Southside Stories: A melting pot of healthy flavors

January 24, 2013 By Leave a Comment


This story is part of a semester-long project by USC Annenberg students spotlighting South LA. Stories featured on Intersections South LA have been written by students in USC Professor Robert Hernandez’s class. See more Southside Stories here.

By Ivana Banh

Walk into any restaurant on Slauson Avenue and you will most likely be offered greasy fried chicken, Chinese food, flavored with monosodium glutamate, or some sort of burger dripping with bacon grease.

Simply Wholesome is different.

The bright green building boasts glowing lights, floor-to-ceiling windows and a welcoming vibe. Inside the spacious restaurant, regulars are greeted with hugs from Owner Percell Keeling and the young staff. image

Upbeat jazz music plays loudly while blenders whip up protein shakes. The air is scented with blend of sweet potatoes, spices and freshly baked vegan cake.

As a former Redondo Beach health nut with a passion for distance running, Keeling knows what the human body needs to function properly. When he moved to Los Angeles in the 1970s, he immediately discovered that very few health-conscious restaurants existed.

The majority of South Los Angeles was African-American and tended to serve artery-clogging Southern meals. Keeling was often forced to drive out to South Bay, Hollywood or Marina Del Rey for more nutritious food.

His exasperation with junk food in the area would lead to something much bigger. One day, while he was voicing his complaints, a friend suggested he open his own restaurant. At the time, any type of establishment offering foods that were not deep-fried and bacon-adorned was practically unheard of.

“Everyone was saying to open the restaurant further west because black people don’t eat healthy,” Keeling said. “But I’m black and I eat healthy!”

In 1981, Keeling opened Simply Wholesome. For the first few years, the 1,000 square-foot restaurant offered a small selection of healthy sandwiches, salads and pastries. As the fan base rapidly grew, Keeling knew he had to expand in order to accommodate the diners. In 1995, he bought a 5,000 square-foot 1950s-style diner. He renovated the building to construct a dining area and a small health market.

Keeling and his staff work to ensure that the market is always stocked with organic cereals, frozen meals, coconut water and probiotic drinks. In addition, the market carries African-American hair product lines like Mixed Chicks and Kinky-Curly. Shoppers can also browse a wide selection of cookbooks and health literature.

Simply Wholesome’s extensive menu offers more choices than most health food restaurants. Many mistake Simply Wholesome as a purely vegan restaurant, but Keeling assures that meat dishes are also available. Their specialities include flaky Caribbean pastries filled with spiced chicken and vegetables, enchiladas, veggie burgers and hearty breakfasts. Those who prefer a more traditional meal often choose the “Down Home Sunday Dinner,” which consists of battered or grilled tofu, chicken or fish, candied yams, greens, rice and corn bread.

As for the beverage menu, 45 different protein shakes and smoothies are available. Rather than using premixed blends full of sugar and artificial flavorings, Simply Wholesome opts for fresh fruit, soy milk and coconut juice. Customers often pay a few extra cents for add-ons such as wheat germ, bee pollen and ginseng.

“All our shakes are made from fresh, real ingredients so they’re not bland like the other juice places out there,” Keeling said. “It may cost more to do it this way, but the return in business volume is all worth it.”

Simply Wholesome’s large and devoted fan base has proven Keeling’s business theories correct. The restaurant is now more than a convenient stop for those passing through the South Los Angeles area; Keeling has met diners from dozens of miles away that make Simply Wholesome their breakfast, lunch or dinner destination.

The restaurant may sit in a predominantly African-American area of Los Angeles, but it receives customers of all ethnicities and backgrounds. Over time, the menu has also been influenced by the diversities in the Los Angeles community. Caribbean, American, Mexican and African flavors work together to create Simply Wholesome’s plethora of healthy selections.

“This place is like a melting pot, the energy here – everyone is one when they come through the doors,” Keeling said. “Everyone is cool.”

The Pasadena and the University of Southern California communities have encouraged Keeling to open Simply Wholesome locations in their neighborhoods, but he declined their offers.

When it comes to expanding his business, Keeling prefers to do so in a unique building, not a cookie-cutter spot in a strip mall. The down-to-earth owner prefers to keep it simple rather than opening several mediocre locations, and he chooses to provide quality service and food in one hot spot.

His goal is to foster an environment in which both his customers and staff feel comfortable and at home.

