Food Systems and Wellbeing
The destructive effects of settler colonialism are particularly evident when viewed through a food systems lens. European settlers disrupted hunting, fishing, growing, and gathering traditions through over-harvesting, habitat destruction, water diversion, and restricted land access. Healthy food and nutrition pathways were displaced and, over time, replaced with food distribution programs driven more by industrial agriculture surpluses than by food and nutrition needs. Food commodities made available through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food distribution programs often led to great creativity among Native people but not to healthy food habits. Today, the geographies of many Native communities are best characterized as “food deserts,” or areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food, and many families experience “food insecurity,” a condition in which they have limited or uncertain access to food.
The follow-on effects of such conditions are substantial and range from poor physical and mental health for children and families, dependency mindsets, and lower wellbeing in Native communities overall to increased spending by federal, state, and tribal governments on health care and social services. These circumstances suggest that if tribal governments were able to intervene with policy strategies that increased food security and access, they might be able both to reduce future expenses and improve the welfare of Native children and families.
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Murthy, Vivek. 2016. “Food Insecurity: A Public Health Issue (Surgeon General’s Perspective).” Public Health Reports 131(5): 655-657. doi: doi.org/10.1177/0033354916664154
When individuals or households have limited or uncertain access to food, they experience food insecurity. Hunger and poor diets are the inevitable result, conditions that give rise to still other harms. Among children, for example, food insecurity leads to diminished physical and mental health, longer recoveries from illness, higher hospitalization rates, and a greater incidence of developmental and educational delays. These individual-level harms also generate real costs for communities. In the near term, the pressure on publicly funded social programs to do more and spend more increases. In the longer term, workforces may be both smaller and lower skilled, which affects community development overall. Such outcomes underscore the importance of social policies to prevent and ameliorate food insecurity: interventions that support access to sufficient and nutritious food can help forestall a broad array of other community concerns. -
Rachel A. Liebe, Leah M. Adams, Valisa E. Hedrick, Elena L. Serrano, Kathleen J. Porter, Natalie E. Cook, and Sarah A. Misyak. 2022. “Understanding the Relationship between Food Security and
Mental Health for Food-Insecure Mothers in Virginia.” Nutrients 14(1491): 1-15.
doi: doi.org/10.3390/nu14071491
Food insecurity can have chronic consequences for mothers’ physical and mental health, contributing to conditions such as hypertension, obesity, diabetes, disturbed sleep, anxiety, and depression. Research among mothers in Virginia indicates further that mental health outcomes vary by the degree of food insecurity severity. Mothers experiencing very low food security experienced the worst mental health outcomes. In part, this may be because they had less social support: the study shows a positive correlation between food insecurity and low levels of social support. The study also suggests that these mothers’ poor mental health outcomes may be related to their need to employ more food access and financial coping strategies such as trading off between paying bills and buying food, skipping meals, rationing food, using less healthy but less expensive food, and borrowing money to buy food. These findings support the conclusion that efforts aimed at improving mothers’ access to nutritious food may positively affect both mothers’ and children’s physical and mental health, and further, that mothers represent an important group in need of policy and program support, as they often make decisions about what and how much a family eats. -
Valarie Blue Bird Jernigan, Kimberly R. Huyser, Jimmy Valdes, and Vanessa Watts Simonds. 2017. “Food Insecurity among American Indians and Alaska Natives: A National Profile using the Current Population Survey–Food Security Supplement.” Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition 12(1): 1–10. doi: doi.org/10.1080/19320248.2016.1227750 [Not open access.]
Food insecurity increases the risk for obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and cancer—conditions prevalent in American Indians and Alaska Native (AIAN) populations. Based on data from the Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement for the period 2000 to 2010, this research finds that 25% of AIANs remained consistently food insecure; that AIANs were twice as likely to be food insecure as white Americans; and that urban AIANs were more likely to experience food insecurity than rural AIANs. These findings highlight the need for national and tribal policies that expand food assistance programs; promote and support increased access to healthy foods and community food security in both rural and urban areas; and reduce the burden of diet-related disparities on low-income and minority populations. Given the food security challenges that many reservation-based AIAN families and children experienced during the pandemic, there may be an even more acute need for such policies today. -
This research considers the prevalence and consequences of food insecurity among American Indian families with young children living on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Parents or caregivers of kindergarten-age children were surveyed to understand food insecurity, the home food environment, and children’s diets. Based on questions about the availability of food and the type and frequency of adaptive behaviors (limiting the size of meals, skipping meals, substituting less healthy food, for example), survey findings suggested that nearly 40% of participating families experienced food insecurity. Further, food-insecure parents reported many barriers to accessing healthful food, and relatedly, children from food-insecure households were likely to eat less healthful foods.
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Toni Stanger-McLaughlin, Sandy Martini, Geri Henchy, Katherine Jacobs, Erin Parker, and Valarie Segrest, 2021, “Reimagining Hunger Responses in Times of Crisis: Insights from Case Examples and a Survey of Native Communities’ Food Access During COVID-19.” Native American Agriculture Fund, Food Research and Action Center, and Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative.
