AI
Friday, August 05, 2011 3:08:26 AM
A sad fate for some Southern women
Mary Baird, center, rests for a second between clients at her salon, the Hair Station. She gave up fried chicken, fried potatoes and greens cooked with ham hocks when her mother’s heart gave out.
(Carolyn Cole, Los Angeles Times / August 3, 2011)
Photos: Grim News for women in Emporia
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-life-expectancy-less-for-women-in-emporia-pictures,0,4725880.photogallery
By Faye Fiore, Los Angeles Times
August 3, 2011
Reporting from Emporia, Va.— Every one of the 13 chairs at the Hair Station is occupied this afternoon by women getting a wash and set or soaking their tired feet. Their chatter is louder than the bubble-top dryers. Miss Janie has decided to eat a slice of mixed berry pie with ice cream and call it lunch; the bridesmaids at Mary Baird's daughter's wedding will be wearing short yellow dresses and cowboy boots.
You wouldn't know it from the cheerful talk, but this little Southern town has lately acquired a sad distinction: Women here are likely to die nearly a decade sooner than their counterparts less than 200 miles away.
Virginia has the widest longevity gap of any state: In Fairfax County, an upscale exurb of Washington, a woman on average can expect to live to age 84. Here in Greensville County, a three-hour drive down Interstate 95, she can expect to die by 75, according to research conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
Smoking and obesity are greatly to blame, twin culprits with deep roots in rural Southern towns like this one, where about 5,000 people are served by two McDonald's and just one YMCA. (The Curves exercise salon across from the diner closed.)
People smoke and gain too much weight all across America; childhood obesity is First Lady Michelle Obama's signature cause. But here, the cost of a nation's bad habits is in evidence around every corner.
You'll find it in Mary Baird's bustling shop on Main Street and in her family legacy. One of the regulars in today is battling cancer. Most of the others have high blood pressure or diabetes, or are related to someone who does. Mary's brother, two sisters and her mother needed heart surgery before they hit 60.
"I'm 56 and holdin' my breath," she says in the back room mixing the color for Miss Janie's hair between bites of a tossed salad. She gave up fried chicken, fried potatoes and greens cooked with ham hocks when her mother's heart gave out. "I have never cooked food for my children with fat-backed meats and all that stuff."
"But that's the stuff that makes it good!" protests Miss Janie, 86, scraping the last of her berry pie lunch and declining to provide her last name because her feet hurt too much.
"Yeah," Mary agrees. "That's also the stuff that'll kill ya."
The health and prosperity boom that lifted northern Virginia bypassed parts of the rural South, leaving towns like Emporia with the charm of Mayberry and the challenges of Appalachia.
The cocktail peanut, a staple crop, is hailed with an annual festival. Some local ladies still start their sentences with, "I declare …" So many Emporians turned out for hot dogs and lemonade at Circuit Court Clerk Bobby Wrenn's annual Fourth of July party, they clogged up the sewer.
Yet for all of its quaint traditions, much here has changed in recent years and most of it has been stressful. Small farms and factories vanished, pushing unemployment to double digits well before the rest of the country crashed. The tobacco fields that were once the South's economic base are mostly gone, but not the habit; the smoking rate in this region is well above the rest of the state and nation. Deaths from cancer exceed the national average; lung cancer is the deadliest.
The numbers came as some surprise to many of the women interviewed on a sticky Friday afternoon as they lunched at the diner, waited tables or sat for a comb-out. Emporia, which has far more churches than bars and a high school where everybody knows everybody else, is a friendly place to live. But none of these women — comfortable or poor, black or white, insured or not — quarreled with the message the data carried: The very conventions that have defined them as Southern are costing some their golden years.
Outside Logan's Diner, four rocking chairs sit empty under a yellow-striped awning. It's too hot even to rock. Inside, the lunch special is fried trout with hush puppies and the bologna burger comes with a guaranteed 5-ounce slice.