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Promoting health in the Latino community

November 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment


Latinos in low-income immigrant communities tend to seek medical attention at the last minute – often, in an emergency room. It’s not because they don’t want to go to the doctor. It’s because they can’t afford it. A lack of health insurance, limited access to low-cost care, cultural factors and language are many times barriers to getting the help they need.

That’s where promotoras come in. They’re health educators, advocates, mentors and outreach workers. They’re effective in their health prevention information efforts because they usually come from the very communities they serve.

In South LA, non-profit organization Esperanza Community Housing has a popular program that since its inception in 1996 has trained and graduated almost 400 men and women promotores.

Juanita Calel is one of those graduates. Originally from Guatemala, she has dedicated her life for the past 12 years to helping others in her community. As a promotora, she gives health classes, goes to health fairs and even does house visits to provide health prevention information all year round.

Like other promotoras, she focuses on breast cancer awareness as the need arises. Calel talks about her passion for health education and the challenges she faces in relaying information about breast cancer among Latinas.

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Fast food fight

April 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment


Listen to the audio story from Annenberg Radio News:

imageBy Sean Patrick Lewis
Contributor

“Can I have your chicken pot pie…”

Pot pies… fried chicken… burgers…

“Ya make that two sodas.”

Oh, and don’t forget the drink.

If you’re in South LA, any fast food you want, you can have in minutes.

And if anyone knows a thing or two about fast-food, it’s father-of-three Joe Vidal… who picked up his family’s dinner at Taco Bell.

“Everywhere you go in South L.A. if you’re driving by… you come probably like from here to Manchester there’s probably like 13 stores… fast food restaurants… that’s why we’re all like this… “

Vidal laughs about his bulging belly, but it was that troubling “fat fact” that had city leaders looking for change.

Two years ago, the LA City Council approved a moratorium on fast food in South LA.

That meant no new fast food restaurants, period. And for Gwendolyn Flynn of the Community Health Councils… it couldn’t have come any sooner.

“We found we have an over concentration of fast food restaurants in South Los Angeles, there’s high rates of obesity, there’s high rates of diabetes, other chronic illnesses that are diet-related that have to do with the ones we are concentrating on… cardiovascular disease, you know, and even cancers.”

Flynn says it’s still too early to tell if the ban made any impact, but has worked making people think about community health for themselves.

“If we can have a place, a location in South Los Angeles that can offer different options that make it easy for people to make good choices, I think they will make good choices.”

Choices Joe Vidal might make for his family’s next meal.

“Are you worried about your kids at all?”

“We try not to eat as much fast food…but I guess yeah, I do worry about my kids, ‘cause that’s all they see, that’s all they see around here. Just wish they’d have a lot better food for us here.”

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Creating healthy neighborhoods

December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment


imageBy Eddie North-Hager

This is the second part of a series called Healthy ‘Hoods, which examines the notion of environmental injustice in South Los Angeles.

Hiking along some of the seven miles of trails in Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, it’s easy to forget how close you are to the middle of the city. And with four more parks comprising nearly 60 acres right across the street, it’s easy to think that South Los Angeles is filled with parks just like this one.

But this rich concentration of green space in the far northwest corner of South L.A. belies the fact that the rest of this area is so park poor.

How did western L.A. County end up having 59 acres of park space per 1,000 people and South L.A. end up with 1.2 acres per 1,000 people?

According to the report in “Parks and Park Funding in Los Angeles: An Equity Mapping Analysis,” the evidence adds up to a conclusion that environmental injustice was no accident.

Past discrimination in housing, past discrimination in employment, ongoing placement of facilities that pollute, and the inequity in locations for urban services add up to the reality that the poor and communities of color are likely to be relegated to park-poor neighborhoods, reports the study’s author, Jennifer Wolch, Dean of the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley.

“[W]ealthier districts are more likely to boast plentiful parks and greenbelts provided by public funding,” the report finds.

Some of the problems we are facing today have their roots in laws created in 1904, according to the report. It was the first ordinance to regulate where business and residences could locate.

The zoning code “protected the affluent, predominantly Anglo Westside from industrial uses and high density housing,” finds Wolch, who was then the director of the USC Center for Sustainable Cities.

