San Fernando High School

Portfolio Artifact Reflection Worksheet

Name: _Diogo_Garcia____________________________________

Artifact Title: _________YPAR_______________________________ Artifact Date: 12/12/19

Class/Subject/Event:
_________US_History__________________________________________________________

Student Grade Level: __11th__

This artifact provides evidence that I am gaining proficiency in one of the following Student
Learning Outcomes:

□ Effective Communication
□ Critical Thinking
✓□ Character Development

Note: the fully-expanded SLOs are available at www.sanfernandohs.com.

Answer EACH the following BOLD questions COMPLETELY.

A. Describe the activity and the goal of the activity. [3 sentences or more]

We looked for a problem in our community to try to resolve. In our school we conducted
research by conducting surveys and using that evidence to demonstrate the problem. We then
used expert opinions and online research to try to convince our readers. Finally, we presented
our solutions to our class in hopes to send our message.

B. How does the activity demonstrate your skills as an effective communicator, a critical thinker
or demonstrate your character development?

The activity helped me become an effective communicator by expressing my message to the

class.

C. What could you do next to improve your abilities in the Student Learning Outcomes for this
specific artifact? OR How will you use this skill in the future? [5 sentences or more]
In future classes I can use this skill during a presentation that may be required for my class. I
can use this skill in the future to explain an idea to my colleagues. I can also use this to
convince an audience to support an idea. In my future job I can use this skill to propose, what I
believe is, a better option for the company. Given this skill I can further apply them into a small
debate or conversation.
 Food Deserts in San Fernando and Pacoima

Jennifer Prieto, Diogo Garcia, and Angela Sanchez

Mr. Lopez

San Fernando Senior High School

 Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………….............. 3

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….………4

Community or School Contexts …………………………………………………….…………4

Research Question…………………………………………………………………….………..4

Relevant Literature…………………………………………………………….……………....5

Methodology……………………………………………………………………………..…….7

Results………………………………………………………………………………….…..…..8

Implications………………………………………………………………………………..…..12

Conclusion and Recommendations……………………………………………………………16

References….…………………………………………………………………...………………18

Appendices……………………………………………………………………………………...20
 Abstract

This research will disclose the impacts that food deserts have in the communities of San

Fernando and Pacoima. We wanted to focus on these to cities because San Fernando and

Pacoima have a high concentration of low-income families living in the area. Our research found

that there are multiple reasons as to why people living in low income communities don’t buy

organic produce. Some of which include time, price, unawareness and habits. We can say this

because throught our research we found that many families contain working parents and

students, due to this it is reasonable to say that not all have the time to cook a healthy meal. We

found expense as another reason because since residents in this community are low-income, its

most probable that not all will be able to afford organic options. Our results also suggested that

most residents living in the area aren’t aware of the programs that allow them to buy organic

food. Fourthly, due to the fact that residents living in the area are accustomed to their

surroundings and ways its most probable they won't buy organic food because they usually dont.

This research also disclosed that there are organic food programs available for residents living in

San Fernando and Pacoima. Our results confirmed our hypothesis, which stated that most

residents living in the area don’t buy organic food due to expense.
 Food Deserts in San Fernando and Pacoima

Introduction

Community and/or School Context

The focus for this research project are the cities San Fernando (Appendix F) and Pacoima

(Appendix G), more specifically, teenagers and parents. We decided on these cities due to their

reputation for being a low-income community. In Pacoima, we found the average level of annual

income is $53,714. This community is predominantly Hispanic and Latino with 87,635 of

103,689 of residents being Hispanic or Latino. For San Fernando we found that the average level

of income is $55,734. This community is also mainly filled of Hispanics and Latinos, which are

22,338 out of the population, being 23,645. San Fernando and Pacoima combined, the average

level of income is $54,724 while the number of Hispanics and Latinos in total is 110,101. Due to

this, the total population is 127,344.

We also took into account that people living in these communities are accustomed to the

lifestyle in the area. Due to this, residents living in San Fernando and Pacoima aren’t aware that

the living conditions in both cities are an important issue. We decided to focus on parents living

in the area and students living in the area. We specifically focused on students who attend San

Fernando high school, since most live in San Fernando and Pacoima. The school is also mostly

filled with Hispanic and Latinos but is also consisted of other minorities. The cities San

Fernando and Pacoima,, including the school, don’t have multiple organic options available.

