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Friday, March 29, 2024

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By Simon Gonzalez

A young, enthusiastic American, a missionary of sorts, travels to communities to teach the basics of good nutrition to children at risk of obesity and diabetes.

It sounds like a story from a developing nation.

In fact, it’s a story I covered many times while working in the nonprofit world. I wrote about nutrition programs — efforts to provide supplemental food in at-risk communities and to educate mothers and children about the basics of healthy eating — always in developing nations: the Philippines, Honduras, El Salvador, Afghanistan, Iraq, Indonesia.

But shockingly, it’s happening at home, in our own backyard.

Maybe I’m naïve and sheltered, even ignorant, but I was genuinely surprised when Jordyn Appel told me about a program right here in Wilmington.

Jordyn works with FoodCorps, an organization with more than 200 members active in 17 states with a mission to teach children and parents about healthy eating. She has been in Wilmington since August, working with all the third-grade classes at Forest Hills Global Elementary and the second-grade classes at Winter Park Elementary and Wrightsboro Elementary.

The students participate in weekly garden and nutrition-based lessons. It sounds like a great program. Most of us have tried to get our kids to eat more fruits and vegetables. Anyone who can reinforce their importance is a welcome voice.

The shocking part is the need for the program. Jordyn called it vital. She said there was a recent study at one of the schools that found there’s a very high rate of children coming into kindergarten already at risk for obesity and diabetes. Malnutrition is a real concern.

“A 5-year-old shouldn’t be at risk for obesity,” she said, and she’s right. Children should not be dealing with health and nutrition issues, not here in the United States.

Matt Rogers, director of campus dining at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and the driving force behind the school’s clean and green food truck that’s fixing healthy snacks for students at the three schools this week, said I’m not alone in my ignorance.

“We’re quick to be outwardly focused as a nation,” he said. “We don’t realize it starts at home. I’m on the board of the food bank, and one of our mottos is ‘the face of hunger will surprise you.’ It’s in your neighborhood. It’s not just a worldwide problem. It’s an American problem as well.”

The problem is twofold. Children — and their parents — lack knowledge about healthy eating, and they lack access to nutritious food.

These kids aren’t at risk of obesity because they eat too much food. It’s because they eat the wrong kind of food. That’s where the education component comes in.

Jordyn is young (24 and two years out of college) and enthusiastic. She is a wonderful ambassador for the program. She knows her stuff, and the kids listen. She teaches them how to grow plants in the gardens at all three schools, about the life cycle of a plant, and about the ways that different fruits and vegetables nourish different parts of the body.

This week, with the help of the UNCW food truck, the kids are learning that nutrition-rich foods like sweet potatoes and beets can actually be used to make tasty meals.

The hope is that the knowledge will spread when the kids take the lessons home with them. They will tell their parents that sweet potato pancakes are actually pretty good, and give them Miss Jordyn’s recipe for kale chips. When they visit the store, they can ask for beets and tomatoes and not just chips and cookies.

That is, if they go to a grocery store with beets and tomatoes. Sections of Wilmington are classified as a food desert, areas where people don’t have access to a car or a supermarket within one mile. Corner stores in these areas tend to lack healthy options.

The problems are complex, and the solutions aren’t simple. Politics might be part of it, but simply throwing more government money around is rarely efficient. Bureaucracy frequently exacerbates an issue.

Knowledge is a great place to start, both in educating folks like me that this is an issue right here at home and in taking the lessons of nutrition and healthy eating to students and parents.

People like Jordyn and Matt are definitely a key component. They are enthusiastic ambassadors, and advocates for local and sustainable food.

Community gardens and grocery stores in food deserts are a must. Connecting people without access to nutritious food with groups like Feast Down East and local farmers would help.

These and more should be tried. The problem is too important to ignore.

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