Introduction
Diabetes and other health factors have been a growing concern in recent years amongst food-insecure individuals and families. This review includes the concept of finding ways to overcome this issue. Low-income families already have numerous issues to deal with outside of health problems, but the inclusion of health issues makes the situation for these families worse. Within the past ten years research has been dedicated to this problem. Researchers have dedicated time to finding ways of overcoming the problem by using new tactics like motivational interviewing. It has become known that diabetes is a concern of lower income families due to not having access or money for healthier foods and care. With unhealthy eating comes obesity, and that can lead to health risks like diabetes. Diabetes is only one of many illnesses contributed to unhealthy eating. Cardiovascular disease is another illness that is an issue in food insecure areas. The high risk associated with these diseases is death. Lower-income areas are undoubtedly forced to eat foods that are not healthy. Instead of being able to afford healthier food options, these families and individuals engage in buying fast food for cheaper costs or cheaper groceries that are higher in salt and sugar content.
In this literature review the research focuses on different methods of addressing and rectifying this issue. The literature takes a close look at the impact of motivational interviewing as a treatment and if this form of treatment has different, better, or indifferent results than the more traditional way. The demographics in the literature focuses on lower-income food insecure families. Furthermore, the age range would be wide due to the idea that food insecurity does not discriminate. Undoubtedly there is a problem. There have been a variety of ways that people have looked at this dynamic in terms of rectifying this issue. However, nothing seems to be working. There are so many issues that continue to plague lower-income families. So researchers are trying to figure out ways of educating this demographic on avoiding becoming engaged in food options that lead to diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular.
Discussion
The topic of food insecure and diabetes is explored in the article, “Clinical Management of Food-Insecure Individuals with Diabetes”. According to Lopez & Seligman (2012) 14% of the population is food insecure. Out of that number many are at a high risk of diabetes. The authors acknowledged the increase in food prices from 2002-2012. This includes fresh fruits and vegetables which are needed for healthy living. The beginning of solving the problem is to identify it. This is why the research discuss screening individuals who are possibly food insecure. After this then the researchers suggest referring food-insecure families to other resources. One of those resources include SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women Infant and Nutrition (Lopez & Seligman, 2012). This is in other words the popular WIC program in the United States. The goal is to make sure children are exposed to healthy fruits, vegetables, and other foods that are considered healthier forms of eating and will not lead to diseases like diabetes. This program has been around for a while. So the evidence suggests that may be there needs to be other avenues of trying to correct the problem of unhealthy eating.
According to Lakerveld, Chinapaw, van Tulder, Kostense, Dekker & Nijpels (2013)“Intensive lifestyle interventions in well-controlled settings are effective in lowering the risk of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and cardiovascular diseases (CVD), but there are still no effective lifestyle interventions for everyday practice” (p. 3). Motivational Interviewing is one of the ways in which the healthcare industry is helping people with diabetes as a result of being in impoverished areas. The study included the apparent causes of illnesses like diabetes among those who are food insecure. The study included a combination of motivational interviewing and problem solving treatment (Lakerveld et al 2013). The research suggests, “The lifestyle intervention was not more effective than health brochures in reducing risk scores for T2DM and CVD or improving lifestyle behavior in an at-risk population (p. 2). This is an interesting finding. While eliminating Motivational Interviewing is not suggested, the authors believe that the technique could be modified in order to greater meet the needs of food insecure people.
When searching for research on a topic it is never an easy one, especially given the fact that this topic is not a popular one as a combination. I used the database Proquest. Proquest not only has credible research but scholarly research. The search terms used were “food insecure and diabetes”, “low income and diabetes” and “motivational interviewing”. Due to the term “motivational interviewing being relatively new to the health field, I did not add anything else to the search ter. The article regarding diabetes was # 6 in the results. This proved to me that more and more people are making connections with the two factors. Did not know what to expect prior to the research of the source, but I knew that the information would need to link together. Nonetheless, when the research was found, it was current, accurate, credible and reliable.
Problem: Food Insecurity and Overcoming Illness Associated with Unhealthy Eating
References
Mayer, V. L., Hillier, A., Bachhuber, M. A., & Long, J. A. (2014). Food insecurity, neighborhood food access, and food assistance in Philadelphia. Journal of Urban Health, 91(6), 1087-1097. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11524-014-9887-2
López, A., BS, & Seligman, Hilary K,M.D., M.A.S. (2012). Clinical management of food-insecure individuals with diabetes. Diabetes Spectrum, 25(1), 14-18. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/926823241