Research Question

Our general topic was food deserts in San Fernando and Pacoima. We decided to research

this topic because we were curious to see if our community has access to organic food resources.
It is important to understand and address this topic because both cities are part of a low-income

community and we believe that these communities aren’t given much attention when it comes to

healthy food. This may be due to the cities’ average income. One can infer that various fast food

joints and restaurants decide to install themselves in low-income communities because they

know that price is what communities such as these are mostly worried about. We believe that if

organic food was easily accessible to everyone in the community, the community wouldn’t be

having poor eating habits. Our main research question is: Is organic food accessible to residents

living in San Fernando and Pacoima? If they do have accessibility, is our community aware of

these programs? Our hypothesis was that low-income communities don’t have accessibility to

organic food due to expense and lack of organic grocery stores as well as farmers markets. We

also believe food deserts have an impact on health.

Relevant Literature

What is known about this topic is that low-income communities are prone to having more

fast food joints and restaurants than grocery stores. Residents living in this community know that

the grocery stores in this area offer a small amount of options for fresh organic produce.There’s

also a possibility that the community isn’t well aware of healthy eating. As well as price, organic

grocery stores avoid opening up in low income communities.

We believe that residents aren’t well aware of food programs because the programs aren’t

often advertised. There’s a possibility that many residents are afraid to ask for the services. An

example of a food program that most residents in low income communities are eligible in is

SNAP. In 2013, the USDA announced that SNAP was going to expand its services to farmers

markets. But recently in 2018, according to the Food and Nutrition Department from the USDA,
"The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) was recently informed by a major provider of mobile

EBT technology for farmers markets and farm stands that it will discontinue this service. With

few providers in this marketplace, this is of great concern.” (USDA) This suggests that the

provider that provided SNAP with the food stamp management in the LA County is going to

cancel their programs for farmers markets to accept SNAP. This is of great impact because

residents didn't know they could use their stamps from SNAP to go grocery shopping at farmers

markets. Now that a few know, they won't be able to use the program anymore to buy organic

produce. The article also stated that 700,000 are eligible for food stamps but have not been

enrolled.

What is also known is that both San Fernando and Pacoima are food deserts. According

to Food Access Research Atlas, posted by the Economic Search Service in the USDA website,

San Fernando is more of a food desert than Pacoima. According to the USDA, Pacoima “has a

relatively high number of households (107 of 1051 total households(10.2%) without vehicles that

are more than one-half mile from a supermarket.” This meaning that a high number of homes do

not have a grocery stores near them at walking distance.

The New York Times stated about a research project conducted in a city similar to the

conditions that San Fernando and Pacoima are in. According to the New York Times, in 2010,

Morrisania, Bronx was commonly called a food desert, due to no nearby grocery stores and no

easy access to fresh food. After introducing more options of accessible organic food in the

community, many believed the health problem would be solved. Brian Elbel, an author and an

associate professor of medicine at New York University had said “Consumption didn’t really

change. Purchasing didn’t really change.” This research helped us figure out that even if the
community introduces organic grocery stores and farmers markets in the city, it won’t make an

impactful change on people's lives. It’s difficult to change people’s diets especially if they have

been accustomed to what is around them, which is mostly fast food.

Methodology

We gathered our data by conducting surveys and interviews towards the community of

San Fernando and Pacoima. The data was collected from parent and student surveys, information

provided by interviews, and online research. We shared our surveys through the Magnet

administrator as well as through social media. We tried contacting as many people as possible

that we knew lived in San Fernando or Pacoima to gather data. We received a total of 120

students responses from SFHS and a total of 53 parent responses living in San Fernando and

Pacoima. The majority of the people surveyed were Hispanic or Latino. A series of open and

closed ended questions were asked in both surveys in order for us to have various different

responses and more accurate data. An example of an open ended question we used was, “What is

your local supermarket?”. An example of a closed-ended question we asked was, “Are you

enrolled in a program that helps you receive organic food?” The reason we asked these questions

was to determine if there were any patterns that linked with low-income and food deserts in our

communities. When conducting our surveys, we used google forms for students and printed

surveys for parents.

