By Briana Vannozzi
Correspondent
It’s not a lack of food that creates hidden hunger, it’s the lack of healthy food options. Accessibility and cost can make eating a healthy meal a luxury for many people, especially in urban cities.
“For so many people in the U.S. they have access to food but they don’t have access to the healthy food that they need to grow and particularly kids. If they don’t have access to nutritious food in the first three years of their life, it really effects the development of their brain. It effects themselves physically, it’s hard to catch up on that as they get older,” said former first daughter Barbara Bush, CEO of Global Health Corps.
So Bush brought her campaign to fight malnutrition to Newark today with the help of several partners.
“We have Global Health Corps fellows placed here with Covenant House and the Boys and Girls Club of Newark and when they come here there’s now an after-school feeding program. So kids are going there for mentorship or for after-school programs. They’re using that as an opportunity to ensure that when they come there, they have access to nutritious foods,” Bush said.
“Usually when you think about malnutrition you think about someone who is very skinny, emaciated, hasn’t had food for a while and sometimes somebody can be malnutritioned and overweight,” said Tilinao Thyanga, a fellow for Global Health Corps.
In fact, about 85 percent of Americans aren’t getting the FDA’s recommended daily intake of the most important vitamins and minerals for proper physical and mental development — no matter their age.
“It really is a matter of what the cheapest food is. If the food is cheaper, more people are likely to eat it,” Thyanga said.
“It’s very difficult. I find myself getting that dollar soda, going to McDonald’s ordering off the dollar menu. I don’t have the luxury of sitting down at a nice restaurant and ordering a healthy plate,” said Covenant House resident John Aselta.
The CDC says poor nutrient intake, especially early on in life, can mean compromised immune systems, chronic disease and cognitive impairment down the road.
“There is no reset, there is no redo, there is no catching up. Forever they are condemned to not having the opportunity to reach their full physical and cognitive potential. And the children in Newark as well as the United States deserve better,” said DSM North America President Hugh Welsh.
The Health Corps fellows call it a first step to raising nutritional awareness. The members spread dietary education and help residents navigate health care systems.
To date, Global Health Corps has about 450 fellows working around the world and in cities here in New Jersey. They say they plan to partner with more shelters like Covenant House where they have direct access to youth with the hope of preventing the problem, before it begins.