Industry and high-density housing were allowed to locate, instead, right by the city’s eastern and southern areas, where the working class called home. Parks and other urban amenities were located in other parts of town. As parks increase a home’s value, this inequality translates into a larger gap between the rich and poor, the report finds.

Los Angeles wasn’t alone. In 1912, the city of Torrance developed a well-thought-out plan to house the city’s workers, mainly Latinos, downwind of the city’s industrial plants and their pollutants, Wolch reports.

In addition to school segregation through the 1940s and racially restrictive housing covenants through the 1950s, parks were also historically segregated in Los Angeles.

Blacks could only swim in the public pool on International Day, the day before the pool was cleaned and the water drained, according to “Healthy Parks, Schools, and Communities: Mapping Green Access and Equity” by Robert García and Aubrey White of City Project.

Bruce’s Beach in Manhattan Beach was one of the few beaches blacks could enjoy in the 1920s. By the ‘30s, city officials forced them out, leaving only one other place for blacks to enjoy the ocean — the Inkwell at Pico Boulevard — according to the City Project report.

“The struggle to maximize public access to public lands while ensuring the fair treatment of people of all colors, cultures, and incomes can transform the Los Angeles region into a more livable, democratic, and just community, and provides a replicable advocacy model for community redevelopment,” García and Aubrey report.

With such a history, how can a neighborhood — especially one so dense and so park poor as South Los Angeles — become a healthy neighborhood that encourages physical activity?

Build parks near homes. Keep sidewalks safe. Create bike lanes. These attributes lead to “walkable communities” because they encourage people to walk more, according to the study, “Walking and Bicycling: An Evaluation of Environmental Audit Instruments.”

“Applying public health criteria to land-use and urban design decisions could substantially improve the health and quality of life of the American people,” according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Walking a little more or having a park nearby could help shed just a few pounds. A few makes an impact — losing seven pounds helps reduce the risk of developing diabetes in high-risk patients by 60 percent, and diabetes is linked to obesity.

“If you make some changes, you can feel safe walking to the corner store or the mall,” says Anthony Crump, a policy analyst with the Community Health Councils in South L.A. “If you have a bike lane and bike parking, kids and adults will be more likely to use them.”

In the same way, shade trees, crosswalks, street furniture and other types of infrastructure can encourage people to walk. People are more likely to ride bicycles when there are bike racks to park their bike and bike lanes that are clearly marked.

The Children’s Nature Institute is attempting to deal with South L.A.’s urban legacy by enticing kids to go outside and enjoy the local flora and fauna.

“You have to get a lot out the space you have,” says Michelle Rhone-Collins, executive director of the Children’s Nature Institute in South L.A. “There are barriers that keep people from the pristine spaces. So how do you still continue to experience nature and access those benefits? With us, we are going to walk right outside of the door.”

Institute staff take children on hikes right on the city streets and inspect ant hills, spider webs and bean pods. They take what they can get and use it as a science lesson and a moment of wonder.

It seems intuitive that green space would be a healthful benefit. Still, it’s easy to underestimate how much of a difference it can make on your mind and body.

“There are demonstrable benefits to having open space as well as experiencing different species of birds and animals, even when people are not trained to know what they are looking at,” says Travis Longcore, science director of the Urban Wildands Group and an associate professor at the University of Southern California.

“Every study says yes it matters. People internalize elements of their environment,” Longcore says.

But how much of an effect can it be?

People in an office with plants score better on repetitive task and memory recall, Longcore says.

Consider:
Physical activity relieves depression and anxiety, which also correlate to high blood pressure and heart attacks.
Outdoor play is critical to a child’s cognitive development
Views of nature are linked to the mitigation of attention deficit disorder.

“Studies show that when going outside for exercise, it is better for your psychological health and well being, as well as helping prevent obesity and diabetes,” Rhone-Collins says.

In the third part of the series, we’ll look at a hiking path and green space in the South L.A. community of Leimert Park that was saved from being developed into apartments and hillside homes.

This story originally appeared on KCET.org

Eddie North-Hager is the founder and editor of hyper-local social network and news site Leimert Park Beat. This project was made possible through the support of the USC Annenberg Health Journalism Fellowship program, funded by The California Endowment.

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Obesity epidemic hits South L.A. harder than most

December 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment


imageBy Eddie North-Hager

“Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the United States.”

