Food Access in Los Angeles

A Civic Engagement Project

    To understand what is involved with a civic engagement project we must first understand what civic engagement means. Hence, the following three definitions will provide two main definitions of the term and the last is my personal definition.

Define Civic Engagement

Organizational Definitions:

1. According to an archived New York Times article the definition of civic engagement is "working to make a difference in the civic life of our communities and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values and motivation to make that difference. It means promoting the quality of life in a community, through both political and non-political processes."

"The Definition of Civic Engagement.” The New York Times, Oryx Press, 2000, 7 July 2003, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/college/collegespecial2/coll_aascu_defi.html?scp=2&sq=The%2520Engagement&st=cse.

2. According to the Association of American Colleges, civic engagement is "promoting the quality of life in a community through activities both political (e.g., voting, organizing) and non-political (e.g., local team sports, volunteerism)." 

Alberti, Philip M., et al. “Civic Engagement: A Vital Sign of Health and Democracy.” Center For Health Justice, 26 Sept. 2022, https://www.aamchealthjustice.org/news/polling/civic-engagement.

My Personal Definition:

    I define civic engagement as the act of being involved in one's community in a political or nonpolitical manner. It involves not engaging in particular types of activities, but in general being involved with the community. I view this as being in the form of volunteering, working, and simply in day to day life engaging with others one encounters in a positive and upbuilding way.

Social Issue Addressed

Research

    In Los Angeles County there are many people who have limited access to healthy food options. Healthy food options are considered to be all natural fresh foods, free of antibiotics and little to no processing. When a community is overwhelmed with liquor stores and fast food restaurants obtaining healthy food can be a great challenge. As a result, members of the community develop serious health conditions such as obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, and even interference in proper brain development because of the food options they have access to. Sadly, it is commonly low income communities that contend with this challenge and are unable to purchase healthy or fresh food options. 

    Food access is an issue that affects people of all ages. Children living in low to mid income communities are impacted greatly by this issue especially in regard to their developmental health. According to the Center for Disease Control High Obesity Program (CDCHOP), as of 2023 19.7% or 14.7 million children in the United States are obese (https://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpao/state-local-programs/fundingopp/2023/hop.html). This statistic is an increase from 2016 when 18.5% of children in the United States had obesity. The growth in this percentage shows that child obesity continues to be a problem. Obesity can be affected by many factors, but one in particular is the access children have to healthy food. If all children had access to food that was nutritious for their bodies developing obesity would be of lesser concern. However, because children in low to mid income communities have at easy disposal fast food restaurants or liquor stores the food that they frequently consume is processed, unhealthy, and most often not fresh. Only having these options for nourishment available children can experience hinderance in their development both physically and neurologically. 

    Child obesity highlights how children experience physical hinderance in development. A way in which children experience hinderance in their neurological development is by consuming unhealthy foods. To understand how this is so I chose to analyze the performance of children in school on standardized state tests. For my research I chose to look at Luther Burbank Middle School in Highland Park, which is located northeast of downtown Los Angeles. I particularly chose to analyze this middle school because of its location in Los Angeles. The school is surrounded by fast food restaurants such as McDonalds, Jack in the Box, Taco Bell, Subway, Wendy's, and a donut shop. These eateries provide quick, easy, and inexpensive food options for the students to consume. Gathering data from an assessment conducted in 2019 by Luther Burbank Middle School it was found that food consumption did impact student performance (2019 Assessment report). The data is as follows: In the 2018-2019 school year, of all the students tested only 34.38% met the standard in the English/ Literary Arts test. For this same test 10.10% exceeded the standard. Having to also take a mathematics test, of the 1,027 students tested, 22.78% met the standard while 17.53% exceeded the standard. These percentages in comparison with the number of students tested is very low. For both tests the percentage of students who met the standard does not pass 35% and the percentage of those who exceeded the standard does not pass 18%. 

    Now knowing results of the assessment of how well students performed I chose to look deeper into how their available food options impacted their development. The book Brain-Building Nutrition: the Healing Power of Fats and Oils by Micheal A. Schmidt explains the impact that fats and oils have on the human body. All fats and oils are unhealthy for our bodies. In fact, we need them to function. The specific fats that are beneficial for our bodies are fatty acids. Our brains thrive on these fatty acids as they help our nerve cells (neurons) to communicate and connect properly with one another. When our neurons communicate successfully our brains will perform at optimal level. Thus, normal fatty acids are crucial to brain development and function. However, it is not normal fatty acids that are found in food from fast food restaurants, rather it is trans fatty acids. Trans fatty acids are not nutritious for the body. Trans fatty acids are inflexible and rigid in configuration which makes it difficult for the neurons within the cell membrane  in our brains to communicate with each other (Schmidt 86). When there is a lack of communication and connection amongst nerve cells our brains cannot function properly (Schmidt 87). When children often consume foods with trans fatty acids their brain development is being negatively impacted. The 2019 assessment results from the students at Luther Burbank Middle School provide insight into how food access impacts child neurological development. If the students at this school had access to more nutritious food options their performance on standardized state tests could improve and their neurological development would be at a more optimal level of performance.

