Spring Break
Dean discusses connections between poverty, malnutrition in urban, rural RI
Jeff Sullivan
Issue date: 4/10/09 Section: Campus
04/10/09 - The University of Rhode Island Women's Studies Program sponsored a lecture last night about the connections between poverty and poor health, and how they affect Rhode Island.
Nancy Fey-Yenson, the associate dean of URI's College of Human Science and Services and professor of nutrition and food sciences, spoke to a crowd of more than 70 people about the subject. She said her lecture focused on women in particular because, statistically, women are the primary caretakers of both young and old people, and therefore more often deal with decisions of food purchases.
"In hard economic times, [illness] and mortality are disproportionately female," she said. "In other countries, food is given to sons and not to daughters primarily because sons work. In the U.S., it is a bit more insidious."
Fey-Yenson has been at URI for more than a decade, and during that time has been published numerous times. She also has garnered millions of dollars in research grants for the university.
Because of social pressures in America, including constant advertising, social acceptability of certain food outlets and a system she called the "food stamp cycle," it is increasingly difficult for women to find healthy and nutritious food at an affordable price, she said.
"You go into your living room and watch T.V., as far from the kitchen as possible, and you are bombarded with food advertisements telling you to eat," she said.
The food-stamp cycle is a system in which people receive food stamps and overeat during the first weeks of the month after obtaining them. Then, they eat less during the following weeks. She said because of pressures from their children and constant bombardment of advertisements, women, especially those who use food stamps, buy more expensive and less nutritious food. Combined with other social and cultural factors, this leads to women sacrificing their own food for their family members.
These cycles of feast and famine, as she put it, also cause the body to store and save more fat than usual because of the lack of consistent food intake. She said this is much like the hunter-gatherer metabolism people had in prehistoric times. This in turn leads to obesity and malnutrition among both women and children.
Nancy Fey-Yenson, the associate dean of URI's College of Human Science and Services and professor of nutrition and food sciences, spoke to a crowd of more than 70 people about the subject. She said her lecture focused on women in particular because, statistically, women are the primary caretakers of both young and old people, and therefore more often deal with decisions of food purchases.
"In hard economic times, [illness] and mortality are disproportionately female," she said. "In other countries, food is given to sons and not to daughters primarily because sons work. In the U.S., it is a bit more insidious."
Fey-Yenson has been at URI for more than a decade, and during that time has been published numerous times. She also has garnered millions of dollars in research grants for the university.
Because of social pressures in America, including constant advertising, social acceptability of certain food outlets and a system she called the "food stamp cycle," it is increasingly difficult for women to find healthy and nutritious food at an affordable price, she said.
"You go into your living room and watch T.V., as far from the kitchen as possible, and you are bombarded with food advertisements telling you to eat," she said.
The food-stamp cycle is a system in which people receive food stamps and overeat during the first weeks of the month after obtaining them. Then, they eat less during the following weeks. She said because of pressures from their children and constant bombardment of advertisements, women, especially those who use food stamps, buy more expensive and less nutritious food. Combined with other social and cultural factors, this leads to women sacrificing their own food for their family members.
These cycles of feast and famine, as she put it, also cause the body to store and save more fat than usual because of the lack of consistent food intake. She said this is much like the hunter-gatherer metabolism people had in prehistoric times. This in turn leads to obesity and malnutrition among both women and children.
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