EDITORIAL: The Cost of Healthy Living

By Diana Herritt

Have you ever considered the connection between low-income families and the quality of their food? It is apparent that in areas of our countries with lower standards of living, a greater percentage of the population is overweight. It looks as if everyone is making the wrong lifestyle choices—but lack of health consideration may not be the only factor in determining food preference.

I browsed through aisles, scanning up and down trying to make the perfect choice. Those bananas and healthy smoothies would surely be enough to fill me up from New York to Pennsylvania. With money as not something of my concern, I had no limits. At the check out line, I could not help but ignorantly judge those with carts containing cheese curls and snack bags. Only when I took notice of the dramatic price differences did it occur to me that some people simply lacked the money. Their budgets cannot afford enough fruits and vegetables to feed their entire families. It is much easier to buy a greater amount of processed foods that will last longer rather than spend that money on a smaller amount of short-lasting fruits and vegetables. The price of health is very unappealing.

So I have to ask, just why exactly is eating healthy so expensive? If obesity is such a huge concern, why is simply eating healthy a struggle for part of our population? The government is subsidizing the food industries aimed towards the more profitable foods, such as those containing high-fructose corn syrup. Unlike your organics, these foods can be produced whenever and in mass quantities, so they are more readily available. What the government fails to realize is that they will be paying to deal with the health problems that come from the very foods they support. This is not to say junk food should be banned, because there certainly are those who can consume these foods in perfect moderation. However, food industries aimed towards healthier products deserve the backing of government subsidies more so than the others.

If the government will help, the lower price of healthier foods could create a great incentive to buy healthy. Higher demand will allow for a safer drop in price, hopefully a drop big enough to encourage that better choice. People will still need to learn how to make the proper lifestyle changes, but lowering the costs is the first step towards preventing chronic disease such as heart diseases, diabetes, and even cancer.