Heart Association gives UK grant to spur 'food as medicine' effort

By Grace Sowards
University of Kentucky

The Food as Health Alliance at the University of Kentucky has received a grant from the American Heart Association. UK is among the first recipients of AHA’s Health Care by Food Initiative awards.

Alison Gustafson (UK photo by Sabrina Hounshell)

FAHA director Alison Gustafson is a faculty member in the University of Kentucky Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. She will use the $386,000 grant over the next year and a half to see how a user-centered design program can improve screening, referral enrollment and engagement in food-as-medicine programs for adults with food insecurity and high blood pressure or other diet-sensitive chronic diseases.

This grant also involves UK HealthCare and Appalachian Regional Healthcare, with key partnerships from Instacart, Kroger Health with Soda Health, Mom’s Meals and Food City.

“We are looking forward to working with our partners across the state to improve screening, referral and enrollment practices to improve patient outcomes,” said Gustafson, a professor in UK's Department of Dietetics and Human Nutrition.  She has partnered with Instacart, Mom’s Meals and Food City on current pilot projects across Kentucky to help develop the infrastructure for patients receiving food-as-medicine programs.

The grant team is developing a referral hub for health-related social needs with key organizations in Kentucky. FAHA is bringing together diverse health-care, managed-care, non-profit and industry collaborators to facilitate screening, referral and enrollment to identify the most suitable and effective model(s) in the short term, while considering design for long-term sustainability.

FAHA seeks to bring together clinical and community research spanning across agriculture, food, health care and nutrition to address food insecurity and diet-related chronic disease. Researchers, community partners, food commodity producers, health care partners and students will explore innovative strategies to improve patient clinical outcomes and Kentuckians’ health.

“This award is an acknowledgment of the tremendous work the Food as Health Alliance has already been doing to address inequities related to food insecurity and chronic disease across Kentucky,” said Carolyn Lauckner, assistant professor in the Department of Behavioral Science at the UK College of Medicine and co-principal investigator on the grant with Gustafson.

“The grant demonstrates an investment in our efforts to use food as medicine to improve individuals’ health by targeting the link between food insecurity and cardiovascular disease,” Lauckner said. “I am thrilled to be working with this outstanding group of scholars and practitioners committed to using innovative, community-engaged research methods to improve the health of all Kentuckians.”

For more information on FAHA, visit https://foodashealthalliance.ca.uky.edu. For more information about the American Heart Association’s Health Care by Food Initiative, visit https://healthcarexfood.org.

Ky. ranked 37th in protecting children in pandemic; in top 3 for hunger; 22% of families with kids said they lacked enough to eat

Chart from Page 17 of national report from Save the Children; for a larger version, click on it.

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

Kentucky ranks 37th for how well it's protecting children and providing for them during the coronavirus pandemic, and more than one in five Kentucky families with children didn't have enough to eat in December, according to a report from Save the Children, a global children's-rights organization.

The ranking was based on four months of data from a bi-weekly Household Pulse Survey that is conducted by the Census Bureau. The researchers looked at three hardships they say make it harder for children to reach their full potential: hunger, economic hardship and lack of tools for remote learning.

A scan at the end of November and through most of December found that Kentucky was one of the top three states for hunger, and that nearly half of Kentucky families are struggling to pay their bills.

The year-end analysis found that 22 percent of Kentucky families with children under 18 said they didn't have enough to eat in the prior week; that 11% of homes with at least one school-age child lacked internet access a computer for educational purposes; and that 47% found it somewhat or very difficult to pay for usual household expenses in the prior week.

Alissa Taylor, Save the Children's director for Kentucky rural education programs, told the Public News Service that 60% of low-income students regularly logged in for online instruction in the pandemic, compared to 90% of higher-income students.  

Nationwide, the pandemic is hitting the poorest families the hardest and that because of this, "childhood equity gaps are likely to grow," the report says. "They are about 15 times as likely to struggle with hunger as the wealthiest families, four times as likely to lack internet for educational purposes and nine times as likely to have difficulty paying bills." The challenges were even higher for Black and Hispanic families. 

The analysis also found that the number of coronavirus cases and Covid-19 deaths in a state was not predictive of where a state was ranked. It concluded that what mattered more were the resources and protections that each state has, or lacks, to protect children and families.

What's Kentucky doing to address these issues?

