There’s an unspoken link between food insecurity and obesity

By Tameka Henry

Monday, April 8, 2024 | 2 a.m.

There are two simultaneous public health crises facing our community: food insecurity and obesity. According to Feeding America’s 2023 Map the Meal Gap study released by Three Square, 1 in 8 Southern Nevadans have trouble securing their next meal.

And, according to the 2022 Nevada Obesity Annual Report, “More than two-thirds (67.4%) of Nevada adults were overweight or obese.”

The Obodo Collective works to address food insecurity locally. Our Urban Farm project, located within the Historic Westside, is a half-acre plot that focuses on increasing food accessibility and affordability by operating as a food producer for the community. From the start we have aspired to create something wonderful; something to restore nutrition within our community as well as our relationship to nature.

This farm provides fresh produce, medicinal herbs and native desert plants. We aim to tackle food insecurity, urban heat islands and the loss of biodiversity.The primary way to defeat hunger and build healthy nutrition is to end food deserts by providing access to fresh produce and healthy options.

Combating obesity is a different challenge.

As the 2022 Obesity report found, “Obesity is a multifactorial chronic, often progressive, disease associated with an increase in mortality and morbidity that is increasing in prevalence in adults … and children in Nevada. The etiology of obesity is complex and often unknown, as it is also a risk factor for other chronic diseases.”

Obesity is a disease that increases the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes, and it should be treated as the disease that it is. Patients need access to comprehensive, quality care, and unfortunately, most private health insurance and Medicare deny access to anti-obesity medicines, which are a key in fighting this disease.Denying coverage for such medicines and other treatments has perpetuated the lie that obesity is a choice and a cosmetic, not health, issue. This decision means that only those who can pay out-of-pocket can afford care.

Now grassroots movements are backing access to affordable and effective obesity treatments. The National Consumers League and the National Council on Aging, as well as other groups, have formed The Right 2 Obesity Care, which has developed an Obesity Bill of Rights. In it are eight rights that should be guaranteed. Some of these include the right to accessible treatments, the right for coverage of that treatment, and the right of quality care for older adults with obesity. We have the power to solve all of these issues if we choose to act.

We need to come together and face these two health crises head on. In 2024, no human being in America should be sentenced to starvation because they cannot get access to healthy produce, or ostracized because they cannot afford the medicines and treatment that can save their life.

​Our name comes from the Igbo word for both city and community — we believe it takes active and ongoing involvement in our neighborhoods to turn a region into a community. When we are invested in each other, we create a resilient neighborhood. Basic, life-supporting needs must be met by us as a community and by our elected leaders at the state and federal level.

That is our mission and we believe it must also be the mission of our elected officials.

Tameka Henry is executive director of the Obodo Collective, a nonprofit organization focused on bringing structural, ongoing support to communities across the country.