The diet dilemma
If education had failed to break the cycle of poverty and obesity, and politics had failed to break the cycle, then the only solution left for one family at the center of the crisis was the most basic solution of all: to eat better, one meal at a time.
“It ends today,” Blanca Salas told her son, Antonio, after they came back from the doctor.
“I’m on a diet!” he said.
“Me, too,” she said.
She had attended a nutrition class earlier in the week, and now she held a sheet listing federally recommended foods in one hand while sorting through her fridge to take inventory with the other. “Fresh vegetables,” the sheet suggested, and Blanca found two rotting tomatoes, a package of frozen broccoli and two containers of instant vegetable soup. “Fruit,” the sheet read, and she saw grape-flavored popsicles and three apples in the crisper. “Dairy”: They had Cool Whip and Nesquik. “Whole grains”: three frozen pizzas and a package of corn dogs. “Healthy Snacks”: a 24-pack of hot Cheetos.
She had already exhausted her food-stamp account for the month, and she had nothing else to spend until the next deposit arrived in a few days. This time she would receive about $30 less, like everyone on food stamps, because of stimulus funding that expired in November. She looked again at the list of recommended foods: fat-free cottage cheese, quinoa, bok choy, chickpeas and dozens of other items. Some she had never heard of; most she had never encountered in the dollar stores of South Texas.