Risk of Heart Disease Linked to Food Insecurity Willy Blackmore - TakePart
go to original December 24, 2013

A generation ago, the difficulties of getting enough food on the table made malnutrition the public health problem of the impoverished, the sunken cheeks and protruding bones of the underfed the enduring image of poverty.

In recent years, concerns have flipped; living below the poverty line is to be both stuffed and starved. Meals planned around the cheapest available calories lead to high consumption of food lacking in any real nutritional value, causing weight gain or other obesity-related health problems.

As researchers look more closely at the health problems associated with poverty, a more complicated picture of what low food security means for well-being is emerging. Obesity is associated with food insecurity in women, for example, but researchers don't see the same link in men.

As for cardiovascular disease, a health problem strongly linked with diet, studies have shown that Americans living in poverty are more likely to have certain individual factors that could signal heart disease, but little research has been conducted on food security as it relates to predicted cardiovascular disease risk.

Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a study by Dr. Earl S. Ford in its Preventing Chronic Disease journal that looks at that harder, more definite metric for heart disease risk - the one that considers the potential for the disease occurring over a 10-year period - rather than just the individual risk factors.

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