That quote should read like a public health bombshell, yet it’s not even news anymore. It was the opening line of a study published in “Science” magazine back in 1998. The authors, James O. Hill of the University of Colorado and J.C. Peters of Procter and Gamble, Co., were among the first to identify this American public health disaster. But, if anything, the problem has gotten worse.

From 1980 to 2004, the percentage of young people who were obese tripled nationwide, rising to 18 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Here in Los Angeles County, officials report more than half the adult population is now overweight.

And while obesity is a problem for Americans in all walks of life, it’s worse when you don’t live near a park, when access to public transportation is limited, when sidewalks are broken and streetlights are few.

“We have to recognize that where we live affects our health,” says Anthony Crump, a policy analyst for Community Health Council, a group that aims to eliminate health disparities in South Los Angeles.

Crump studies the relationship between the built environment and personal health.

“If you live with limited access to parks and recreation, to high quality food, it is reflected in your health status,” Crump says.

In fact, a National Institutes of Health study found that just living in a socioeconomically deprived area leads to weight gain and a greater risk of dying at an early age.

As a homegrown example, people in Culver City live an average of eight years longer than people in Jefferson Park, according to Crump. Yet these two communities in the middle of Los Angeles are only a couple of miles apart.

“There are a whole lot of reasons why, but the bottom line is that the disparity is huge,” Crump says. “Look at the big picture and it’s a stark reality.”

The neighborhoods of South Los Angeles suffer more than most:

– Thirty-three percent of children there are overweight.
– One in seven residents has diabetes, compared to one in 12 in West L.A.
– Forty-two percent of South L.A. residents live below the federal poverty level, compared to only 12 percent in West L.A., and the numbers correspond with the rate of diabetes in each area.

South Los Angeles — nearly 100 square miles and a million people — also happens to be the most park poor area of Los Angeles, with about 1.2 acres of park space per 1,000 people. The national standard is 6 acres for every 1,000 residents. Western Los Angeles county has 59 acres of parks per 1,000 residents.

But South L.A. is not alone in terms of limited park space. Nearly two-thirds of the children in Los Angeles County — mostly the children of the poor — have no park or playground near their home, according to the City Project, which promotes increased parks and recreation for underserved communities.

“When you have less access to parks and the streets are unfriendly for walking and biking, there is less physical activity among kids and adults alike,” Crump says.

There have been some positive changes, though. Dania Bautista is trying to shed a few pounds, and the city has made it a little bit easier for her. The 29-year-old works up a sweat at Van Ness Park in South L.A. on the outdoor elliptical machine, one of several pieces of workout equipment installed throughout the park.

She comes to the park to watch her friends play soccer. Instead of being just a spectator, she takes the opportunity to get in a workout.

“I do this for my health — I’m fat and I need to lose weight and it’s not pretty,” said Bautista, who operates a tamale cart. “Before, I didn’t work out at all.”

Even modest weight loss (only 7 pounds) has been shown to reduce the risk of developing diabetes by nearly 60 percent. That’s 30 minutes of physical activity on most days. It’s going to the park or riding your bike to the market.

Ultimately, the health of a neighborhood can be measured by the levels of obesity and chronic disease, cardiovascular health, and exposure to pollution and cancer causing agents.

The stakes are high and involve more than just individual health. Obesity greatly increases the risk of developing many chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, high blood pressure, lung disease, asthma, cancer and depression.

Medical care associated with such illnesses costs California tens of billions of dollars — care for diabetes alone cost Los Angeles County $5.6 billion in 2005.

As Hill and Peters wrote in 1998, “To stop and ultimately reverse the obesity epidemic, we must ‘cure’ this environment.”

So how do you cure the environment? How do you create healthier neighborhoods? In the second part of this series, “Healthy ‘Hoods,” we’ll look at the ingredients needed.

This story originally appeared on KCET.org

Eddie North-Hager is the founder and editor of hyper-local social network and news site Leimert Park Beat. This project was made possible through the support of the USC Annenberg Health Journalism Fellowship program, funded by The California Endowment.

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Inglewood restaurant offers meat-free meals in a sea of fast food options

November 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment


Listen to an audio story by Annenberg Radio News

imageLatisha Jordan stands in front of the grill at Stuff I Eat heating up some tortillas.

