LOVE YOUR BODY, MIND, SPIRIT, LOVE YOUR WHOLE SELF

United Senergy urges you to “Love Your Body, Mind, Spirit…Love Your Whole Self” by being aware of the food you put into your body and the difference healthy nutrition can make in your life. Research shows that huge nutritional disparities exist across socioeconomic groups in the United States. People living in underserved areas do not have access to healthy food. Most recently, these areas have been coined “Food Desserts” because they lack access to fresh fruits and vegetables. The people in these neighborhoods consume fewer fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and other important quality nutritional foods than those in more affluent neighborhoods. What to do? How to remedy this situation?

 Sign of the times brings more perspective and highlights nutritional disparities

Researchers have reported significantly more residents of underserved neighborhoods, particularly people of color, became ill, were hospitalized and died from the Corona virus than white residents of affluent communities. Public health officials searched for the reasons why. It became clear that a major reason for the greater illness and mortality in low-income neighborhoods was the poor nutrition affecting the immunity of the people living there. For people on tight budgets, struggling day in, day out just to provide for the basic necessities to survive, achieving healthful nutrition for themselves and their families creates a huge challenge and is not a priority. US is here to make it easier, make it fun and to inform and educate about healthful eating and how to make it a priority for better health.

A healthy lifestyle depends not only on good nutrition but understanding the correct foods to consume combined with physical activity. YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT…the saying goes. Nutritious eating helps you maintain a healthy weight, reduces your risk of chronic illness and decreases mental anxiety while increasing better mood stabilization.

Unhealthy eating habits have contributed to many illnesses such as heart disease and cancer to name a few. When we focus on the obesity epidemic in the United States: about one-third of U.S. adults (33.8 percent) are obese and approximately 17 percent (or 12.5 million) of children and adolescents aged 2—19 years are obese.  Even for people at a healthy weight, a poor diet is associated with major health risks that can cause illness and even death. These include hypertension (high blood pressure), type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis arthritis, and certain types of cancer. By making smart, affordable food choices, one can help prevent many of these health problems. 

 

Lack of support for healthful nutrition

HELP and support is needed. In the United States, it’s hard to stay healthy – if you are poor and live in underserved neighborhoods. People in these communities are bombarded constantly with poor food choices especially since they are food deserts.

Nutritional disparities exist across a wide range of socioeconomic groups in our society. Underserved, poor neighborhoods often don’t have supermarkets with choices of fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and other healthy food choices. Families in these neighborhoods may not have cars; they depend on public transportation. They are limited to shopping in small “mom and pop” groceries that stock genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) loaded with sodium, sugar and other cancer causing preservatives. Because of limited monies and inflation inexpensive poor quality fast-food restaurants containing high fat, high sodium, increased sugar is a recipe for heart disease (clogged arteries), diabetes (sugar in the blood) and other unhealthy body symptoms.

A report by American Cancer Society researcher Hope Landrine in the journal ‘Ethnicity & Health’ pointed to disparities affecting communities of color and particularly African-American neighborhoods, noting:

• Two to three times as many fast food outlets are located in segregated Black neighborhoods than in white neighborhoods of comparable socioeconomic status, contributing to higher black consumption of fatty, salty meals and in turn widening racial disparities in obesity and diabetes.
• Black neighborhoods contain two to three times fewer supermarkets than comparable white neighborhoods, creating the kind of “food deserts” that make it difficult for residents who depend on public transportation to purchase the fresh fruits and vegetables that make for a healthy diet.

Raising awareness of the critical importance of good nutrition to your health and lifestyle and overcoming nutritional disparities that plague people and communities is a huge part of the US mission! We can give you the knowledge and education you need to get healthy and stay healthy via nutritious eating, physical activity and access to important information that helps provide the tools to keep your life on a healthy, uplifting track. 

United Senergy brings healthy eating to you

• Food Pantries – raising funds to support food pantries in disadvantaged neighborhood. In 2020, US created the unique Everyday Heroes t-shirts to celebrate the unsung heroes on the front lines of the Corona virus pandemic. Revenue from t-shirt sales support neighborhood food pantries.
• Farmer’s Markets – joining with local businesses, community organizations, hospitals, health food stores to have outdoor farmer’s markets encouraging residents to eat fresh, local, natural food that is organic or preservative free.
• Nutrition Pop-Up Shops– creating partnerships with neighborhood shops to hold pop-up venues where people can taste and purchase healthy foods and get recipes and healthy eating advice.
• CLICK for Healthy Eating– posting nutritious recipes on US Blog and nutrition advice on Website.
•  Restaurants Join In!– partnering with local restaurants conducting nutrition events where they open their kitchens to small groups engaging in cooking and tasting healthy meals from their menu.
• Cooking-Nutrition Classes– conducting fun classes that bring together singles, families, children and seniors to cook and eat healthy snacks, entrees and full meals together.