Shirley Doyle, 75, and Jean Moss, 72, are at a table by the window. They are sisters who grew up on a farm in this county. Their mother was Jean's age when she died of diabetes; both women were diagnosed 15 years ago — it's hereditary. They put away the fry pan and lost more than 100 pounds between them. Jean cut her cigarettes to three a day.
"The only thing we fry anymore is chicken tenders. We broil and bake," Shirley says, pushing aside the rest of the BLT she ordered, mayo oozing out the edges. Jean left her hush puppies — deep-fried fingers of corn meal — on the plate.
That's how it goes here. Women tend to eat wiser, smoke less and exercise at least a little — after they get sick. Every conversion bucks culinary traditions that are deep and ever-present. There is always mac and cheese at grandma's house. You can get a fried pork chop for $1.59 at Logan's. Indeed, pork is as celebrated as the peanut, warranting an annual festival of its own. Some Southerners still talk of eating "every part of the pig but the squeal."
The diner closes at 2, and by 2:45 Melanie Barrett, who waited on Shirley and Jean, is almost through for the day. She eats an order of onion rings and heads out to the rocking chairs for a smoke. She is 33 years old. Her parents both died of diabetes — her mother at 54, her father at 57. She hasn't seen a doctor in years. Can't afford it. No health insurance.
"If you don't work at a factory or the prison, minimum wage is all there is," she says, referring to the state prison in Jarratt that is one of the area's biggest employers and one of the few local jobs that provides healthcare. "It's hard to get into those state doctors. You can call today and it could be two months before you see them."
Access to healthcare is a major hurdle in the rural South. One hospital serves Emporia, but most state-of-the-art treatment is a good 90 minutes away. Cancer care is imported from the Massey Cancer Center at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. A traveling oncologist and nurse diagnose patients and help primary care physicians carry out treatment plans.
A study in the works will ask local residents why they think the cancer rate is so high; outreach workers believe self-awareness can foster change. Emporians will tell you most people know what they're doing wrong — they're just stubborn. It's hard to defend eight Mountain Dews a day.
At Uptown Beauty Styling Salon a block off Main Street, owner Eletha Gillus steps out to pick up her 4-year-old daughter, Arica, before her afternoon appointments arrive. Time is short so they bring back McDonald's.
Eletha is raising her daughter differently than the way she was raised. She seasons with smoked turkey instead of ham hocks, watches the salt, no lard. She works out at the Y.
Her aim is to break the pattern of diabetes that killed her grandmother at 72, plagues her mother at 64 and was diagnosed in her aunt, just four months ago, at age 60.
"I don't know if it has to do with how we eat or the lack of exercise," she says.
The bad news from the life expectancy study was that women's vices are robbing them of valuable years. The good news is the data gathered over the last two decades showed that a community can change its stars. In Fulton, Ga., a woman's life expectancy grew from 75 to 80; in Yuma, Ariz., it shot from 77 to 84.
Eletha considers the prospect of better days for Emporia's next generation.
"I hope so," she says, optimistic but unconvinced, as her daughter dances by with a carton of fries.
Sometimes, change is hard.
faye.fiore@latimes.com
*
Related
U.S. employers expand health benefits coverage under reform
August 2, 2011
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/08/us-employers-expanding-health-benefits-coverage-under-healthcare-reform-survey-shows.html
*
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-women-life-expectancy-20110803,0,6814693.story [ http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-women-life-expectancy-20110803,0,7393062,full.story ] [with comments]
===
Study: Healthful diet may be too costly for some Americans
Healthful eating may come at too high a price for some. A new study from the University of Washington found that the federal dietary guidelines unveiled last year may be too pricey for many Seattleites to adhere to.
By Roberto Daza
Seattle Times staff reporter
Originally published August 3, 2011 at 9:03 PM | Page modified August 3, 2011 at 11:33 PM
The staples of a healthful diet may come at too high a price — literally — for some Americans.
With the nation's revised federal dietary guidelines in mind, researchers at the University of Washington School of Public Health surveyed more than 1,000 King County residents on their eating habits and how much they spend to maintain them.
The researchers matched food consumption with prices at three of Washington's largest supermarket chains — Albertsons, Safeway and Quality Food Centers — and determined how much it would cost to swap out some of the sugar-laden and fatty foods for the fresh fruits, veggies and whole-grain breads pushed in the dietary guidelines.
Among the findings of the study, released Thursday:
People who ate the most junk food paid the least for groceries but were the furthest from meeting the recommended intake of healthful nutrients. They also exceeded the recommended levels of saturated fat and sugars, which have been linked to chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes. Those who spent the most on groceries ate the healthiest, coming closest to meeting the dietary guidelines.
The latest guidelines, released last year by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture, focus on balancing calories with physical activity and getting enough of the nutrients that Americans generally consume in inadequate quantities, including potassium, fiber, vitamin D and calcium. Revised every five years, the guidelines form the basis of school-meal programs, Meals on Wheels for the elderly and other nutrition programs.
Participants in the study had an average daily intake of 2,800 milligrams of potassium, 700 milligrams short of what the new guidelines recommend. Buying enough fresh fruit to bridge that gap alone would cost the average person an additional $380 a year, the study found.
Bridging the gap in the average intakes of vitamin D and fiber would add about $250 a year.
"It shouldn't cost more to eat a nutritious diet," said Pablo Monsivais, lead author of the study, which was published in the August issue of the journal, Health Affairs. "For many families it's still too costly to build their diets around fresh vegetables and fruit."
Experts add that when the pocketbook is stretched, it's usually fresh produce and other healthful foods that are first to be scratched from household shopping lists.
"We need to find ways to make necessary nutrients available and affordable," Monsivais said, adding that while prices for items like fruits and vegetables have increased over the last few years, foods high in added sugars, sodium and saturated fats have seen a far more modest increase.
To address this disparity, the UW researchers are recommending education campaigns to lead consumers to low-cost but good-tasting and readily available sources of nutrients.
"Dried prunes are great sources of potassium, but unless you launch a major PR campaign to increase their popularity, no one's going to eat them," Monsivais said.
There is also the need to tell consumers how to find the cheapest source of nutrients, he said. Nectarines, for example, are a great source of potassium but are more expensive than bananas, which are not only rich in potassium but are a good source of calcium, too.
The study also recommends a careful examination of programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, to see if they are consistent with federal nutritional guidelines.
Monsivais is quick to point out that some private and nonprofit businesses already are helping low-income Americans meet these dietary recommendations. At some farmers markets, for examples, shoppers can use their SNAP card — a plastic debit card that can be used at participating retailers — to buy fresh meat, bread and produce.
"People on low incomes should have the same access to good, fresh food as anyone," said Chris Curtis, director of the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance, a nonprofit that oversees seven farmers markets in Seattle, all of which have been accepting SNAP since 1994. "It's a way to increase revenue, but it's also the principle."
Of the 41 farmers markets in King County (18 of them in Seattle), more than half accept SNAP cards. Within Seattle, Pike Place Market is one of only three that doesn't accept SNAP cards, but it expects to in the next several months. The county, too, is working toward increasing participation in SNAP and other federal nutrition programs.
"This is great for the people that grow our food and the people that need it," Monsavais said. "It's a step in the right direction."
Roberto Daza: 206-464-3195 or rdaza@seattletimes.com
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2015813705_nutritioncosts4m.html [comments at http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/reader_feedback/public/display.php?source_name=mbase&source_id=2015813705 ]
===
More Americans using food stamps than ever before: 45.8 million
Aug 03, 2011
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/03/1002681/-More-Americans-using-food-stamps-than-ever-before:-458-million [with comments]
*
Food Stamp Usage Continues Climbing To Highest Level Ever
8/3/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/03/food-stamp-usage-highest_n_917038.html [with comments]
*
Food Stamp Nation: Alabama Helps Push U.S. Program to All-Time High
A man organizes coupons and food stamps in this undated file photo.