“I’m making mixed tacos,” she explains. “There’s wild rice and tofu mixed together, with S.I.E. [Stuff I Eat] sauce and with medium, mild, or spicy salsa, and then kale with carrot mango dressing.”

Jordan works for her aunt and uncle at Stuff I Eat, the only vegan restaurant in Inglewood with her cousin Danielle Horton. Both cousins are vegan for health reasons.

Horton went from a size 18/22 to size 8 after giving up meat, she says. “It was seeing my family members, my mom, my dad, some of my cousins, all overweight, having diabetes, high blood pressure at an early age, I was headed in that direction.”

The Center for Disease and Control reports that the African American community has an obesity rate of 36 percent, which is higher than either Hispanics or whites.

Horton saw an alternative in her aunt and uncle, Ron and Babette Davis, who opened Stuff I Eat in 2008. They see themselves as missionaries of a vegan diet in a neighborhood full of fast food restaurants, she says.

“People were always saying why did you guys open up in Inglewood? You guys would make a killing in Santa Monica or Venice, but we live here, so we thought this would be a good place to have a healthy alternative for our community,” Horton says.

Not everyone in the community is convinced.

“We’ve had people walk in and walk right out,” Horton says. “But a lot of it is still it’s the breaking through the habits and traditions that have been passed down. That’s the big main challenge. People think they can’t live without meat.”

Customer Makeda Cowan is trying to learn to be a strict vegetarian for health reasons, but she says the food also just tastes good.

“My favorite when I come is the something-something, which is a variety of almost everything, and I like it spicy,” Cowan says. “The community needs it. There’s too many people sick and obese, and it’s because of fast food, not knowing what to eat. It’s old school to me, it’s how I grew up. I didn’t have my first burger until I was 22 and I didn’t like it.”

Vegans still may be rare in the African American community, but Stuff I Eat has found its niche. It is opening an event space next door to the restaurant in 2012.

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New technology brings more convenient, confidential STD testing to South LA

September 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment


The 2010 stats on STDs in Los Angeles are in, and while it’s not good news for South LA, Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas says he’s determined to do something about the high numbers in his district.

The Second Supervisorial District, which includes South LA, has the highest number of cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea in the county. Last year, a total of 14,999 chlamydia cases and 3,646 gonorrhea cases were reported for residents of the Second District—that’s more than 30 percent of all chlamydia cases and 38 percent of all the gonorrhea cases in the county.

It was against these grim statistics that Ridley-Thomas addressed an audience of community and faith leaders, healthcare providers and educators outside the new Martin Luther King Jr. Public Health Center to share his district’s STD Control Plan.

imageThe plan, which seeks to help women overcome the barriers to the diagnosis and treatment of STDs, revolves around an expansion of the county’s “I Know” home STD testing program. The county is emphasizing the technology behind the “I Know” campaign—both in the test itself and in the way women can obtain the free testing kits.

The test, which can be done at home in a few minutes, is a nucleic acid amplification test, which the Department of Public Health identifies as the most accurate type of test for either chlamydia or gonorrhea. It’s the same type of test that would be done at a clinic, but now women can get tested on their own time without having to arrange transportation or face the embarrassment or stigma that may exist with going to a clinic.

Testing kits can be ordered for free through the website DontThinkKnow.org or by calling a toll-free hotline (800-758-0880). The kit arrives by mail within a week. And starting this year, outreach workers will be attending community events who can register women for a kit on-the-fly with mobile devices. The Second District will also be placing kiosks around South LA that allow women to sign up to have a kit delivered. Ridley-Thomas said the kiosks were movable and that they would be experimenting with locations to find the most high-traffic areas.

Results can then be checked online or through a toll free number. Women can have confidential access to their results at a time that works for them, without having to worry about a nurse calling them at home or work or somewhere else that lacks privacy.

The hope is that the increased options for testing, along with education, will help overcome feelings of shame tied to going to a public clinic to get tested. As Ridley-Thomas had his audience repeat several times, “Shame is not a cure.”

image
Mobile testing units offer another alternative to visiting a clinic or performing the test at home. Health workers can run tests for common STDs as well as HIV. Each RV contains two private examination rooms.

Dr. Jonathan Fielding, the director of the LA County Department of Public Health emphasized that it’s especially important for young women to get tested for these two diseases because they can be asymptomatic, and if left untreated, can lead to more serious complications like pelvic inflammatory disease, which can cause infertility in some cases. With increased testing, Dr. Fielding hopes the county can identify instances of chlamydia and gonorrhea early on, when they are easily treatable.

