CHMP

May May Leung, PhD, RD is an assistant professor at the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College.

Have you ever heard of a community-based participatory method called photovoice?  Researchers and community practitioners alike have used this method to empower people and conduct needs assessments for different communities and a variety of public health issues, such as tobacco policy and homelessness.

Photovoice entrusts cameras into the hands of community members, who often do not have a voice, to “enable them to act as recorders and potential catalysts for change, in their own communities.”  It has three main goals, which include: 1) Enabling people to record and reflect their community’s strengths and concerns, 2) Promoting critical dialogue and knowledge about important issues through large and small group discussion of photographs, and 3) Reaching policymakers.

I was fortunate enough to have conducted a photovoice project myself in Beijing, China a few years ago where I worked with 12 boys and girls from migrant families to better understand how they viewed their nutrition and physical activity environment in the city after having recently moved from a rural province.  Similar to other countries, migrants in China tend to lead very different lives from their middle-class neighbors as they often have restricted access to job opportunities, social services, and education.

In our project, disposable film cameras were distributed to the participants and they were asked to take photos of what they thought were environmental barriers and facilitators related to diet and fitness.  Some of the children had never used cameras.  Not only did they learn how to take pictures, but also how to express their thoughts through the lens of a camera.  The photos provided a unique platform to promote critical group discussions.

Photovoice gives researchers and health professionals “the possibility of perceiving the world from the viewpoint of…people who lead lives that are different from those … in control of the means for imaging the world”.  The images that are taken allows some of the most vulnerable populations to voice their concerns and for researchers to understand the “real local needs” with the goal of ultimately working together to provide the greatest positive impact in the community.

May May Leung, PhD, RD

May May Leung, PhD, RD is an assistant professor at the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College.  Her research expertise includes the development and evaluation of innovative health communication and community-based interventions to prevent childhood obesity.

ChooseMyPlate.gov

The new MyPlate food icon, which the federal government released this past June, makes a recommendation for Americans to fill half their plate with fruits and vegetables.  Unfortunately, such messages that promote knowledge and awareness are not the only mechanisms needed for people to carry out such healthy behaviors.  A necessary mechanism, yet a pressing obstacle for many Americans, particularly the vulnerable populations, is the limited access to affordable fruits and vegetables.  This barrier has come about, mainly due to the imbalanced distribution of federal agricultural subsidies.   According to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, 63% of the subsidies support meat and dairy production, while less than 1% supports fruits and vegetables.  Other subsidies include, 20% allotted for grains and 15% for sugar, starch, oil and alcohol.  As you can see, the subsidies rather contradict the recommendations supported by MyPlate.

So, what can be done?  The Farm Bill, which is the primary agricultural and food policy tool of the federal government, provides the support for different agricultural commodities.  It is renewed every five years and the next one is scheduled to pass through Congress in 2012.  The upcoming Farm Bill needs to be reformed to shift the subsidies to be more aligned with the MyPlate recommendations, which would improve the accessibility and affordability of fruits and vegetables, and making it more likely for the recommendations to be adopted as healthy behaviors.  Mark Bittman expressed this sentiment quite nicely in the New York Times, “What subsidies need is…reform that moves them forward.  Imagine support designed to encourage a resurgence of small- and medium-size farms producing not corn syrup…but food we can touch, see, buy and eat – like apples and carrots …”  I can imagine it, can you?  May May Leung, PhD, RD