of the borough also die from complications of diabetes or heart disease.
In an effort to reduce these disparities in food consumption and their attendant ill-effects, the Health Department has organized The Harlem Food and Fitness Consortium, a group of community partners who will work as healthy policy advocates. Some other key findings from the report include:
- In East and Central Harlem, bodegas or corner stores are twice as common as on the Upper East Side (66% vs. 33% of surveyed food stores). Supermarkets, which offer more healthy food choices, are much more common on the Upper East Side.
- Harlem bodegas are about half as likely as those on the Upper East Side to sell low-fat dairy products (milk, yogurt and cottage cheese). Only 3% of corner stores in Harlem sell leafy green vegetables compared to 20% on the Upper East Side.
- One in six restaurants (16%) in East and Central Harlem is a fast-food restaurant compared to 4% on the Upper East Side.
For more information on eating healthy, check out the Department of Health page.
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"As many as one third of the citizens of the borough also die from complications of diabetes or heart disease."
Harlem is not a borough, it's in Manhattan.
Otherwise a good story.
Well, healthy food costs money, honey. Ever try going on Atkins? It increases your food budget two-fold.
Brown rice, whole wheat, soy milk... all of it costs much more than most average people with mouths to feed can afford.
it doesn't take policy change so much as a shift in personal responsibility. perhaps some education wil help but all a resident has to do is ask the bodega owner to stock low-fat milk. mine responded immediately. they sell what people buy. how far away is one of the cheapest and healthiest foods known... a bag of lentils?
Soy-based fat-free cheese - $4.99/oz.
Government cheese - FREE
No wonder there are so many fatties in Harlem. Even having a Whole Foods up there ain't gonna help if grocery costs an arm and two legs.
The availabilities of certain food products in a neighborhood is very directly correlated to the demand of the consumers in those markets.
What the focus should be is nutrition education.
This story is an oldie but a goodie - see nyccah.org/files/harlem.pdf.
Regarding personal responsibility, Adam Drewnowski said it best: "You can tell poor people to play tennis and eat mangoes, but if there aren't tennis courts or decently priced mangoes nearby, are they going to?"
Maybe instead of lecturing poor people on how they should be eating, we should enhance programs that increase their ability to afford good stuff like Food Stamps - which happens to be up for reauthorization RIGHT NOW.
Poor people tend to live in clusters.
Oh please. You don't need overpriced luxury food like "fat-free soy cheese" to be healthy. Dry beans, rice, pasta, and canned fruit/vegetables are all dirt cheap (and available at most any bodega). It's just easier to stuff yourself and your kids with Kennedy Fried Chicken than it is to cook.
Healthy food is very cheap. Problem is people are too lazy to prepare it. Hence fast food.
A can of black beans and rice for dinner costs about $1.50 ... even in Harlem.
A big mac and fries with large soda? Probably $6.
I doubt money is the object. Nor is availability. The problem is education.
Maybe instead of lecturing poor people on how they should be eating, we should enhance programs that increase their ability to afford good stuff like Food Stamps - which happens to be up for reauthorization RIGHT NOW.
Before you blindly go preaching the awesomeness of food stamps, work in a supermarket around the first of the month. It's eye-opening when you do a $60 order worth of food stamps along with about $75 dollars worth of cigarettes, soda, beer, and prepared foods. And that was upstate; I can't even begin to imagine the abuse that goes on down here.
It's good program, as is WIC, but without any monitoring of what ELSE people are spending your money on, it's worthless.
Yeah, actually not. I love reading comments like these from fellow "liberal" New Yorkers.
1) "Healthy food is very cheap." This is exactly what the DOH study disproves. Not only is healthy food expensive, it is more expensive in poor neighborhoods than rich ones (because the majority of retailers are smaller, and so have to charge more to get any real profit from it). Read before you opine.
2) "People are too lazy" to prepare food. Why work all day, then cook dinner for your family when you can get the same filling sensation for your kids from a cheaper McDonald's meal? Ever used the dollar menu? No amount of education will change rational economic decision-making.
lazy or f$%$ing tired after working a ton of hours?
judge not.
Tom,
Thanks for the perspective on food stamps, but your anecdote doesn't stack up with the available research. Of all the money USDA has thrown at this, not one study has not found any negative effect of food stamps on overall diet. Who knows, maybe upstate is the outlier in their studies.
it's amazingly silly to hear people say, "give them more food stamps!". Throw more money at the problem and suddenly they'll wake up and start eating their veggies, whole grain foods and buying lowfat milk? Nigga please.
Where I live, in a moderately trendy part of NYC, there are two supermarkets and one vegetable/grocery within three blocks of my home. Plus three or four bodegas. So when I have time I can get good stuff from the supermarkets.
It looks to me like in a lot of Harlem there are simply not that many supermarkets. So if it's harder to get good food, people will eat less of it.
"2) "People are too lazy" to prepare food. Why work all day, then cook dinner for your family when you can get the same filling sensation for your kids from a cheaper McDonald's meal? Ever used the dollar menu? No amount of education will change rational economic decision-making."