My Personal Experience

Image of the community of Compton, Los Angeles that has poor food access.

    As a young girl I experienced the challenge of having access to nutritious food. While I was in elementary school my family's income decreased and the fresh food that we were used to eating suddenly became processed inexpensive food. Many of our trips to the grocery store included shopping at the 99 Cent store or Dollar Tree. This change in the type of food I consumed affected my health and it was clearly seen that I was overweight for my age. When shopping for food I would often buy cookies, chips, processed meat, frozen food items, and some "fresh" produce if it looked fresh- although this was rare. 

    

    I realized the greater impact and gravity of my experience as a young girl when I was in high school. One day I was driving with my family through Los Angeles and in this particular community I noticed there was a McDonalds on one corner, a Burger King one block away, and a Jack in the Box a few businesses away from McDonalds. After a few blocks I entered a neighborhood with well manicured lawns that clearly had more income than the previous. On one block in this neighborhood was a vegan restaurant and across the street there was a restaurant that only sold fresh meals made with fresh ingredients. At that time the change in scenery came as a complete shock to me. Yet, what I had observed was real; in only ten blocks I rode from a low to a high income community and the available food options made this distinction clear. In Los Angeles the type of food available to a community is greatly influenced by the household income of the community. When I came to the understanding of my former family situation in high school and realizing this discrepancy I became furious that the basic necessity of having healthy food was contingent on the amount of money one has. From this moment on I was eager to investigate how food access can be improved in Los Angeles and this is why I chose to pursue the issue for my civic engagement project.

Community Outreach

    In order to further understand the impact of food access in Los Angeles focusing specifically on the city of Pasadena I reached out to various members of my community. The following statements relay their expressions when posed the question: Is healthy nutritious food easily accessible in our community? Those whom I spoke to varied in age but were mostly youth ranging from 15 to 25 years. Asking community members in this age group provided me an interesting perspective of how teenagers and young adults in my community view their access to food and if they see it in a positive or negative light. Their responses are stated below.

*Lucas: "There are many options of food in Los Angeles. LA has more authentic food. The stronger the culture the more authentic the food. We have access to healthy food as much as anyone else in the world. It's just money, time, and effort has to be put in to obtain it. I never thought I didn't have access to healthy food it's just the effort to get it."

*Ethan: "We have restaurants like True Food Kitchen and Urth Cafe."

*Brandon: "If we're considering healthy food as vegan or having protein, it's easy to access healthy food. For example, there is a Jamba Juice near my home where I can order veggie smoothies. In Pasadena there is My Vegan Restaurant, True Food Kitchen, and others. Chick-fil-a has vegan options, so does Chipotle."

Each person shared that they view Pasadena as having access to healthy food. From this perspective they have a positive view of the accessibility of food in Pasadena. When speaking about Los Angeles in general one person expressed that they view LA as having many healthy food options. Further in our conversation Lucas added, "Half the battle to eating healthy is eating food that is less processed." To Lucas, Ethan, and Brandon it is not difficult to obtain healthy food in Los Angeles because there are a variety of eateries that provide healthy food options.

    Although none of them spoke about the discrepancies between low and high income communities, their viewpoints clearly show what they each view as healthy food. There perspectives reveal the differences present in the Pasadena community as some can afford regular intake of nutritious food while others cannot. Additionally, their viewpoints focus mainly on the eateries in Pasadena and the food options available at those places. The specificity in this regard shows how those who are not directly impacted by poor food access do not immediately recognize the prevalence of the issue. However, when I spoke about my viewpoint in how low income communities often have many liquor stores and fast food restaurants rather than nutritious food options, they were quick to acknowledge the difference between the areas of Pasadena where they reside compared to other neighborhoods.

  From the research I conducted and the people in my community whom I spoke to I see that access to nutritious food that is inexpensive and easily attainable by all people is a major issue in Los Angeles. 

*Unfortunately I was unable to gain consent from those I spoke to include their images in my project.