In August, the state allocated $8 million from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act to help reduce the monthly cost for low-income parents to pay for internet access for K-12 children. The program runs through the school year. Kentucky is working on a statewide broadband initiative that could be paid for by the American Rescue Plan, the successor to the CARES Act. 

Kentucky has provided rent and utility assistance as well as unemployment benefits throughout the pandemic, but the unemployment process has been plagued with long waits to get claims resolved and employment is still well below pre-pandemic numbers. 

The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy reports that while the state added 4,300 jobs in February, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, it still has 90,400 fewer jobs in February 2021, than it did in February 2020, the month before the pandemic hit. 

The state's 857 Family Resource and Youth Service Centers, which serve the 1,200-plus schools that have 20% or more students who are eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, have also been able to help. The centers say they did more than 49,000 home visits during the initial closure of schools from March to June 2020. 

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Family Resource and Youth Services Centers across the state met the increased needs for students and their families by adapting service delivery," Melissa Goins, director of the centers said in an e-mail. " Familiar with community needs, our FRYSCs coordinated home visits, porch drop-offs, and virtual platforms to continue connecting with families during this time.”

In survey about their pandemic response in that period, 98% of the FRYSC coordinators said they had provided food assistance, 85% provided non-traditional instruction packets and educational supports, 85% had provided basic needs and essential products, 65% had made family welfare checks, 56% had provided Covid-19 prevention information, and 35% had provided information about unemployment or jobs. 

Another way the state is working to make sure it's kids are getting enough food is participating in the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer program that provides funds through a benefits card to households with children eligible for free or reduced-price school meals to cover the food costs on the days they learn from home. The P-EBT program will run through the school year.

Flap over food aid to parents owing child support

Gov. Andy Beshear also recently vetoed Senate Bill 65, sponsored by Sen. Stephen West, R-Paris, which would reinstate a 2018 policy to disqualify some non-custodial parents from receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, formerly food stamps, if they owe child support. 

More broadly, the bill addresses regulations that have been found deficient after review by a legislative committee, and is meant to ensure that the legislature has ultimate control over policymaking decisions and not the governor. Beshear's administration put a halt to the policy in April 2020, citing the pandemic.

West's bill would reinstate the policy and prevent the Cabinet for Health and Family Services from issuing any similar regulation. Beshear said that would hurt more than 6,000 children in the state. 

"It is a cruel bill at any time, but certainly in a once in 100-year pandemic," Beshear said at a news briefing. "It takes food benefits away from children, and that is wrong. . . . SNAP benefits provide crucial help to so many of Kentucky's children. I'll not allow food to be taken away from children's tables simply because of actions of parents." His veto will likely be overridden by Republican supermajorities in both the House and Senate.

An analysis of the bill's effects by the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy found that the policy is ineffective at significantly increasing child-support payments and would worsen food insecurity across the state, including for kids. 

West noted at a February committee meeting that the interim health committee had asked for this policy to be reinstated because it is not fair to reward noncustodial "deadbeat parents" who haven't paid their child support and that this policy will give them an incentive to do so.

First Ky. Senior Hunger Summit brings awareness to issue, seeks solutions; nearly 3,000 Ky. seniors on waiting list for home meals

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

One in six Kentuckians older than 60 have faced the threat of hunger in the past year, prompting state officials to hold the first-ever Kentucky Senior Hunger Summit Oct. 30 in Frankfort to raise awareness of the issue and to help connect people in communities to find solutions.

Shannon Gadd, commissioner of the Department for Aging and Independent Living, told Kentucky Health News that while the government can't fully fund or supply all of the resources needed to help all of these hungry seniors, it can act as a connector and catalyst to raise awareness of the issue and to marshal resources.

"To tackle food insecurity, it will require a grassroots, community-led effort. I believe that many resources already exist and there is much great work happening," Gadd said in an e-mail. "The first step to addressing the issue is bringing everyone to the table to discover that good work and how we can work together to tackle the problem. The summit was a kickoff and there will be more to come."

In Kentucky, 16.6 percent of those 60 and older suffer from food insecurity, a 10% increase over the last four years. Kentucky ranks 39th for food insecurity and 46th for home-delivered meals, according to the United Health Foundation's annual America's Health Rankings.

Gadd said there were 2,917 Kentucky seniors on a waiting list for home-delivered meals on June 30, the end of the 2018-19 fiscal year.

She said the need for such services is great in Kentucky because "we have a very high number of adults ages 60 and older with independent-living difficulty, which translates to a higher need for home-delivered meals and other supportive services."

Kentucky seniors rank 49th in physical inactivity and 45th in the percentage of seniors who are "able-bodied," according to the rankings.

Gadd said other factors to consider "include supporting an increasing 60-plus population while sustaining a decrease in funds, a previous practice of funding only hot meals rather than frozen or shelf-stable meals, and the use of multiple food providers across the state, rather than a single state contract."

Who's at risk and health consequences

James Ziliak, founding director of the Center for Poverty Research at the University of Kentucky, pointed out that because most seniors live on a fixed income, any increase in their out-of-pocket spending puts them at risk of becoming food-insecure.

James Ziliak

Ziliak, who has done research on food insecurity for more than a decade, noted that poverty is a substantial factor in whether a senior is food-insecure. For example, he said seniors with incomes under the federal poverty line ($12,490 for an individual and $16,910 for a couple) are 30% more likely to have food insecurity.

The risk of food insecurity is at least twice as high for minorities, Ziliak said. After controlling for age, income and race, the risk also increases for those with less education, those who have a disability, those who are divorced or separated, those who have a grandchild living in the home. In addition, he said that seniors who self-report as socially isolated have a 50% greater risk of food insecurity.

Ziliak also presented his and Craig Gunderson's research on the health consequences of senior hunger. Gunderson is from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

They found that food-insecure seniors, compared to those who were food-secure, had a 60% higher risk for depression; 40% higher risk for congestive heart failure; 22% greater risk for coronary heart disease; 53% greater risk for a heart attack, and 37% greater risk for chest pain. They were also 52% more likely to report they had asthma, and 20% more likely to report fair or poor health.

"The health consequences are real," Ziliak said. "Feeding people feeds their soul, it feeds their mental health, it feeds their physical health. We need to make sure we are doing our job."

Feeding people can also help them live longer. A study co-authored by Ziliak and published in Health Affairs found that people in the Supplemental Nuitrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) have 1 to 2 percentage points less risk of mortality.

Ziliak noted that Kentucky leads the nation for the number of people between the ages of 50 and 59 who are food insecure, and said this is something that Kentucky should be paying attention to.

"It's a tidal wave coming, people," he said. "One in five of Kentuckians between the ages of 50 and 59 are food insecure. That's astounding. We lead the nation."

A recent report by the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, "SNAP is Good for Kentuckians' Health," cited research showing that food-insecure seniors had roughly the same quality of life as someone 14 years older -- and that SNAP participation leads to a 30% reduction in the likelihood that seniors will cut back on needed medications. It also cited a 2018 study of older adults, which concluded that getting SNAP benefits was associated with a 14% reduction in hospitalization and a 10% reduction in emergency-room use.

"SNAP is a really important tool, not only in our anti-poverty, anti-hunger toolbox, but also in our public health toolbox. And I think we would do well to start thinking of that more as a public health program," Dustin Pugel, author of the report, told Kentucky Health News.

A 2018 federal report shows food-insecure households spend about 45% more ($6,100) on medical care in a year than people in food-secure households ($4,200). And currently, the health-care costs for food insecurity in Kentucky are more than $854 million.

What can be done?

Ziliak suggested several solutions, including making sure that the 65% of seniors who are eligible for SNAP but don't use it get signed up; making it easier for them to sign up for the program and stay on it; changing federal regulations to give seniors more SNAP benefits; and changing the rules so mobility-challenged seniors can use SNAP to buy prepared food, not just in grocery stores.

In Kentucky, SNAP recipients over 65 must re-certify every two years, but those under 65 must do so annually. In 2017, 63,000 Kentuckians over 60 years old participated in SNAP, according to KCEP.

Pugel noted that the U.S. Department of Agriculture wants to restrict people with modest savings from getting SNAP, which would result in fewer seniors qualifying for the program. "If what we're trying to do is reduce food insecurity and improve health, especially among seniors, then that is a harmful policy; that is counterproductive to those goals," he said.

Roger McCann, executive director at Community Action Kentucky, said he hopes society is moving to a time when people recognize that food insecurity and other social determinants, like transportation and housing, play a significant role in a person's health and that addressing those determinants should be part of a person's medical care. He said this holistic approach would result in better health outcomes for everyone.