Reverend Clyde Oden, the senior pastor of Byant Temple AME Church Oden said the options for increased health awareness are much needed in “a community that has been overlooked and underserved.”

In addition to the new technology, Oden also encouraged a new kind of education for faith leaders in South LA so that they can actually talk knowledgeably about sexual health to the young people in their faith communities.

The question remains though, will the increased accessibility to testing reduce the number of cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea?

Angelica Woodard and Andreina Cordova, two peer counselors and volunteers with the “I Know” street team, think the kits will make a difference. While education about STDs continues to be a challenge, the kits, they explained, remove another barrier to getting tested that women in South LA were facing—transportation to a clinic.

“You get out there and realize that there’s just a huge knowledge gap for people in this area of their lives,” Cordova said. “We need to get people talking.”

And they’re hoping to do just that. Recently, they’ve been hitting the streets, passing out information on the kits and answering questions.

“We held up a banner at the Lakers’ parade that said ‘LA: Number One in basketball and Number One in chlamydia.’” Cordova said. “That got their attention.”

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VIDEO: Think Healthy! comes to 112th Elementary in Watts

April 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment


Cedars-Sinai’s Couch for Kids came to 112th Street Elementary School in Watts on April 15 to teach kids that healthy living can be fun. All 500 students took part in the fair on the school’s campus.

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Experts discuss the ‘politics of food’ in South L.A.

February 5, 2011 By 5 Comments


imageThis week, the United States Department of Agriculture and Department of Health released new dietary guidelines. Updated every five years, the food pyramid taught in classrooms around the nation is a beacon of healthy food choices.

This year, the pyramid says Americans have been eating too much salt, so much so, in fact, that it urges them to cut their salt intake in half.

Despite the revamping of the food pyramid, despite the flashy graphics and colorful design that becomes more aesthetically pleasing twice a decade, Americans are getting fatter. Almost one third of adults in the United States are overweight or obese, compared to about 15 percent 30 years ago. Diabetes rates are skyrocketing.

The food pyramid is based on the assumption that good nutrition stems from individual behavior; individual behavior drives our consumption. People make choices, and making a healthy choice is a good decision. The question becomes, can everyone make that same healthy choice?

David Sloane, professor of Policy, Planning and Development at the University of Southern California, says we can’t. Sloane spoke Thursday in the Tudor Campus Center to a room full of University of Southern California students and faculty. He was one of four speakers during a lunch panel discussion on the “Politics of Food.”

Sloane, who has been studying food distribution for 11 years, says residents of South Los Angeles have far fewer choices than those in more affluent communities.

It is a crisis of equity.

Sloane’s research team did a series of comparisons between restaurants and grocery stores in West and South Los Angeles in 2001 and 2006, and is gearing up for another round this year.

Restaurants

Sloane’s team found that there was a discrepancy both in choice of restaurants and on the menus within the restaurants in South and West Los Angeles.

“West Los Angeles is one of those places where people have the ability to make those choices,” said Sloane. “It’s one of the richest food environments one could imagine in the United States. There are tons of fast food restaurants, but there are tons of fast food restaurants everywhere in the United States. The difference is, do you have a choice?”

Three quarters of the restaurants in South Los Angeles are fast food restaurants, compared to less than half of the restaurants in West Los Angeles.

“But restaurant distribution are just points on a map,” said Sloane. He also wanted to know about the options once inside the restaurant.

In 2001 and 2002, Sloane sent people into restaurants to answer a simple question of the menus. Not of people, just the menus. The surveyors noted the transparency of healthy alternatives.

The difference was statistically significant. In West Los Angeles, it was common; in South Los Angeles, it was practically nonexistent.

These choices, or lack thereof, make up the profile of the separate food systems. To create a comprehensive food profile of the two areas, the team factored in grocery stores, community gardens and alternative sources of food.

Sloane discovered that places with high minority or low-income populations have a very different profile than places with lots of money. Namely, they have far fewer choices.

“The simple statement that policy makers often make to those kinds of people, ‘Oh, just eat better, and you’ll be healthier,’ isn’t actually that easy to do,” said Sloane.

