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Eco 372 Week 3 Assignment

Decent Essays

In the poverty simulation I played the role of a 16-year-old girl named Connie Chen who was 7 months pregnant. My father had just gotten laid off from his job and my mother was the only one bringing in income for our family. Our monthly expenses exceeded our income which forced us to choose between basic necessities. Cultural considerations weren’t mentioned in our packet, but since we were of Chinese decent it is possible a lack of knowledge in navigating the U.S health system would be a barrier to receiving necessary healthcare. The Chinese culture also puts less emphasis on individual feelings and more emphases on loyalty to the family, making it important to include the whole family in decision making.
The main feeling I experienced in …show more content…

My family didn’t eat at all for the first two weeks and we were starting to develop health problems, fortunately none of my family had to go to the hospital but this wouldn’t be the case in real life. According to Canales, Coffey, & Moore (2015) “Eating nutritious food is one of the major modifiable determinants of chronic disease”. Low income families are especially at risk for malnutrition because more often than not healthier foods are more expensive and do not last as long as less nutritious food. IN addition to malnutrition, families who live in food insecure households are also more at risk for chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and depression. “In order to eliminate persistent health inequities related to food insecurity, nurses and other health professionals need to direct efforts toward identifying food-insecure patients and increasing access to healthy food for low-income populations” (Canales, Coffey, & Moore, 2015). It is also important for nurses to be empathetic and remain non-judgmental towards low income families because difficulty feeding ones’ family can be embarrassing and hard for families to discuss with other people especially

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