Healthy eating on a budget is no easy task. This is hardly a revelation, but is worth reiterating because aiming to ensure universal accessibility to fresh, healthy food remains a challenge in all communities. Lack of healthy food options affects not only those who struggle financially. The very serious and very expensive health problems associated with a poor diet impact everyone.

In the spring 2017 semester, a group of 14 University of Connecticut journalism students under the direction of three faculty members, reported and wrote about the complex interconnecting issues of poverty, poor diet and health problems such as obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The students focused their efforts on Connecticut’s capital city, where within sight of the state’s halls of power, poverty is rampant, fresh fruits and vegetables are scarce and expensive and nutrient-poor fast food options are plentiful.

The comprehensive news package that resulted from the students’ work recently was published by The Connecticut Mirror. The students deserve praise for their work, but more importantly, the series deserves reading because it illuminates a shameful reality, especially in a state that is among the nation’s wealthiest.

While the challenges around healthy eating may be most pronounced in Connecticut’s bigger cities, hunger and a dearth of affordable healthy food exists in all our communities, including right here in southeastern Connecticut. The 2014 New London County Community Health Needs Assessment issued by Uncas and Ledge Light health districts reported that while the county has a lower overall poverty rate as compared to the rest of the state, it compared poorly to the state in several areas including access to healthy food and recreational facilities, adult obesity rates and preventable hospital stays. About 7 percent of county residents have adult onset diabetes. About 8 percent of Connecticut adults overall have either Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, according to 2015 statistics reported by the state Department of Public Health.

With its associated health complications such as kidney failure, heart disease and circulatory problems that can lead to amputations, diabetes is expensive to individual patients and their families as well as to society as a whole. Obesity, lack of exercise and poor diet is directly linked to adult onset diabetes.

In Hartford, the UConn students reported on several exemplary programs aimed at making healthy eating easier and more affordable. Among these was a mobile food bus with an extensive route that includes stops at senior and public housing complexes, a robust program encouraging school and community gardening, and several neighborhood food market owners dedicated to filling their aisles with more fresh than processed options.

Here in southeastern Connecticut, there are many agencies working to promote healthier eating, especially for low- and moderate-income residents. Still, more should be done. Farmers markets, now so commonplace throughout the region, generally are conducted for just a couple of daytime (that is, working) hours. Each stop on the United Way Mobile Food Pantry’s route is only once a month. Fresh fruit and vegetables often are more costly to buy than fast food or processed options. Cities should find ways to utilize vacant lots and schoolyards to grow vegetables. In many neighborhoods, there are more fast food restaurants offering super-sized, high-fat food than there are small, neighborhood markets with fresh fruit and vegetables.

Besides improvement on these fronts, Lawrence + Memorial and Backus hospitals should consider sponsoring a program of the type now taking hold in Vermont. Health Care Share is ensuring bags of locally grown fresh produce end up on patients’ tables. The program is a cooperative effort of the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps, whose young members grow and harvest the food, and several community hospitals and health providers who “prescribe” fresh food to low-income patients, many of whom suffer with diabetes and cardiovascular disease. More than 400 Vermont families now receive fresh fruit, vegetables, herbs and poultry.

Think of how many could be fed locally with similar teamwork in southeastern Connecticut.

The Day editorial board meets with political, business and community leaders to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Timothy Dwyer, Executive Editor Izaskun E. Larraneta, Owen Poole, copy editor, and Lisa McGinley, retired deputy managing editor. The board operates independently from The Day newsroom.