In February 2021, the Native American Agriculture Fund (NAAF) launched a food access survey to better understand food security issues for Native Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 500 American Indians and Alaska Natives responded, representing a wide diversity of tribal communities and spanning states across the country. Analysis of results indicates that half of respondents experienced food insecurity during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, and one in four experienced very low food security. Food insecurity was significantly higher for respondents in households with children under 18, for respondents that had a disruption in employment during COVID-19, and for those that self-reported a fair or poor health status. Companion analysis of NAAF’s Rapid Response funding show that tribal governments, Native-led organizations, and Native producers pivoted to address reports of rising hunger. Native-led entities coordinated business support, fostered partnerships for food delivery, increased food production through infrastructure improvements, and other responsive activities to bolster local food economies, strengthen food security systems, and meet the nutrition needs of their communities. The report concludes with recommendations to strengthen tribal governments’ and Native producers' role at the decision-making table regarding feeding their communities, and with recommendations for Congress and USDA to improve agricultural infrastructure, federal nutrition programs, and data collection methods. Throughout, the report and recommendations draw attention to the critical need for data to properly inform and construct more secure food supply chains for tribal communities and for systems that can rapidly respond to Native communities’ food needs. -
Valarie Blue Bird Jernigan, Alicia L. Salvatore, Mary Williams, Marianna Wetherill, Tori Taniguchi, Tvli Jacob, Tamela Cannady, Mandy Grammar, Joy Standridge, Jill Fox, JoAnna Tingle Owens, Jennifer Spiegel, Charlotte Love, Travis Teague, and Carolyn Noonan. 2019. “A Healthy Retail Intervention in Native American Convenience Stores: The THRIVE Community-Based
Participatory Research Study.” American Journal of Public Health 109: 132–139.
In many Native communities, convenience stores are the only shopping option for groceries and prepared foods. This study tested the effectiveness of “healthy retail strategies,” or efforts to increase the visibility, availability, desirability, variety, affordability, and convenience of healthy foods in eight tribally owned convenience stores in Oklahoma (four owned by the Chickasaw Nation and four by the Choctaw Nation). Specific strategies included stocking open-air coolers with healthy foods, locating fresh fruit baskets near store entrances, promoting healthy foods with in-store signs and displays, and offering to-go healthy meals at reduced prices. Over the period April 2016 to June 2017, researchers measured individual study participants’ fruit and vegetable intake, perceptions of store environments, and purchases before and after the retail intervention. Ultimately, data for the entire span of the experiment were gathered from 1204 individuals. Analysis of study data showed that participants perceived healthier stores after the retail intervention; that higher shopping frequency was related to purchases of fruits, vegetables, and healthy items; and that reported fruit and vegetable intake was low both before and after the intervention (on average, respondents ate fruit once every two days and green vegetables approximately once a day). In other words, the retail intervention was associated with healthy purchasing but not increased fruit and vegetable intake. As the first research of its type in tribally owned stores, this study provides important evidence concerning the capacity of one type of policy intervention to address obesity in Native communities—and points to the need for additional research on whether and how the retail environment can influence Native community members’ food consumption choices. -
Dan Gunderson. 2018. “White Earth Hopes Food Truck Puts Reservation on Road to Better Health,” Minnesota Public Radio, July 27.
Purchased with a $40,000 grant from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture through a program that targeted food deserts, the White Earth Nation created a combination mobile grocery store and food truck serving traditional Ojibwe foods. The truck started small, offering a limited menu, educational materials, recipes, and a selection of fresh produce and traditional foods. But the tribe’s food sovereignty program also is laying the groundwork for a more comprehensive and integrated effort: it is starting a farm and through the farm will be able to supply more healthy food to the truck. Tribal officials are working on a set of food regulations, making it easier for tribal members to collect and sell food that grows on the reservation. As inventory builds, and as the truck establishes town to town route and schedule, White Earth residents should have greater access to locally produced, healthy, traditional, and seasonal foods including fresh produce in the summer and squash, wild rice, and preserves in the winter. By focusing both on increasing education about healthy food and increasing the convenience of buying healthy food, the White Earth Nation food sovereignty program aims to support a healthier future for the tribe’s citizens. -
Carolyn J. McClellan. 2018. “Food Sovereignty.” American Indian (Magazine of Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian) 19(2)(Summer): 18-23.
A sound and strategic Native community food policy – one that promotes local control of food systems – can become a driver for cultural revitalization, improved community health, and economic development. This is the premise that underlies the “food sovereignty” movement in American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities, and is the organizing principle for the three examples reviewed in this article. Starting with a clean-up grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Quapaw Tribe sought to transform an area once polluted by tailings from zinc mining. Today the nation raises cattle and bison on the former brownfield, grows microgreens and tomatoes in greenhouses, and operates a coffee roasting business; meat and produce are used in other tribal businesses and sold to the community. Through Oneida Farm, the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin also engages in beef and bison ranching, operates an apple orchard, and plants and teaches about its traditional corn crop. These efforts, and others, are united through the Oneida Community Integrated Food Systems initiative. With funding from the US Department of Agriculture and sponsorship by the Wai’anae Community Redevelopment Corporation, MA’O Organic Farms provides young Native Hawaiians with basic employment and entrepreneurship skills. In 2018, MA’O offered 50 paid college internships and produced nearly 200,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables.