Public Health in Oregon - Join The Conversation

I completely believe in personal responsibility; we are in charge of our food and lifestyle choices. If you don’t exercise or eat well, it’s going to be hard to live a healthy lifestyle. Unfortunately, the article and the informative comment by “Hollie”, gives the impression that living the “right way” really isn’t being supported in terms of health foods being backed by federal financial support.

I always liked to think that people in public office had the best interest of the common person in mind. Over the past few years, articles such as this, have really challenged this thought. I hope to take some time to research this issue more thoroughly so I can have an unbiased opinion once all the information is processed. *Ray*

Catherine Denver brings up some very serious health challenges in this excerpt.  I think everyone can agree that a major key to living a healthy life is eating right, but there are many things in our lives that can make that difficult.  For some it’s our go-go on the run lifestyle.  For others it’s the challenge of feeding a family on a poverty level income.  Considering all this, it seems crazy that a government of a country trying to deal with finding a way to pay for the healthcare of its people is spending its money subsidizing food in a way that ultimately threatens the heath of its citizens. 
I think that in order to combat this problem it’s important to try to understand why these controversial subsidies are in place.  After researching the subject it seems that these subsidies were originally put it place in order to protect the small independent farmers of the 1930’s.  They were meant to stabilize prices in order to make sure that farmers could continue to produce through the ups and downs of economy and fluctuations to demand.  But since then, agriculture has changed greatly.  Now, the industry is dominated by farm giants, and they can make the most money by planting as much of subsidized crops as possible.  This set up discourages the growing of unsubsidized crops (like fruits and veggies).  This means that most of the foods that a consumer is presented with, especially if they are on the go or strapped with a budget, are going to be made of these subsidized crops, and unfortunately, these foods are not good for our health. 
Brian Riedl of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation has a very good article that explores some ideas about the subject of the problems with farm subsidies.  He concludes that the main reason why these subsidies still exist is largely political.  Our representatives are being influenced by powers in this industry.  Since it’s a federal issue, it will be hard for us as citizens to make an impact.  The best we can do is to vote with our money by spending on unsubsidized and especially local foods, and try to vote in representatives with the interests of his constituents’ health in mind. 

Hollie
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/06/how-farm-subsidies-harm-taxpayers-consumers-and-farmers-too

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_States