For example, he said, just like a person gets a prescription for a test or a drug, patients should also get prescriptions to have healthy meals delivered to them as they recover from a procedure if they live alone. "If you don't eat, your're not healthy," he said. "It is as simple as that."

Others spoke at the conference about innovative ways to address seniors' food insecurity, including a university program in Ohio that has a congregate meal program on its campus, and a hospital in Owensboro that donates its extra food to create frozen home-delivery meals. Gadd spoke about the need to work across state agencies to find solutions and the need to consolidate resources and to create a centralized database to help people.

State Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles told the crowd that he has been working on this issue for several years through his Kentucky Hunger Initiative, a first-of-its-kind program that involves farmers, charitable organizations, faith groups, community leaders and government entities. "It affects every county, every city and every community in Kentucky," he said.

The Aging and Disability Resource Center provides information and resources about aging and disability issues.

The home-delivered meal program was titled C2 by the Older Americans Act. This table shows the breakdown of federal and state funds for each area development district for fiscal 2019-20. The numbers do not reflect state administrative costs. The program is overseen by the state Department for Aging and Independent Living, which provided the table. (Click on it for a larger version.)

1 in 5 Ky. kids don't have enough to eat at home, so some schools offer supper; state agriculture program spurs summer meals

Two students get lunch at a school in Fairview in Boyd County.
The school superintendent is drawing attention to child hunger.

"With one in five Kentucky children not having enough to eat at home, many school staffs in the state are taking steps to feed them beyond breakfast and lunch and beyond days when schools are open," reports Valarie Honeycutt Spears of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

About 38,000 children in Kentucky are served daily in after-school supper programs, but “We have a lot of room to grow,” Elizabeth Fiehler, child and adult-care food program manager for the state Department of Education, told Spears, who adds to the number by reporting recent examples of school food directors feeding kids on the fly.

"When many public school systems in the state were closed for snow days Jan. 30 and 31, Letcher County Schools Food Service Director Nancy Banks opened West Whitesburg Elementary to provide food. She decided to serve students free lunches on both days and free breakfast on Thursday in Whitesburg . . . students’ families could eat for $3.50. About 55 meals were served thanks to staff willing to work on snow days."

Fairview Independent Schools Supt. Jackie Risden-Smith reported on Twitter that an after-school dinner program is “a game changer for reducing childhood hunger in our community.”

“While getting his food, a student smiled at his teacher and said, ‘We haven’t had a lot of food to eat at home ... now I won’t be hungry tonight’,” she wrote. “Child hunger is a real problem and we need more awareness. People don’t like to talk about it.”

In other tweets reported by Spears, Risden-Smith said, “Food insecurity among our youth is a basic need we must meet and although many are uncomfortable talking about this topic, we can’t afford to not talk about it and continue to bring about awareness. . . Hunger is a distraction to learning.”

State Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles has started "a first-of-its-kind initiative aimed at combating food insecurity with summer meals for Kentucky children," Spears writes. "He said the Kentucky-grown Fruit and Vegetable Incentive Program, called K-VIP, creates an economic incentive for summer meal programs to buy fruit and vegetables produced in Kentucky by Kentucky growers."

Grant for coolers from Southeast U.S. dairy group helps food banks in Lexington and Winchester provide milk to the needy

Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles announced the gift.

Clients of the God's Pantry Food Bank in Lexington and Winchester have greater access to fresh milk thanks to a $30,000 grant from The Dairy Alliance, formerly the Southeast United Dairy Industry Association.

God’s Pantry used the grant to put a total of seven milk coolers in its four food pantries in Fayette and Clark counties. The grant was part of the group's Milk 2 My Plate initiative to get Kentucky milk into Kentucky homes, and was announced by state Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles as part of his Hunger Initiative.

“As a bonus, our hard-working dairy farm families will get a new market for their products. This is one small step that hopefully will lead to more such initiatives to help Kentucky’s dairy farmers. We are extremely grateful to The Dairy Alliance for its support,” Quarles said in a news release.

Winchester Farms Dairy delivered milk to God’s Pantry as part of the May 29 announcement. The pilot project is providing 60 gallons of milk a week to the food bank; God’s Pantry CEO Michael Halligan is hoping to increase the volume.

“Hungry families, particularly those with young children, often lack calcium-rich milk in their diet. This pilot project will help us establish a consistent, sustainable flow of milk to those in need,” Halligan said. “In the first few weeks, we’ve witnessed so much joy and excitement through a cold glass of milk.”

