Food Security Is Good for the Heart. Here’s Why It’s Also Good for the Soul.

A strange feeling struck me two years ago, when the pandemic first made me wary about spending time in person at the grocery store. I found myself missing the human contact that had been so central to shopping before COVID-19 interrupted daily routines. Since then, I’m reminded of this feeling every time a new surge in infections has me once again cautiously hurrying through the aisles during the off hours. It has been odd for me to realize how something that I previously viewed as a tedious chore was actually important to my mental health.

For many like me, pandemic shopping habits are guided by the safety calculations we make on a daily basis. By contrast, 38 million Americans facing food insecurity have little choice in the matter: they simply can’t afford to visit the local market. For them, financial insecurity doesn’t just limit access to nutritious foods; it also creates a barrier to an important public space where people connect with others in their community.

The Overlapping Effects of Drivers of Health Needs

Non-medical drivers of health (such as food security, social connection, transportation, safe housing and so on) overlap and intersect. Often, a struggle for resources to meet one need can lead to difficulties meeting other needs. On the bright side, this daisy chain effect means that a single, strategic intervention can have exponential dividends. Targeting one area of need can impact multiple drivers of health.

Just recently, the American Heart Association and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (Blue Cross NC) teamed up to award $100,000 in microgrants to community organizations and companies working to improve heart health among North Carolinians who are most at risk for cardiovascular diseases and stroke. These community microgrants reflect just one small part of Blue Cross NC’s multifaceted, long-term effort to address non-medical drivers of health needs across the state.

The vast majority of these investments fund work that promotes access to nutritious foods, which is not surprising given the widely studied health impacts of food insecurity. Several of these grants could have the added (if unintentional) benefit of addressing social isolation. For example, three of the programs get individuals out of the house and into local farmers markets:

·????????Uptown Farmers Market in Charlotte provides shuttle service for older adults from affordable housing communities.

·????????The Triangle’s Black Farmers Market offers a “double bucks” program that gives federal food assistance recipients twice the value for their SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits.

·????????Similarly, the Triad’s Neighborhood Markets Inc. runs a double dollar SNAP program

The psychological impact of helping people actually go in person to a market is significant. Studies have shown that grocery shopping can help promote a positive, “active aging” mindset, in which physical and social activity work hand in hand to maintain physical and mental health. Older adults frequently make a habit of purchasing smaller quantities of food on a daily basis as an opportunity to socialize with other shoppers and clerks. In fact, before the pandemic, some European grocery stores instituted checkout lanes that were slower by design so that older adults could enjoy more time chatting with the cashiers and others in line.

Studies focused specifically on farmers markets show that these institutions play an important role fostering connectedness. One survey asked respondents to identify their reasons for shopping at farmers markets. “Place” and “people” ranked near the top, behind only “products.” Similarly, when asked to name the primary benefits that farmers markets bring to the community, respondents overwhelmingly ranked “brings people together” as the top choice. In another study of shoppers in Los Angeles, the majority of respondents agreed that farmers markets help nurture feelings of connectedness.??

Strengthening a person’s connection to community can address feelings of loneliness and reduce health care usage. Left to fester, social isolation can negatively affect overall well-being, increasing the risk of heart attack, stroke and dementia, as well as diminishing immune function. In fact, social isolation and smoking 15 cigarettes per day have equivalent impacts on the body.

The Importance of Investing in the Whole Person

What does all this mean? Supporting a person’s access to markets that offer healthy food does more than improve diet. It benefits the whole person. In fact, recent scholarship has explored how social capital is actually integral to food security, arguing that “enhancing multiple forms of social relationships” can strengthen intervention efforts. Integrating food security programs into commercial settings promotes individual autonomy while also allowing recipients to participate in the “social rituals” of food consumption.

The pandemic has changed my perspective of what it means to shop for healthy groceries, and I suspect that many Americans share my perspective: the act of food shopping isn’t a task – ?it’s a privilege. Unfortunately, it’s a privilege that far too many American households cannot afford. Strategic investments that give people the agency to shop for themselves aren’t just good for heart health. They’re also good for the soul.