We had the chance to interview two important people who were knowledgeable about the

cities, both being Julian Venega and Diego Ortiz. Julian Venega is Recreation and Community

Services Director of San Fernando City and Diego Ortiz is youth coordinator for Pacoima
Beautiful. We decided to interview these people because they both are involved and have lots of

experience with community. The type of questions we decided on asking were about food

programs, the community’s health issues, and their opinion on the communities future health.

We chose to ask these questions because we wanted further detail on the community’s eating

habits. In addition, we were provided with a photo of a flyer (Appendix I) from Diego Ortiz that

could have some effect on our community's food desert.

Results

Our student and parent surveys gave us an insight of what the community daily

consumes. ​ ​Based on our personal research we found that there are 65 fast food establishments

and restaurants in San Fernando and 57 in Pacoima.Surveys found that 94% of residents living in

San Fernando and Pacoima consume fast food. Our data also shows that 80% of parents rather

pay for food that isn’t organic due to expense. In the parent survey we found that 30% are

willing to spend $0-$10 for organic food. 43% are willing to spend $20-30 on organic food, 14%

parents are willing to pay $40-50 dollars, and only 13% parents are willing to pay $60 dollars or

more. ​ ​In addition, only 18% of parents are involved in a program that helps them receive food.

Our parent survey also insinuates that 28% of parents only go to grocery stores to shop for

produce 0 to 1 times a week. As for grocery stores selling organic food, 18% of parents said they

didn't know, 67% said their grocery store did sell organic food and only 9% said their grocery

store doesn't offer organic food. Continuing to home cooked meals 47% eat a home cooked

breakfast 6 to 7 times, 49% eat a home cooked lunch 6 to 7 times a week, and 43% eat a home

cooked dinner 6 to 7 times a week. Our data for fast food demonstrates that 92% of parents eat a

fast food breakfast 3 times a week or less, 90% of parents eat fast food for lunch 3 times a week
or less and 92% of parents eat fast food for dinner 3 times a week or less. We also found that

56% of parents (living in San fernando and Pacoima) drive or walk 1-0 miles, 41% of parents

drive or walk 2-3 miles, and only 3% of parents drive or walk 4 or more miles.

This is our data for what supermarkets the parents that took our survey attend:

El Super 16%

Vallarta 23%

Superior 12%

Food 4 Less 18%

Costco 15%

Pioneer Market .8%

King Market .8%

Numero Uno Mercado 5%

Smart and Final 5%

Smart & Final Extra! 3%

Tresierras Market .8%

Roman’s Market .8%

According to our survey, Vallarta had the highest number of consumers. To our surprise,
Vallarta just recently started offering an organic section in 2016
Our student survey also suggests 99% students eat vegetables and fruits. In addition, 82%

of students have homemade meals accessible to them, 86% have fast food meals accessible to

them. We then continued to ask students about their home cooked meals. We can see that 95%

eat fast food and 5% dont. Out of that 95%, we found out that 84% of students that took our

survey consume fast food due to convenience. It also shows that 12% eat more fast food than

home cooked food while 88% eat more home cooked food than fast food. 98% of students say
that vegetables are usually included in their meals. We also found that 19% of students eat a

home cooked breakfast 6 to 7 times a week, 32% eat one 2 to 3 times a week, 8% eat one 4 to 5

times a week and 39% eat one 0 to 1 times a week. For home cooked lunches, 33% eat one 0 to 1

times a week, 26% eat one 2 to 3 times a week, 30% eat one 4 to 5 times a week, and 10% eat

one 6 to 7 times a week. As for a home cooked dinner, 36% eat one 6 to 7 times a week, 37% eat

one 4 to 5 times a week, 20 % eat one 2 to 3 times a week and 5% eat one 0 to 1 times a week.

