Is Healthy Living Only for the Rich?
Healthy Living for the Rich?
Continuing their theme of provocatively titled event, our friends at Zocalo Public Square, local incubator of deep thoughts, will host a discussion this Wednesday at the MOCA about the eating habits of rich and poor.
Americans appear to favor a healthier lifestyle than past generations. They stare longer at the labels before they buy, and they use their bike lanes and public parks. As a result, most of us are living longer lives, but not all of us. Kale is not really on every menu in Los Angeles, not everyone can afford to sign up for pilates, yoga and Zumba classes, and diabetes, for instance, is still more prevalent among the poor. While nonprofits increase awareness through education and access to healthy food in underserved communities, "food deserts" still exist – even in our own city.
To get to the bottom of this disparity, the USC Price School of Public Policy along with Tracie McMillan, author of The American Way of Eating and Roshan Bastani, director of UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity, will gather under one roof to discuss what can be done about the state of our union's collective health.