Your question is this: "Why work all day, then cook dinner for your family when you can get the same filling sensation for your kids from a cheaper McDonald's meal?"
First off, McDonalds is not cheaper for a family. Rice and beans, with a whole spit cooked chicken is very cheap. Maybe $10 total for a family.
Secondly, "Why work all day, then cook dinner for your family?"
Because hopefully you are trying to do what's best for your family. You make it sound like people on the UES don't work all day. They do. And when they go home, many spend time to prepare meals for their family that are healthy.
I was always of the "you dont have to be rich to eat healthy!" camp especially watching my mother navigate through the grocery with a nil budget...one thing I will never eat again-beans & rice or any combination there in!
But...having moved to a non-gentrified area of Brooklyn, I feel their pain. Our one grocery (of sorts) only carries the full fat dairy products, salad dressings, msg-laden soups, second rate chips, expired can goods and so on. I once asked about low-fat cottage, promising to buy the entire case, and got "no honey, we dont do that here!" So I can agree that food options are limited and challeging and I have the luxury of a reasonable salary. I can see the temptation to give up the healthy eating attempts myself and I have nothing to complain about! So of course lower income individuals who only know this option will eat it and will not be as healthy.
Fair enough, J - everybody should cook for their family. Or maybe hire someone to cook for them?...
Sorry, there I go again. No disrespect to the UES, but do you really believe most people who live there have the same time and energy resources that working folks in E. Harlem do?
We're going to have to differ on the cost of McDonald's - and the long-term nutritional value of canned beans and spit chicken. Bleh.
jc,
All due respect, your fondness for foods stamps is naive at best. Presuming your reference to USDA studies has some truth, the USDA (like all bureacracies) has an interest in maintaining funding for such programs even though (shocker) it may not be good public policy.
I've had a very similar experience to Tom and in New Mexico, not upstate New York... maybe they're both outliers, but I wouldn't count on it. I've also seen a secondary market in food stamps where those who would rather have the cash (to buy drugs or alcohol) sell them at a discount for cash.
As to Harlem's food choices (West Harlem, anyway): Fairway is there and has remarkable selection at reasonable prices. Citarella's also has very high quality food (at admittedly higher prices, but I've always found their produce comes relatively cheap while their meats, fish and prepared foods command a premium).
I vote for the education and personal responsibility approach here. No amount of government money in food stamps is going to cure this problem.
Yeah, those conspiratorial bodega owners are banding together to clog the arteries of their customers. This is just another manifestation of the victim "my problem is someone else's fault" mentality.
Why do the poor immigrant Chinese of Sunset Park have such an amazing selection of dirt-cheap fresh fruits and vegetables (usually of far better quality than you'd find in a good supermarket)? Because that's what they want and will buy with their limited resources (along with one of those 50 lb bags of rice once a month).
West Harlem is far more gentrified than Central and East Harlem. Sure, Fairway has been there forever, but other restaurants, cafes and stores with healthy options have only cropped up in the past 5 years. I went to college up there, 8 years ago there was nothing around 125th & Broadway except a McDonald's and fried chicken places.
Meanwhile, in East and Central Harlem (where I live), the healthy food shopping options are really limited. As someone mentioned, it IS because of the dearth of supermarkets. Sometimes I go to the 24-hour Pathmark on 125th and Lexington. Their selection is okay, but no matter what time I go, it is always mobbed, you can't find a cart, and you spend a *minimum* of 15 minutes in line to check out. That's the only grocery store in the neighborhood, unless you're willing to walk several blocks north or south. Bodegas stock crap (milk with a past expiration date). There are a couple of health food joints on 125th near Lenox and a great produce store. Unfortunately, everything closes by 8pm. I don't know about anyone else, but I rarely get home from work before then. (I am not necessarily saying people work harder than those on the UES, but our commute is definitely longer.) I'm often too tired to hike to Pathmark and wait in line at that point. That's why I do Fresh Direct. Which is totally not cost effective but the produce is good, and it's convenient. I am lucky that I am a single professional and can afford to spend that much money on fruits and veggies that taste good because I don't have multiple mouths to feed. ALot of people in my neighborhood don't have that option.
Anyone who thinks people living in Harlem on a limited budget are just "lazy" and abuse food stamps should actually try to shop for food up there before passing judgment on something they know nothing about.
the grocery store on adam clayton powell and 123rd closed 3 or 4 months ago. its across from a luxury condo complex. the bodega on my corner that used to sell bad milk and no produce closed as they build another luxury condo on my block. harlem might be gentrifying, but that doesn't improve the produce situation for middle to low income residents.
YO!YO!YO! WhAT UP SON! I can't believe dat shit Holmes! Dat's straight up ill! I be eatin my BMac's on the Dl away from the Popo and now you be tellin me dat dis shit is fucked up like an arab deli? You know I gotta go for mine's aight? Yaknow whatI'msayin? I be eating whatever the fuck I want. Fuck this shit. one life y'all.
