Though you would hardly know it by looking at him, Van Jones apparently has high cholesterol, prediabetes, and hypertension — an admission he made in an insightful piece for CNN on the disparate racial impact of the novel coronavirus. Jones notes that the reasons for coronavirus’s unequal racial effect are complex, ranging from the physically laborious jobs black Americans disproportionately take on to food deserts and cultural habits.
Jones’s proposed solution is bifurcated, noting that both individuals and government action must change.
The conservative movement has never really embraced the notion that current “systemic racism” causes racial disparities. But health is one area where government has been part of the problem. A few policy corrections to systemic problems really could ameliorate racial disparities, and without imposing the heavy hand of the nanny state.
For three years, I lived in one of the poorest and most diverse neighborhoods in Los Angeles to attend one of the most spoiled and scandal-ridden colleges in the country. Until USC spent more than half a billion dollars to build a Trader Joe’s in 2017, residents of the South Central area were served by just two budget supermarkets, liquor stores, cheap corner stores, and carnicerias. Cheap eateries included plenty of immigrant-owned Mexican and Salvadorian restaurants and fast food.
This wasn’t a problem for most of my university peers. We could drive downtown to Whole Foods and order delivery from the west side. Plus, as USC’s gentrification spilled across highways, fast-casual restaurants gradually replaced locally owned ones. USC let the poor eat cake.
The result: nearly 2 in 5 residents of South Central Los Angeles, including 3 in 10 children, are obese, in comparison to 1 in 5 in Los Angeles County and California as a whole. A study from Los Angeles County found that black and Latino Angelenos suffered an obesity rate more than 10 percentage points worse than white residents and more than 20 points worse than Asian American ones. Across the board, experts agree this is largely due to nutritional access.
After all, residents of South Central are no less likely than other Angelenos or Californians to exercise, and more than 3 in 4 teenagers from South Central walk, bike, or skateboard from school. But a staggering 55% of South Central teenagers are obese or overweight, in comparison to just 29% of the rest of the state’s teenagers. The difference is nutrition. Two in 5 South Central children and teenagers report eating fast food at least three times a week, and nearly 2 in 3 regularly drink sugary beverages.
So what’s the solution? For starters, localities can and should use tax incentives to bring grocers to food deserts, and the policy should favor healthier options. Schools can and should do their part to remove soda and dessert from lunches completely and serve nutritious meals. But given that health and habits start at home, the grocery stores matter. Overworked, low-income parents can more easily feed their children and themselves nutritious foods if they have access to cheap, quality groceries such as Trader Joe’s, Target, and Aldi rather than just convenience stores.
Another glaring issue with an obvious solution is food stamps. In 2017, the Department of Agriculture studied for the first time what SNAP dollars buy, and it wasn’t pretty. Sweetened beverages comprise 9% of total SNAP spending and prepared desserts another 7%. All in all, the Department of Agriculture found that about 20 cents of every SNAP dollar spent went to sugary or salty snack foods and drinks.
The “N” in SNAP stands for nutrition, and that was ostensibly its purpose in helping the poor. Yet billions of SNAP dollars are spent to poison recipients with sugary soda and snacks and with cereals that have as much sugar as desserts. We don’t let SNAP dollars go to alcohol or cigarettes — why should we let it go to foods that pumping up children to unprecedented obesity rates?
We already know from other programs that strict nutritional standards work. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (known as WIC) has stringent nutritional guidelines. As a result, the obesity rate for children covered by the program has gone down significantly.
There’s no single solution to the problem of racial health disparity, and the biggest, best answers, such as education and cultural changes, are the hardest. But as the coronavirus disproportionately affects black communities, people of all political stripes ought to be alarmed and, more importantly, prepared to mobilize to improve public health. The small solutions don’t have to come in the form of nanny-state regulations, but they do have to come eventually, and conservatives should get on board.