Map the Meal Gap 2017, an annual study by Feeding America, found that one in six Kentuckians – including one in five children – were food insecure in 2015, meaning that consistent access to adequate food is limited by a lack of money and other resources at times during the year, the news release said.

Tobacco-settlement funds will subsidize summer meal programs' purchase of Kentucky fruits and vegetables

The state Department of Agriculture is offering a subsidy for summer meal programs in Kentucky to buy fruit and vegetables produced in the state. The program is funded by $185,000 in tobacco-settlement money awarded by the state Agricultural Development Board and administered by the Kentucky Association of Food Banks. 

"The program is the first of its kind in the nation," the department said in a news release about the Kentucky-grown Fruit and Vegetable Incentive Program, which it calls K-VIP.

“When we started the Kentucky Hunger Initiative two years ago, we began a conversation about how to combat the unfortunate reality that one in five Kentucky school children are food-insecure,” Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles said Jan. 8 at the Kentucky Fruit and Vegetable Conference in Lexington. “The K-VIP program gives summer feeding programs an added incentive to provide fresh, locally grown fruit and vegetables for hungry kids in the summer months while expanding market access for Kentucky farmers.”

Warren Beeler, executive director of the Governor’s Office of Agricultural Policy, said the ag-development board “jumped at the chance to expand market access for farmers and feed hungry kids at the same time.” The board spends half the money from the states' 1998 settlement with cigarette manufacturers, with the goal of broadening the state's agricultural base.

Tamara Sandberg, executive director of the food-banks group, said in the release, “The summer meals program helps ensure children receive the nutritious food they need to thrive during the summer months when school is out. K-VIP will help increase the portion of local Kentucky produce served through summer meals.”

Meal programs served 2.8 million Kentucky children last summer. The U.S. Department of Agriculture "reimburses summer site sponsors for meals served at feeding sites, and claims for reimbursement are processed by the Kentucky Department of Education," the release said. "For every lunch served, the summer feeding site sponsor receives reimbursement from USDA of $3.83."

To participate in K-VIP, sponsors must be approved by the Education Department to serve as summer meal site sponsors and submit an enrollment application to the food-banks association at www.kykidseat.org/kvip by April 15. Contact Cathy Gallagher (cathy.gallagher@education.ky.gov) at the Kentucky Department of Education to become an approved summer feeding site sponsor.

Enrolled sponsors will be eligible for reimbursement for up to one-third of their spending on Kentucky-grown produce. "Due to the limited number of funds, there is no guarantee of reimbursement," the release says. "K-VIP payments will be capped at 10 cents times the total number of meals reimbursed by USDA."

Kentucky growers may contact Tina Garland (tina.garland@ky.gov) at the state Agriculture Department to connect with summer feeding site sponsors in their area.

Kentucky's food insecurity declines slightly, but remains high in southeast; in 3 counties, rate among children is above 30 percent

Dots are food bank locations. For an interactive map with county data, click here.

The percentage of Kentuckians with an insecure food supply has declined slightly but remains ahead of the national average, with several counties well above the average, according to the latest measurement by Feeding America, which calls itself the nation's largest domestic hunger-relief organization.

Food insecurity by county in Kentucky and nearby states:
light green is up to the national average of 14 percent;
the darkest counties have rates of 30 percent or higher.

The latest calculations, for 2015, showed Kentucky's rate at 16 percent, down slightly from 17 percent in 2014, but still ahead of the national average of 14 percent. The rates ranged from 8 percent in Oldham County to 23 percent in Wolfe County.

The measurements use data from the census, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, food-price data and analysis from Nielsen, and information from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which defines food insecurity as "lack of access, at times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members and limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods. Food-insecure households are not necessarily food insecure all the time. Food insecurity may reflect a household’s need to make trade-offs between important basic needs, such as housing or medical bills, and purchasing nutritionally adequate foods."

Southeastern Kentucky's Fifth District has the highest food insecurity rate among the state’s six congressional districts, at 19.2 percent, said a news release from the Kentucky Association of Food Banks. "Children are at a higher risk of food insecurity; 20 percent of Kentucky’s children are food-insecure," the release says. "Three Kentucky counties have childhood food-insecurity rates of 30 percent or higher: Wolfe (32.4 percent); Magoffin (30.7 percent); and Clay (30.2 percent). This represents a decrease from the previous year, when 11 Kentucky counties had childhood food-insecurity rates of 30 percent or higher."