Following with fast food meals, 91% of students eat fast food for breakfast 0 to 1 times a week,

5% eat 2 to 3 times a week, 3% eat 4 to 5 times a week and 0% eat fast food for breakfast 6 to 7

times a week. For lunch, 0% of students eat fast food 6 to 7 times a week, 3% eat fast food for to

5 times a week, 33% eat fast food 2 to 3 times a week and 62% eat fast food for lunch 0 to 1

times a week. As for dinner, 44% of students eat fast food 0 to 1 times a week, 47% eat fast food

2 to 3 times a week, 7% eat fast food for to 5 times a week and only 1% eat fast food for dinner 6

to 7 times a week. We also found that

We also found data from two interviews that we conducted. One interview was from

Diego Ortiz, Youth Coordinator of Pacoima Beautiful. He claims that the Pacoima Beautiful

program allows to give low income families organic fruits and vegetables. Pacoima is a complete

food desert, it is packed of fast food joints and restaurants just as San Fernando. Pacoima health

is concerning because:

8% Child Obesity (3 X county average)

20% Asthma

6% Diabetes

75 Acres of Parks
 Less than 1-acre of Parks per 1,000 Residents (recommended ratio is 10-acres to 1,000

residents).

Ortiz claims the reason why Pacoima is mostly surrounded by fast food is “food deserts

are often short on whole food providers, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, instead, they are

heavy on local quickie marts that provide a wealth of processed, sugar, and fat laden foods that

are known contributors to our nation’s obesity epidemic.” He believes that if residents purchase

more food at local stores then it will increase the amount of grocery stores and healthy food

options. It will also bring organic food more affordable and accessible. He also states that the

community should be provided with land to grow their own food in a way to improve their eating

habits. Ortiz says that communities that lack parks and access to healthy food options have

higher obesity rates. He believes that in the future if organic food becomes more accessible then

we would have a healthy community.

Our other interview was with Julian Venega, Director of Recreation & Community

Services of San Fernando. Venega states that Recreation and Community Services (RCS)

Department partners with two agencies to host the Congregate Meal, Home Delivered, Meal and

Commodity Supplemental Food program. Unfortunately, the programs are only available to

individuals that are age 60 and above. These programs give healthy food but it’s unsure if it’s

organic. He believes the community isn’t aware of the amount of grocery stores versus fast food

joints and restaurants because the community becomes accustomed to their environment

including their eating habits. He also believes that the reason why our community doesn’t

consume organic food daily is because of the price and the lack of time to cook a home-cooked

meal. He believes that the programs mentioned before will continue their services and if the
 community is more aware and uses these services, then more resources will come to the

community. He believes the challenge the community has about organic food resources is getting

everyone to be aware of them. He believes that the future of the community can become healthy

if we educate the public about the negativity of fast food, provide healthy alternatives like a

farmers market where organic foods can be sold to the community. He believes the community

should be well educated about organic food and fast food.

Implications

The amount of grocery stores in the area is a big contributor to organic food accessibility.

According to the USDA, there is a high number of houses in our community that don't have

access to a vehicle and have to walk more than one-half a mile to a supermarket. Such

information correlates to what our data stated: 56% of parents (living in San fernando and

Pacoima) drive or walk 1-0 miles, 41% of parents drive or walk 2-3 miles, and only 3% of

parents drive or walk 4 or more miles. Since there are more fast food places in our community

than grocery stores, one can predict that almost all households have a fast food joint or restaurant

less than a mile away, available to them. Due this, residents are more prone to stopping at a fast

food joint or restaurant. This is confirmed through our student survey were out of the 94% of

parents living in San Fernando and Pacoima consume fast food while 95% of teens ages 14-18

living in san fernando and pacoima eat fast food. Out of these 95%, 84% consume fast food due

to convenience. Such evidence correlates to our interviewie’s statement, Julian Venega claimed

that most household have two working parents. Such statement means that time is a big

contributor to an unhealthy diet in a food desert. According to our survey, this claim is
reasonable because most jobs and school days begin at 8am, which is the rush hour. Due to this

not many have the time to make a home cooked meal and rather stop by quickly through a drive

through as stated earlier, as demonstrated in our data from the results section.

