Health & Wealth

Saturday started out in an interesting way. When I read about the food desert and saw the instructions for the day on what we were to eat, I was shocked at the idea of eating snacks all day. I've been trying to stay away from sugary processed food because of my teeth but that was impossible because if you truly live in a food desert, your options would be limited. As hard as it sounded initially, I couldn't even complain because there are people who may disklike sugary stuff, but they have no option. Dental insurance is expensive and if that's not an option, your teeth can be very unhealthy after years of eating sugary food. In my country where poverty is observed by people being very skinny, in the US it's the complete opposite because cheap food is unhealthy food. Obesity happens sometimes because kids don't have an option in what they eat, maybe there isn't any fruit available at home. If we tried to eliminate obesity, we should make grocery stores more available with affordable options where buying a fruit is as cheap as buying potato chips. Throughout the day, even though our minds were set in exploring and being tourists, it was hard to observe the things happening in our surrounding.
On the subway, I saw several people experiencing homelessness. Because I normally don't use public transport in Des Moines, that to me was not common. Some of the individuals were sleeping inside the train while others were seated outside at different stops. I'd be curious to know if they were waiting for a train to get them somewhere or if they sat in the station all day. To get down to the subway, you have to have a pass which can be pricy. Because of the pricing, I was wondering if the individuals chose to purchase tickets in the winter because the subway stations and subways themselves are warmer than being outside?
While at the 9/11 museum, the video titled Rebirth at ground zero mentioned a statement that really resonated with me and was again resurfaced at dinner while discussing the distribution of wealth. "why does anyone have to suffer?" After experiencing what a few hours without proper nutrition can do to you,it became very apparent that not having the basic human needs is a crisis that we as a general population need to be more aware of because lack of knowledge leads us to judge others for their lack of involvement.
When you're cold or hungry, it's hard to think of anything outside of your situation. You try to survive each day, which can make long term life planning difficult. I kept thinking about how I didn't feel the best during the day and I found that it was hard to focus, I had to keep telling myself to focus on what was going on and that was just a few hours. After the process, I thought about if for example, I'm a student who doesn't know how I will find proper food during the weekend, how can I apply myself in school so that I'm keeping up with my assigned course work? This lead me to the conclusion that wealth and health have some correlation and if we address the health part, then we give individuals the opportunity to not have to worry about the bottom of the hierarchy of needs but can start thinking about other things that can help improve their lives.