More than a fourth of Kentuckians (27.3 percent) in food-insecure households have incomes above 185 percent of the poverty line, "making them likely ineligible for most federal nutrition assistance programs," the release says.

“Though far too many Kentuckians continue to struggle to put healthful food on the table, we are encouraged by the movement in the right direction on hunger in Kentucky,” said Tamara Sandberg, executive director of the food-bank association. “Kentucky is a leader in the nation for our strong public-private partnerships, such as the Kentucky Department of Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles’s hunger initiative and the Kentucky Legal Food Frenzy sponsored by Attorney General Andy Beshear. We are committed to implementing creative solutions to the problem of hunger until the day when no Kentuckian has to go to bed hungry.”

Residents of Bourbon County and the Central Appalachian Coalfield are some of the nation's most sleep-deprived

Bourbon County residents are some of the nation's most sleep-deprived, according to county-level data from a study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study is based on a 2009 survey that asked 432,000 people how many times over the past 30 days they didn't get enough sleep or rest. Respondents were separated into two categories: people who reported poor sleep on fewer than 15 days, and those who reported it on more than 15 days, Christopher Ingraham reports for The Washington Post.

Among Bourbon County respondents, 54 percent said they don't get enough sleep, the seventh highest total in the nation. Many Central Appalachian Coalifield counties also had high rates; those in Kentucky were led by Harlan County, 49 percent; Floyd County, 44%; Breathitt County, 44%; Knox County, 43%; Knott County, 41%; Pike County, 41%; and Morgan County, 40%. 

For an interactive version of the map, click here.

"Researchers looked at a number of social and demographic factors to see whether anything correlated—obesity, income, education, drinking rates, overall physical and mental health," Ingraham writes. "They found, interestingly, that 'relatively younger individuals of lower socioeconomic status and poorer health were more likely to live in hotspot counties.' People who were generally younger, poorer and in worse health were more likely to live in places with high rates of bad sleep."

Newspapers across the state are reporting about school lunch and nutrition programs, of great interest to readers with students

Kentucky newspapers are writing about school meals, against the backdrop of controversy about federal nutrition guidelines, and these are stories with a high level of interest among a key demographic - readers with children of school age.

The Glasgow Daily Times  recently reported that a new deli-style option at Barren County High School has more than doubled its sales of this grab-and-go option since it has been offered this year, compared to the old grab-and-go option that was pre-assembled and served in a bag. The article noted that this new option has been well-received by both the students and staff, all while staying within the new federal nutrition guidelines.

The Hickman County Gazette reported that the county schools have increased breakfast participation to 68 percent, up from 23 percent last year and lunch participation to 95 percent, compared to 77 percent the same time last year. (This story is behind a paywall.)

Schools Nutrition Director Lynsi Barnhill told the newspaper that the increase can be attributed to the nutrition staff working with the students through surveys to create a menu that they like, but still stays within the federal nutrition guidelines; and that the school district is now classified as a Community Eligibility Provision school district, which allows schools to offer breakfast and lunch at no cost to all of its students.

The Independent in Ashland reported on a campaign, called "No Soda September,"  to encourage families in Boyd and Greenup counties to drink more water and less sugary beverages throughout the month. This effort is a partnership between The Appalachian Partnership for Positive Living and Eating and the local Boyd and Greenup counties middle and elementary schools.

"Classes that returned signed pledges received free color-changing water bottles and water trackers for students and teachers. More than 2,300 water bottles have been distributed," Adam Black writes.
  .

This idea was spurred by the health department's 5-2-1-0 APPLE program, which is funded by a grant from the AstraZeneca HeathCare Foundation’s Connections for Cardiovascular Health, that suggest kids get: • 5 servings of fruit or vegetables • 2 hours or less of screen time • 1 hour of physical activity • 0 sugar-added beverages. 

"The consumption of sugary beverages, especially among young children who drink more than one beverage a day, leads to a higher risk of being overweight or obese and children with obesity issues are more likely to suffer from health problems such as asthma, headaches, depression and type 2 diabetes," according to the health department, Black reports.

"Officials also report the consumption of sugary beverages can lead to many dental issues, including cavities that can cause pain, infection, tooth loss and in severe cases, death," he writes.

