Good morning, I’m Serina and being child #7 out of 8 in the South Side of Chicago, was

probably as bad as you could imagine it. One of the biggest issues that we faced was the lack of
accessibility of substantial foods. I was 5 when I first learned that our lifestyle was not typical.
That having 2 meals of toast and ramen was not substantial but was the only thing that was
affordable. Already with our chemical imbalances, the risk of my family getting diabetes was
almost at 100%. Both of my parents worked 3 jobs to keep any sort of food on the table for us,
so I never really saw them. My oldest sister and brother would walk 6 miles round trip to go to
a store and get any food that we could buy, which was not much to hold a family of 10 for a full
week. When I was 8, my parents found enough money to move us to a better neighborhood,
but still not pretty. I drastically noticed the difference when I would go over to a friend's house.
Mine is just one family of many across the U.S. that suffer from lack of access of
substantial food. The US is one of the most financially stable countries in the world. Yet in 2019,
Dr. Sohi estimated that roughly 23 million people lived in 6,529 food-desert communities. And
In 2015 about 13% of the population lived in low-income low access areas. Too many people
don’t have cars, yet don’t have access to any sort of food stores within 2 miles, and that is not
even counting the considerably healthier foods.

People who suffer from conditions such as gluten allergies and lactose intolerance also have
limited meal options. Healthy, whole foods tend to be more expensive than unhealthful fare.
Often small supermarkets and grocery stores in food deserts may show a price variance that
makes healthy food less desirable for people who cannot afford them. The time and travel cost
of finding healthful food also make fast food a preferable option over prepared meals. The
incidence of diabetes among US adults doubled between 1996 and 2007.

In communities across the country, the lines at food pantries are stretching longer
and longer, and there's no clear end in sight. Before the pandemic, the number of
families experiencing food insecurity — defined as a lack of consistent access to
enough food for an active, healthy life — had been steadily falling. But now, as
economic instability and a health crisis takes over, new estimates point to some of
the worst rates of food insecurity in the United States in years.
COVID has just wreaked havoc on so many things: on public health, on economic
stability and obviously on food insecurity,
It's a crisis that's testing families, communities and the social safety net in ways that
may have seemed unthinkable before the pandemic began. Here's a closer look at the
landscape: