HHS Students Making a Difference with UK Food as Health Alliance
By Ella Rosner and Ryan Clark
CHS Contributors
Students in the College of Health Sciences are working with a UK group to help solve the state’s problems associated with healthy eating.
Christy Brady, PhD and assistant professor in the College of Health Sciences, recently invited a speaker from The Food as Health Alliance to speak to her CLM 323 Social Determinants of Health class.
Turns out the presentation made quite an impression.
After hearing about The Food as Health Alliance, Human Health Sciences students Carlie Arlinghaus and Noor Eqal were inspired to join the group’s efforts. Overall, four students were hired — and three were HHS majors.
The Food as Health Alliance here at UK uses both clinical and community research in an effort to address those who have diet-chronic diseases as well as food insecurity in Kentucky. The goal is to build a program that can “prescribe” food to those who have diet-related illnesses and do not have the adequate resources to improve their diet.
Brady said she hopes that these students will be able to “observe first-hand the barriers that many Kentuckians face to healthy eating while simultaneously being reminded that these problems are solvable with the right resources.”
Carlie Arlinghaus, a current senior from Fort Mitchell, Ky., is now a research assistant for UK Food as Health Alliance. She helps with things like data cleaning, outreach projects and directly calling and gathering data from participants of the program.
After graduation, Carlie will continue her education at UK’s College of Medicine. Carlie believes she will carry her knowledge from this research into her future as a healthcare provider.
“Understanding the impact that access to healthy food has on well-being is important for addressing issues where food is connected with health, such as diabetes and hypertension,” Carlie said. “By understanding this research, it helps to highlight the disparities in populations so near to us, helping to bring awareness to the issue of food equity and hopefully leading to better health outcomes in the future, in the commonwealth and beyond.”
Carlie hopes to continue her research with The Food as Health Alliance in addition to volunteering and giving back to the Lexington community.
Noor Eqal, a 21-year-old pre-med major, also jumped on this opportunity. Noor works on the social media team for the group. She was specifically interested in bringing a cultural perspective to the group.
Online, Noor shares “cheap, heart-healthy, and diabetes-friendly” Middle Eastern recipes, passed down from her mother and grandmother. She wanted to share these recipes with those who have diet restrictions in underserved communities, like in the Appalachian region.
After graduation, Noor hopes to attend medical school to become a physician. She also plans to carry her knowledge from The Food As Health Alliance into her practice.
“This experience has given me a greater understanding of how bland and uninspiring living with diet sensitive chronic illnesses can be,” Noor said. “I want to be able to bring the light back into these people’s lives, whether it is currently through their meals or in the future with their healthcare.”
“I think this is an excellent example of our students contributing to research that is not bench science but will still have a big impact on the health of Kentuckians,” Brady said. “Our students have taken on important roles on a research team that directly addresses a barrier to good health. Their work will help to discover effective solutions to these barriers.”
CAPTION: Pictured are some of Brady’s students in action at the Food Connection, which is not part of the Food as Health Alliance, but was still part of her class's unit on food as a social determinant of health.