The News-Graphic in Georgetown reported on how several schools  in Scott County, like many across the state, are conducting food drives to support its "Send Out Snacks Backpack" program to make sure kids don't go hungry over the weekend.

Becky McDonald, the family resources coordinator at Garth and Eastern elementary schools told Kayla Pickrell of the News-Graphic that the backpack program helps children who are on free or reduced lunch have food over the weekend by giving them backpacks with enough easy to prepare breakfast, lunch and snack foods to last until they come back to school on Monday. 

 “We have families who struggle to feed their kids over the weekend” because they are used to the free or reduced lunch during the week, McDonald said. “It helps out the parents a lot.” (This story is behind a paywall.)

School nutritionists' lobbying group, freshly funded by grocery makers, wants more funding and flexibility with school-lunch rules

School nutrition officials want more flexibility with new school lunch rules to cut down on the waste of unwanted food, Spencer Chase reports for Agri-Pulse, a Washington newsletter. Julia Bauscher, president of the School Nutrition Association, told the House Education and Workforce Committee that the organization supports the rules, but needs more funding to enforce them  and more flexbility to serve foods students will eat. (USDA graphic)

"SNA is requesting 35 cents more in federal funding for each lunch and breakfast that is served in the school lunch program, up from the additional six cents the government provided when the new standards were put in place," Chase writes. Bauscher told the committee, “That will help school food authorities afford the foods that we must serve, but unfortunately that won't make students consume it.”

Bauscher, who said SNA wants Congress "to soften the bill's target levels for more whole grains and less sodium in school meals," said that "in many cases, the new requirements have forced school lunch programs outside of budgetary constraints, forcing them to ask school districts to make up the difference. According to SNA, school districts will absorb $1.2 billion in new food and labor costs in 2010," Agri-Pulse reports. SNA has drawn major funding from some food manufacturers.

Chase writes that 51 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunches, the first time the number has topped 50 percent in at least 50 years.

UK gets $2.5 million for rural child poverty nutrition center

L-R: Nancy Cox, dean of UK's College of Agriculture, Food
and Environment; Secy. Tom Vilsack; Gov. Steve Beshear.

Kentucky Health News

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced at the University of Kentucky Thursday that the Department of Agriculture will give UK $2.5 million to establish the USDA Rural Child Poverty Nutrition Center.

"This program will target child hunger and poverty in persistently poor rural communities by partnering with agencies who have the resources and expertise to make a difference," Gov. Steve Beshear said in a UK news release. "This program will do more than offer aid. It will attack the root causes of child hunger and poverty."

UK will partner with the Altarum Institute and the Southern Rural Development Center to develop the center. They hope to administer grants to as many as 30 impoverished rural areas in up to 15 states. The communities would use the funds to better coordinate existing child-nutrition programs as well as find new ways to target child food insecurity, the release says.

Rural children who live in poverty are some of the most vulnerable, and 85 percent of all persistently poor counties in the U.S are rural. Twenty-six percent of Kentucky's children live in poverty.

Appalachians Together Restoring the Eating Environment to help Eastern Kentucky communities develop local, healthy foods

A new project searches for ways to increase access to healthy foods in Eastern Kentucky and looks to communities to find these solutions.

Appalachians Together Restoring the Eating Environment, or Appal-TREE, is a collaborative project between the Community Farm Alliance and the University of Kentucky. It is based in Whitesburg and funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health. Other partners include Grow Appalachia, the Cowan Community Center and the Mountain Garden Initiative.

"This project is unique in that the community got to determine the pathway and the goal of the grant funding," Valerie Horn, director of the project, told the UKNow news service. "We wanted to talk to the people who have the most influence about food issues, as well as those people who are most affected by those decisions."

About one in six Kentuckians, or 16.4 percent, struggles with food insecurity in Kentucky, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Food insecurity is defined as the lack of reliable access to a sufficient amount of affordable, nutritious food.

Horn has worked with several grass-roots efforts in Appalachia to combat food insecurity: Grow Appalachia, local farmer's markets, local food pantries, summer feeding programs for country children, weekend backpack programs and a free meal program at the weekend farmer's market for children. She told UKNow that these grassroots efforts represent a "growing awareness about local, healthy foods in Eastern Kentucky over the last several years."

The first year of the project was spent gathering community input about the topic. "The problems related to nutrition are ones that can be solved locally and they're not insurmountable, said Mark Swanson, associate professor in UK's College of Public Health and principal investigator on the grant. "We have solutions in the communities. It's neat when UK can help communities solve their own problems. We don’t know the solution — they do. It's the idea of pairing academic knowledge with local expertise."

The next two years of the grant will focus on several key projects, two of which focus on schools. The first is a "water first" campaign to encourage middle- and high-school students to choose water over sugary drinks, and the second will focus on increasing healthy options in school concession stands in Letcher County.

"We'd like to work with the schools to help them see that at a ball game, you can still make money selling snacks that are less harmful," Horn said.

Appal-TREE will organize free cooking classes throughout Letcher County. Each program will include six sessions that emphasize healthy food on a budget.

Nearby, the Clay County Cooperative Extension Service has also promoted food security through community cooking classes, teaching families how to can their own food and helping to start Clay County's first farmers market last summer, UKNow reports.

"Food is tied to so many things here -- when there's a funeral, dining room tables are covered with cakes and dumplings and just the best of food. We have wonderful cooks here," Horn said. "I say that it's like being a talented musician and learning another instrument — it's just learning another way to make food."

17 percent of Kentuckians lack food security; beef council to help on local level with donations to food banks

More than 750,000 people in Kentucky, 17 percent of those living in the commonwealth, do not always know where they will find their next meal, according to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap study. Among Kentucky's children, the number of those experiencing food insecurity is an astonishing 23 percent.

Here's a link to the Map the Meal Gap interactive map. To see Kentucky's hunger index by Congressional district, go here.

The Lane Report notes this has prompted state Agriculture Commissioner James Comer to declare September as Farmers and Food Banks Fighting Hunger Month in Kentucky. “Programs such as Farm to Food Banks are ones that aid Kentucky farmers by furnishing them with another outlet to sell their commodities while at the same time providing food for the hungry," said Comer.

The Farms to Food Banks program allows the Kentucky Association of Food Banks to buy surplus and second-grade produce for distribution free of charge through the food banks' network. In honor of Farmers and Food Banks Fighting Hunger Month, the Kentucky Beef Council announced the launch of  Beef Counts KY, a program that will supply nutrient-rich beef for people facing hunger in Kentucky. Farmers will have the option of donating cash or donating proceeds from the sale of beef animals to the program. Fourteen livestock markets across the state are participating and will forward proceeds from donated beef animals to the program. “Each donated animal or the cash equivalent provides roughly 1,600 servings of high-quality nutrient-rich beef protein. This is a local solution to local hunger," said Chuck Crutcher, chairman of the KBC and Hardin County beef farmer. 

You can do this, too: Lexington church's fresh food program reaches out to lower income neighbors with deep discount

Rick Courtney loads tomatoes into a crate bound
for Fresh Stop (Herald-Leader photo by Charles Bertram)

Fresh produce comes to the church-goers of Fresh Presbyterian Church of Lexington every Sunday through Fresh Stop, a community-supported agriculture program. But it's not your typical CSA program; this one comes with a charitable twist. Sure, members sign up to receive fresh produce weekly during the summer growing season but, writes Mary Meehan of the Lexington Herald-Leader, here 25 percent of the members pay a nominal amount because they live in a "food desert," where fresh food is hard to come by, and have lower incomes. To cover the difference, explains Meehan, the other 75 percent of members pay slightly more than a CSA normally would cost. "That's the key," said Libby Iverson, a church member and Fresh Stop member. "We need to share. That's very important."

The farm-to-table non-profit supplies tomatoes and cabbage, sweet peppers and onions that fill a table last Sunday were literally gleaming with freshness. All were picked from farmer Rick Courtney's Harrison County field just the day before, Meehan notes. It was all the brainchild of student Julia Hofmeister, who, armed with a major in sustainable agriculture at the University of Kentucky and having been part of the local Community Farm Alliance, set out in 2009 to find a farmer. Courtney was a tobacco farmer in Cynthiana, now a section of his farm on the South Fork of the Licking River is filled with vegetables.

Many of the low-income families served by the program are referred by Habitat for Humanity and Kentucky Refugee Ministries. Wheeler said one of the biggest concerns in expanding the program is that families often don't know what to do with all the produce they receive. Hofmeister thinks the program can be made to work elsewhere. "It is so transferrable," she said. (Read more)