Jul 2, 2009 7:26 pm US/Pacific
Fruits, Vegetables Part Of Checkup At SF Clinic
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) ―
Inside the Southeast Medical Clinic located in San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, you'll find a tasty prescription for better health.
On Tuesday mornings, neighborhood volunteers, UCSF medical students, and the clinic staff first set up and then open up a unique food pantry. Neighbors come and line up to get free bags of groceries.
But in the bags, you won't find the usual donated cookies, chips, and sodas. Fresh produce, whole grains, even beans are on the menu.
But what's a food pantry doing inside a health clinic?
Melody O'Donnell, the clinic's director, said how she sits with clients all day, "and talk about how important it is for them to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, as much as possible because this affects their health. But that in this neighborhood, they don't have any access to actually purchase those foods, even if they wanted to."
O'Donnell explains how the people who live in this neighborhood are mostly low income with no regular access to healthy food, adding how "there's one relatively large grocery store that's relatively expensive and people have to have a car to get there."
Dr. Sharad Jain, an associate clinical professor at UCSF, said most of the residents get their food from corner stores where there is not a lot of fresh produce or other healthy options. Jain said that puts his patients in a bind and gave CBS 5 HealthWatch an example: diabetes.
Dr. Jain said with diabetes, "we prescribe a very controlled diet for our clients for our patients, but often they can't find the foods we recommend and then their sugars are actually pretty high and they have complications from their disease for that reason."
So community health experts decided they would make fresh produce and more nutritious foods available at the clinic.
77-year-old Hazel King loves it, and said "it's in my neighborhood. I don't have to go out looking. It's right here."
Eating a healthier diet has helped King lose some weight and feel better.
The pantry is collaboration between the San Francisco Department of Public Health and UCSF Medical Center.
But the lesson is for anyone who lives in any neighborhood. You are what you eat.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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