Aug. 4, 2011
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/surge-demand-food-stamps-united-states/story?id=14231657 [with comments]
Mary Baird, center, rests for a second between clients at her salon, the Hair Station. She gave up fried chicken, fried potatoes and greens cooked with ham hocks when her mother’s heart gave out.
(Carolyn Cole, Los Angeles Times / August 3, 2011)
Photos: Grim News for women in Emporia
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-life-expectancy-less-for-women-in-emporia-pictures,0,4725880.photogallery
By Faye Fiore, Los Angeles Times
August 3, 2011
Reporting from Emporia, Va.— Every one of the 13 chairs at the Hair Station is occupied this afternoon by women getting a wash and set or soaking their tired feet. Their chatter is louder than the bubble-top dryers. Miss Janie has decided to eat a slice of mixed berry pie with ice cream and call it lunch; the bridesmaids at Mary Baird's daughter's wedding will be wearing short yellow dresses and cowboy boots.
You wouldn't know it from the cheerful talk, but this little Southern town has lately acquired a sad distinction: Women here are likely to die nearly a decade sooner than their counterparts less than 200 miles away.
Virginia has the widest longevity gap of any state: In Fairfax County, an upscale exurb of Washington, a woman on average can expect to live to age 84. Here in Greensville County, a three-hour drive down Interstate 95, she can expect to die by 75, according to research conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
Smoking and obesity are greatly to blame, twin culprits with deep roots in rural Southern towns like this one, where about 5,000 people are served by two McDonald's and just one YMCA. (The Curves exercise salon across from the diner closed.)
People smoke and gain too much weight all across America; childhood obesity is First Lady Michelle Obama's signature cause. But here, the cost of a nation's bad habits is in evidence around every corner.
You'll find it in Mary Baird's bustling shop on Main Street and in her family legacy. One of the regulars in today is battling cancer. Most of the others have high blood pressure or diabetes, or are related to someone who does. Mary's brother, two sisters and her mother needed heart surgery before they hit 60.
"I'm 56 and holdin' my breath," she says in the back room mixing the color for Miss Janie's hair between bites of a tossed salad. She gave up fried chicken, fried potatoes and greens cooked with ham hocks when her mother's heart gave out. "I have never cooked food for my children with fat-backed meats and all that stuff."
"But that's the stuff that makes it good!" protests Miss Janie, 86, scraping the last of her berry pie lunch and declining to provide her last name because her feet hurt too much.
"Yeah," Mary agrees. "That's also the stuff that'll kill ya."
The health and prosperity boom that lifted northern Virginia bypassed parts of the rural South, leaving towns like Emporia with the charm of Mayberry and the challenges of Appalachia.
The cocktail peanut, a staple crop, is hailed with an annual festival. Some local ladies still start their sentences with, "I declare …" So many Emporians turned out for hot dogs and lemonade at Circuit Court Clerk Bobby Wrenn's annual Fourth of July party, they clogged up the sewer.
Yet for all of its quaint traditions, much here has changed in recent years and most of it has been stressful. Small farms and factories vanished, pushing unemployment to double digits well before the rest of the country crashed. The tobacco fields that were once the South's economic base are mostly gone, but not the habit; the smoking rate in this region is well above the rest of the state and nation. Deaths from cancer exceed the national average; lung cancer is the deadliest.
The numbers came as some surprise to many of the women interviewed on a sticky Friday afternoon as they lunched at the diner, waited tables or sat for a comb-out. Emporia, which has far more churches than bars and a high school where everybody knows everybody else, is a friendly place to live. But none of these women — comfortable or poor, black or white, insured or not — quarreled with the message the data carried: The very conventions that have defined them as Southern are costing some their golden years.
Outside Logan's Diner, four rocking chairs sit empty under a yellow-striped awning. It's too hot even to rock. Inside, the lunch special is fried trout with hush puppies and the bologna burger comes with a guaranteed 5-ounce slice.
Shirley Doyle, 75, and Jean Moss, 72, are at a table by the window. They are sisters who grew up on a farm in this county. Their mother was Jean's age when she died of diabetes; both women were diagnosed 15 years ago — it's hereditary. They put away the fry pan and lost more than 100 pounds between them. Jean cut her cigarettes to three a day.
"The only thing we fry anymore is chicken tenders. We broil and bake," Shirley says, pushing aside the rest of the BLT she ordered, mayo oozing out the edges. Jean left her hush puppies — deep-fried fingers of corn meal — on the plate.
That's how it goes here. Women tend to eat wiser, smoke less and exercise at least a little — after they get sick. Every conversion bucks culinary traditions that are deep and ever-present. There is always mac and cheese at grandma's house. You can get a fried pork chop for $1.59 at Logan's. Indeed, pork is as celebrated as the peanut, warranting an annual festival of its own. Some Southerners still talk of eating "every part of the pig but the squeal."
The diner closes at 2, and by 2:45 Melanie Barrett, who waited on Shirley and Jean, is almost through for the day. She eats an order of onion rings and heads out to the rocking chairs for a smoke. She is 33 years old. Her parents both died of diabetes — her mother at 54, her father at 57. She hasn't seen a doctor in years. Can't afford it. No health insurance.
"If you don't work at a factory or the prison, minimum wage is all there is," she says, referring to the state prison in Jarratt that is one of the area's biggest employers and one of the few local jobs that provides healthcare. "It's hard to get into those state doctors. You can call today and it could be two months before you see them."
Access to healthcare is a major hurdle in the rural South. One hospital serves Emporia, but most state-of-the-art treatment is a good 90 minutes away. Cancer care is imported from the Massey Cancer Center at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. A traveling oncologist and nurse diagnose patients and help primary care physicians carry out treatment plans.
A study in the works will ask local residents why they think the cancer rate is so high; outreach workers believe self-awareness can foster change. Emporians will tell you most people know what they're doing wrong — they're just stubborn. It's hard to defend eight Mountain Dews a day.
At Uptown Beauty Styling Salon a block off Main Street, owner Eletha Gillus steps out to pick up her 4-year-old daughter, Arica, before her afternoon appointments arrive. Time is short so they bring back McDonald's.
Eletha is raising her daughter differently than the way she was raised. She seasons with smoked turkey instead of ham hocks, watches the salt, no lard. She works out at the Y.
Her aim is to break the pattern of diabetes that killed her grandmother at 72, plagues her mother at 64 and was diagnosed in her aunt, just four months ago, at age 60.
"I don't know if it has to do with how we eat or the lack of exercise," she says.
The bad news from the life expectancy study was that women's vices are robbing them of valuable years. The good news is the data gathered over the last two decades showed that a community can change its stars. In Fulton, Ga., a woman's life expectancy grew from 75 to 80; in Yuma, Ariz., it shot from 77 to 84.
Eletha considers the prospect of better days for Emporia's next generation.
"I hope so," she says, optimistic but unconvinced, as her daughter dances by with a carton of fries.
Sometimes, change is hard.
faye.fiore@latimes.com
*
Related
U.S. employers expand health benefits coverage under reform
August 2, 2011
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/08/us-employers-expanding-health-benefits-coverage-under-healthcare-reform-survey-shows.html
*
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-women-life-expectancy-20110803,0,6814693.story [ http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-women-life-expectancy-20110803,0,7393062,full.story ] [with comments]
===
Study: Healthful diet may be too costly for some Americans
Healthful eating may come at too high a price for some. A new study from the University of Washington found that the federal dietary guidelines unveiled last year may be too pricey for many Seattleites to adhere to.
By Roberto Daza
Seattle Times staff reporter
Originally published August 3, 2011 at 9:03 PM | Page modified August 3, 2011 at 11:33 PM
The staples of a healthful diet may come at too high a price — literally — for some Americans.
With the nation's revised federal dietary guidelines in mind, researchers at the University of Washington School of Public Health surveyed more than 1,000 King County residents on their eating habits and how much they spend to maintain them.
The researchers matched food consumption with prices at three of Washington's largest supermarket chains — Albertsons, Safeway and Quality Food Centers — and determined how much it would cost to swap out some of the sugar-laden and fatty foods for the fresh fruits, veggies and whole-grain breads pushed in the dietary guidelines.
Among the findings of the study, released Thursday:
People who ate the most junk food paid the least for groceries but were the furthest from meeting the recommended intake of healthful nutrients. They also exceeded the recommended levels of saturated fat and sugars, which have been linked to chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes. Those who spent the most on groceries ate the healthiest, coming closest to meeting the dietary guidelines.
The latest guidelines, released last year by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture, focus on balancing calories with physical activity and getting enough of the nutrients that Americans generally consume in inadequate quantities, including potassium, fiber, vitamin D and calcium. Revised every five years, the guidelines form the basis of school-meal programs, Meals on Wheels for the elderly and other nutrition programs.
Participants in the study had an average daily intake of 2,800 milligrams of potassium, 700 milligrams short of what the new guidelines recommend. Buying enough fresh fruit to bridge that gap alone would cost the average person an additional $380 a year, the study found.
Bridging the gap in the average intakes of vitamin D and fiber would add about $250 a year.
"It shouldn't cost more to eat a nutritious diet," said Pablo Monsivais, lead author of the study, which was published in the August issue of the journal, Health Affairs. "For many families it's still too costly to build their diets around fresh vegetables and fruit."
Experts add that when the pocketbook is stretched, it's usually fresh produce and other healthful foods that are first to be scratched from household shopping lists.
"We need to find ways to make necessary nutrients available and affordable," Monsivais said, adding that while prices for items like fruits and vegetables have increased over the last few years, foods high in added sugars, sodium and saturated fats have seen a far more modest increase.
To address this disparity, the UW researchers are recommending education campaigns to lead consumers to low-cost but good-tasting and readily available sources of nutrients.
"Dried prunes are great sources of potassium, but unless you launch a major PR campaign to increase their popularity, no one's going to eat them," Monsivais said.
There is also the need to tell consumers how to find the cheapest source of nutrients, he said. Nectarines, for example, are a great source of potassium but are more expensive than bananas, which are not only rich in potassium but are a good source of calcium, too.
The study also recommends a careful examination of programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, to see if they are consistent with federal nutritional guidelines.
Monsivais is quick to point out that some private and nonprofit businesses already are helping low-income Americans meet these dietary recommendations. At some farmers markets, for examples, shoppers can use their SNAP card — a plastic debit card that can be used at participating retailers — to buy fresh meat, bread and produce.
"People on low incomes should have the same access to good, fresh food as anyone," said Chris Curtis, director of the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance, a nonprofit that oversees seven farmers markets in Seattle, all of which have been accepting SNAP since 1994. "It's a way to increase revenue, but it's also the principle."
Of the 41 farmers markets in King County (18 of them in Seattle), more than half accept SNAP cards. Within Seattle, Pike Place Market is one of only three that doesn't accept SNAP cards, but it expects to in the next several months. The county, too, is working toward increasing participation in SNAP and other federal nutrition programs.
"This is great for the people that grow our food and the people that need it," Monsavais said. "It's a step in the right direction."
Roberto Daza: 206-464-3195 or rdaza@seattletimes.com
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2015813705_nutritioncosts4m.html [comments at http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/reader_feedback/public/display.php?source_name=mbase&source_id=2015813705 ]
===
More Americans using food stamps than ever before: 45.8 million
Aug 03, 2011
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/03/1002681/-More-Americans-using-food-stamps-than-ever-before:-458-million [with comments]
*
Food Stamp Usage Continues Climbing To Highest Level Ever
8/3/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/03/food-stamp-usage-highest_n_917038.html [with comments]
*
Food Stamp Nation: Alabama Helps Push U.S. Program to All-Time High
A man organizes coupons and food stamps in this undated file photo.
Aug. 4, 2011
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/surge-demand-food-stamps-united-states/story?id=14231657 [with comments]
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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