How about this for a frame? It may also answer Deborah Lay's query. From two
of our storytellers:

Mother of 4 children, one with special needs: "I buy as much as I can, as
cheap as I can, as healthy as I can when I get the big bulk of money, but
inevitably I kick myself for not having bought more macaroni and cheese
instead of carrots. When we run out of money, I go to the food bank. They’re
very nice and I’m glad that it’s there, but there’s maybe enough for three
days and most of it’s not healthy. It’s horrible in a way. You get your
package and you look in it, and there’s pudding and cookies and candy.
  "The way we eat does not promote our health or our vitality or our ability
to perform well in any environment. Now we eat mostly carbohydrates, very
little fresh fruit, very little fresh vegetables, very little protein. There
was a time not that long ago where we had gotten so to the end of what we
had – we had nothing but rice and bread – I said: 'We’re going to play
Survivor this week! We’re going to see who can last the longest just eating
rice. You get a special prize at the end of the week if you can go the
longest'."

Mother with diabetes, and 2 children: "You can’t afford fresh fruits or
vegetables, you can’t afford any high protein. You’re stuck eating Welfare
Diet: all carbohydrates. That many carbohydrates turn you into a blimp. 
Well eventually, as a blimp, you get diabetes and in the process of losing
everything that you are, were, could have been, should have been, used to
be, could have had, should have had, would have had…, you lose yourself.
That’s called depression. I would love these ‘mental health professionals’
to understand. It’s a single diagnosis – poverty...
  "Eventually, physical poverty leads to emotional poverty. When you’re poor
in pocket, you’re boring. You can’t go out and play. You don’t have your
kids in every sport going. You don’t make friends with all the parents on
every committee because you aren’t on any. You don’t wander around the
neighbourhood making friends. There are no opportunities. 
  "Then the poverty diet kicks in... The next thing you know you’re putting
on weight, because you’re not outside exercising. It’s winter and you don’t
own a coat, you don’t own boots; it’s raining and your last umbrella got
stolen. You pack on enough of these carbohydrate pounds until you’re a
diabetic like me... If I could just stop being fat, I could stop being
diabetic. To stop being fat, I’m going to have to change how I eat and how I
live."

And I will add that it's an insult to people in poverty for others to assume
that we lack knowledge about what foods, activities, etc. are good for us.
The fact is that the vast majority of us DO have this knowledge, and I can
tell you that the messaging of 'exercise and eat your fruits and veggies'
just adds to our despair.

Ocean

---------------------------------------------------
Chrystal Ocean, Coordinator
Wellbeing through Inclusion Socially & Economically
http://www.wise-bc.org/

BOOK INFO - Policies of Exclusion, Poverty & Health: Stories from the Front
http://www.wise-bc.org/CVProject/book.html

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