Amen to I Feel Their Food Pain. The local bodegas in the n'hood I used to live in in Brooklyn stocked only whole milk - nothing lower-fat than that. There was either no produce or really shoddy produce. There was a C-Town nearby that had pretty limited hours and a very, very expensive food coop about a mile away. I managed to sniff out a few decent places, but it wasn't easy.
Oh, and no Fresh Direct delivery.
1. Most bodegas are crap. They only sell crap. Does anyone seriously think any of their deli stuff is appropriate for human consumption? Not only is their stuff crap, it is expensive crap. Do you seriously think canned fruit/vegetables are good for you? I vomit on that crap. We aren't living in a 3rd world country.
2. Beans and pea soup and chicken 365 days a year? Yummy yummy. Why don't you try doing that.
3. If you live in the UES, chances are your maid cooks the dinner, you buy take out, your partner cooks it, or you cook but you rarely work long hours at your nice paying job. And certainly no beans, rice, and canned cabbage for you.
4. "they sell what people buy" No they don't; they sell you what they can get away with.
here's a crazy idea. what if the government spent a little more money on education programs that encourage kids and their parents to eat right? and instead of "throwing money at the problem" offer incentives. like if people in a community attended workshops/classes, they could then get money to start and run a coop.
without visibly beneficial options, it's hard for a twelve year old at the corner store to see the advantage of buying an orange at the grocery store for sixty cents when he/she can get two bags of delicious greasy chips for fifty cents and still have a shiny dime left for some sugary sour power straws. and their parents may be absent, and some of them may be lazy, but many of them are working hard day and night and really do not have the time or energy or money to buy fresh, quality produce and prepare healthy meals every morning and evening.
also, this problem is not specific to harlem. for more examples of health problems and poor eating options please see brownsville crown heights east new york...i could go on.
The New York Times did a study where they proved that you CAN buy fresh vegetables in Harlem and the Bronx and spend less than buying things like McDonalds. And you don't need low fat milk or cheese to be healthy. Eating in moderation is the key. Since the liberal New York crowd loves to look to Europe as the beacon of everything good and true, look no further than France. Small portions of regular food is an easy way to control calorie intake.
Yes, you CAN buy fresh veggies and fruits in Harlem. No one is disputing that. The problem is convenience and availbility. If there is no produce available within 10 blocks, and there are two McDonald's on your way home, which do you think people are going to choose? If the places that sell produce close at 7 or 8pm and McDonald's is open until midnight, and a person's hungry, they're going to McDonald's.
That said, I have gone to Pathmark at 11pm on a weeknight (when I had absolutely nothing to eat in the house) and seen tons of people shopping. So I guess if you are really determined, you can do it. But I doubt it's people with kids who are grocery shopping late at night.
it's not that Harlem has a large amount of fast food restaurants, it's that the UES doesn't have enough! there's not a single Wendy's on the whole UES, only 1 BK, a pair of McD's, a lone KFC and a Taco Bell. The UES is underserved by the fast food industry big time!
i work in a school in east harlem (at pleasant ave and 120th, one block east of first ave). the only grocery stores (in the area of 116th st to lexington to 125th to the river) that i am aware of are the pathmark and a fine fare minimart place on 1st ave at 119th. the bodegas are, quite frankly, disgusting. i can't imagine living in east harlem (i live in queens) and having to deal with the lack of adequate grocery stores, especially in terms of purchasing fresh fruits and veggies. (interestingly enough, one of my students told me last week that her mom takes the WIC check down to the whole foods in union square for grocery shopping. let me tell you, that is a serious trek - at least 35 minutes on the 6, then waiting for a bus back over to pleasant ave.) i think there's a combination of factors happening here - not the right nutrition education, a lack of available resources, and a flawed food stamp program.
Does education taste good?
Why should anyone be surprised by this? Only rich people are thin and healthy, while the poor welfare mothers and their broods are fat, lazy and live off government cheese and Happy meals. It's the way of life folks, get used to it.
I live in Harlem, and I agree that we lack grocery stores up here. I can only make it down to TJ's, Whole Foods, Fairway, and even Pathmark every so often. If someone is smart, they will open up a decent supermarket in Harlem where it's quickly gentrifying. All those mothers with strollers are going to need to do their shopping somewhere.
And let's face it, how many New Yorkers of any economic bracket cook all their meals every day of the week? Folks with money can opt to eat a relatively healthy meal at their local restaurant or order relatively healthy food for delivery. In Harlem, it is just so much more convenient to pick up some fried chicken or other fast food.
Convenience makes a big difference.
let me get this straight people are complaining that they don't make enough money to eat fewer calories? that is a problem of overabundance. it's hard to believe that we've devolved into a species so helpless that we can't even put the right food into our mouths.
the study is flawed. lack of availability is a myth. buy the beans, pasta, tortillas, lentils, grains, peanut butter. dried or canned. that chinese place where you get the pork fried rice will also sell you steamed veggies for the same price. anyone can make lentil soup for the entire week in the time it takes to wait in the mcd's line (and save $50-75 for the week... spend less, work less). i've been there (yes i make every single meal) and it is not hard if you care at all. skip the fast food. it's your choice.