Doctors in New York City are prescribing fruits and vegetables to obese children and adults to research if managing diets of low-income families can improve their health.

“Upward of 30 percent of the children we see in our practice are obese,” Dr. Leora Mogilner, director of advocacy for the Department of Pediatrics at Mount Sinai Hospital, told Crain’s New York Business. “Often the root problem is a lack of access to healthy food,” Mogliner sai

Doctors at Mount Sinai have developed the Powerfood program, which helps 50 adults with diabetes and 50 obese children get fresh fruits and vegetables, and lets researchers track the results.

Families receive $20 worth of fruits and vegetables every other week, half of which is subsidized by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also called food stamps. The other $10 is paid for by the Powerfood program, which has partnered with three other non-profits

“Behavior change is very complicated,” Dr. Victoria Mayer clinical investigator in the Department of Population Health Science and Policy at the Mount Sinai medical school. “This program addresses one aspect of having a healthy diet: the ability to afford healthy food,” Mayer said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has worked for years to encourage poor families on food stamps to eat more healthy foods. Part of the problem, according to the USDA, is that poor families often live in “food deserts,” which the department defines as “parts of the country vapid of fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthful whole foods, usually found in impoverished areas.”(RELATED: Gov’t Study Finds Michelle Obama’s School Lunches Are Making Kids Fat)

Much of the USDA’s work to improve diets of food stamps recipients comes in the form of grants to local farmers markets. USDA awarded $16.8 million in grants this year under the Nutrition Insecurity Food Incentive program.

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