The impact is evident. South Los Angeles has both the poorest and most overweight people in the Southland. Over 30 percent of the population lives under the poverty line. Thirty-five percent of adults are overweight or obese.

Grocery Stores

imageGrocery stores between the two communities had a gap just as wide as restaurants.

“I’m an aficionado of Trader Joe’s,” said Sloane. “I can go to Washington and I can go to Trader Joes, I can go to Atlanta and go to Trader Joe’s, but I can’t go to Trader Joe’s in South Los Angeles.”

When looking at a map of grocery store locations in Los Angeles, the sparse distribution of stores in South Los Angeles might make one think that the community can’t support more. Sloane says that isn’t true.

Through tracking spending patters, Sloane found that tens of millions of dollars are exported annually to the ring of grocers around South Los Angeles, such as Culver City, Westchester and Downtown Los Angeles.

Not only does this mean money is leaving the already impoverished community, but it also indicates the grocers within South Los Angeles are not meeting the needs of the residents.

The team created a neighborhood food watch. Made up of community residents, the food watch group went to grocery stores with a checklist. They found a significant amount of grocery stores in South Los Angeles have expired food on the shelves. Sloane was surprised to learn that that there is no governmental body that regulates expired food in the US, with the exception of baby formula. Everything else is managed by private sector manufactures.

Steps Taken

The group came up with strategies to address problems at restaurants and stores.

Working with the community redevelopment agency and grocers, they began a campaign to get better food into South Los Angeles grocery stores about 10 years ago.

The group also developed incentives for grocers to move into South Los Angeles, including subsidies for opening stores in underserved neighborhoods.

Sloane says the initiatives have made a difference. “Is the food profile different today? Yes, it’s better than it was back then. It’s not better enough, there’s not enough choices, and there’s still big food deserts, places where it’s hard to make those choices.”

It was more difficult to think of solutions for restaurants. Because a large part of the problem were lack of choices within restaurants and a saturation of fast food, advocates pushed for a moratorium on fast food restaurants while the residents of South Los Angeles figured out how to improve the food system.

In the fall of 2008, the Los Angeles City Council passed the Interim Control Ordinance. The ordinance made a two-year ban on permits for stand-alone fast food restaurants.

When the ban ended last fall, residents came to the city council with a new solution: they wanted to manage the number of curb cuts.

All drive-thrus need to cut into the curb so cars can go in one side and come out the other. That means two new curb cuts per a fast food restaurant. By controlling the number of curb cuts, the community can control the number of new fast food restaurants.

The Planning Commission, the body that currently regulates the number of curb cuts, passed a piece of legislation giving the control of curb cuts to the communities in South Los Angeles.

Though it is small, it is enough to ensure South Angelenos can prevent fast food restaurants from clustering in one area.

What Next?

Sloane’s group hopes to create an economic food development food trust. Modeled after a program in Pennsylvania, the trust would have resources for people to start grocery stores in underserved communities that they would then pay back into the trust.

To address the lack of healthy options in restaurants, Sloane wants to create healthy food zones to complement the idea of curb cuts. The program would provide subsidize to healthy restaurants.

“We don’t just try to keep bad food out; we try to get good food into South Los Angeles,” said Sloane.

Photos courtesy of Creative Commons

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Meeting addresses health of minority boys and young men

September 28, 2010 By 1 Comment


Listen to the audio story here:

Juan Segura, a resident from Oakland, CA, is 18 years old. Segura grew up with an alcoholic father and a mother who fought cancer. At the age of 13, he joined a gang.

But now, Segura wants a change in his life. He is inspired by Sessa Cruz, his teacher. Cruz is teaching Segura about his heritage. However, his past seems to haunt him. In May, Segura was a target of a shooting that he survived. But his best friend died after a gunshot to the head.

People who gathered at the Building Healthy Communities’ Tuesday discussed people like Segura. Studies shows that young men of color between the ages of 15 to 24 have a homicide death rate 16 times greater than that of young white men.

Manuel Pastor, a professor of American Studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, said young men in minority groups are not able to get the education they need to be in the labor market. He also said the two-day conference and workshops allow young men of color to be heard.

Speakers at the town hall received a preview of a new book called “Changing Places: How Communities will Improve the Health of Boys of Color.”

The town hall meeting will continue Wednesday when Juan Segura will talk about his experiences.

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