I will be writing several future articles with information obtained and referenced from Second Harvest Food Bank, Feeding Pennsylvania and Feeding America.

In February, I mentioned Second Harvest is collaborating with three Lehigh County food pantries with their Healthy Pantry Initiative grant. Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative is excited to be chosen as one of them.

“The goal of HPI is to reduce long-term burden of diet-related diseases through a ‘beyond food’ approach that aims to devise long-term solutions to food insecurity by addressing all the factors that cause poverty - employment, wages and other socioeconomic factors,” said Khushboo Jain, Second Harvest nutrition educator. “So while providing participants with nutritious food is essential, HPI also supports our pantries with a network of community organizations so they can offer or refer participants to other services they may need to break that cycle of food insecurity.”

The information below is to explain the cycle of food insecurity and chronic disease mentioned by Jain. This comes directly from Feeding America, tinyurl.com/2p9b5xbh.

“The Hunger in America 2014 study found that many households served by the Feeding America network of food banks include people coping with a diet-related chronic disease. Fifty-eight percent of households reported having at least one member with high blood pressure, and 33 percent had at least one member with diabetes.

“The cycle of food insecurity and chronic disease begins when an individual or family cannot afford enough nutritious food. The combination of stress and poor nutrition can make disease management even more challenging. Further, the time and money needed to respond to these health conditions strains the household budget, leaving little money for essential nutrition and medical care.

“This causes the cycle to continue, increasing the risk of worsening existing conditions. Many families experiencing food insecurity often have several, if not all, compounding factors, which make maintaining good health extremely difficult.”

Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative has seen firsthand what compounding factors affect our pantry guests. All are on fixed incomes. Our guests tell us they have to choose between food and a myriad of other expenses, such as medicine and medical care and housing expenses like rent, taxes and utilities. Current gas and food prices are also affecting them.

Feeding America reported, “Households must use coping strategies to meet their food needs, including purchasing inexpensive, unhealthy food (79 percent), receiving help from friends (53 percent), watering down food or drinks (40 percent), selling or pawning personal property (35 percent) and growing food in a garden (23 percent).”

More than half - 55 percent - of households served by the Feeding America network reported having to use three or more coping strategies to deal with tough financial choices. Some of these coping strategies may support one’s health, but others that make sense in the short term can be detrimental to health in the long term. This is particularly true in households with children and among people who are already coping with a diet-related, chronic disease.

Every month during our food distribution, our guests comment how grateful they are WCHI is here to help them. All our volunteers understand the stresses our guests are experiencing as mentioned above.

WCHI is proud to be achieving our mission - to alleviate food insecurity in Whitehall and Coplay.

Thank you for reading my article, and have a great week!