In addition, our community is used to its surroundings. The amount of grocery stores in

our area is unfortunate but the lack of organic food is even more unfortunate. A resident living in

this area can say that most grocery stores only provide customers with a small section of organic

food. One can understand this may be done due to the fact that not everyone is willing to buy

organic produce due to expense, but to the 13% who is willing to spend money for organic

produce the plan backfires. First of all, since the organic section is usually small, one can predict

most people won't notice it. Second of all, the small section only has so much organic produce it

can offer and both cities don't have organic grocery stores or farmers markets. Due to this a

resident living in the san fernando valley won't be entirely healthy. Third of all, since the section

is usually surrounded by inorganic cheap produce, the food won't seem all that appealing or

worthy enough to purchase. This can be supported by a survey question we conducted saying

that 80% of residents would rather buy the cheaper inorganic product. Our meal questions were

made just to confirm that although people do eat fresh produce, people don't eat organic produce.

Another reason as to why people don't buy organic food may be because they are just not

willing to buys something organic. Most residents living here are accustomed to fast food

restaurants all around and have bad habits of always choosing the product which cheaper value,

veen if they can afford the more expensive one. Such theories can be confirmed with an incident

that happened recently in the community. A whole foods market (organic grocery store) opened
up but shut down quickly due to its minimal amount of customers. One can say that expense is a

big contributor to this but we can also say that residents living here are so used to shopping in

their own local inorganic grocery stores. Incidents such as these cause organic grocery stores to

avoid opening up in low-income communities. People in this low-income community have bad

habits and since they’ve been doing what they do in this community for years, they are not

aware.

We can also assume that people living in this area are not knowledgeable of the

opportunities that are available to them in order to receive organic food for a lower value. In

2013, USDA announced that SNAP was going to expand its services to farmers markets.

According to our research, most living in the San fernando and pacoima community are eligible

for this program. Yet there are 700,000 who have not been enrolled and those who are enrolled

had no idea they could use SNAP to get organic food in farmers markets. Unfortunately In July

2018, the USDA announced the discontinuation of the program. Such incidents like this suggest

that people are not well informed about the availability of food programs that can help them

financially.

Such reasons mentioned above are important because food deserts affect a low-income

communities’ general health. Our research shows that many in our community are unhealthy due

to all the fast food restaurants in our community. This can be confirmed with the evidence

Pacoima beautiful provided us as well as our own research. This is crucial information because if

we compare the obesity rates of our community with the obesity rates of a rich/healthy

community one can really see the impact food deserts has on a community. An example of a rich
city would be Beverly Hills (Map on Appendix H). Beverly hills’ average household income is

$100,360, which is a lot more compared to the average of both cities San Fernando and Pacoima

being $54,724. Beverly Hills also exceeds both cities with the number of farmers markets and

organic grocery stores in the area. According to the USDA, Beverly Hills “does not have a

relatively high number of households (0 of 2636 total households(0%)) without vehicles that are

more than one-half mile from a supermarket”, meaning the city is not a food desert. What makes

this information truly significant is that Beverly Hills only has an overweight and obesity rate of

21.5% while San Fernando (a food desert) has an overweight and obesity rate of 48% and

Pacoima (a food desert) has an 8% child obesity rate (3X county average). The insights we

learned from our interviews is that the communities do have health food resources, but they

aren't aware of it or aren't well acknowledged of the program. The most insightful and/or

revealing about what the interviews gave us were how stable our community is based on health,

the acknowledgment the community is about the health programs, the possible ideas to have a

more healthy community, and where the programs are located. Although knowing where the

programs are located may not affect many but it certainly affects those who are unavailable to

receive the help from the programs due to minimal transportation. We were also very interested

into knowing what organic food programs were available, unfortunately certain organizations

have restrictions to be eligible to receive the aid. The most powerful quotes were “This isn’t the

resident’s fault because it’s a systemic problem. Data shows communities that lack parks and

access to healthy food options have higher obesity rates.”- Diego Ortiz. Here we had learned that

not only is having more fast food affect our health but also the lack of healthy food options also

lead to high obesity rates and other health issues. Also Julian Venega has said something that had
really changed the way we thought about our community, “I am sure if more people started using

their services more resources would allocate the community.” At first we had thought that our

community didn’t have any healthy food programs but it turns out that our community isn’t

aware of the programs which leads to many programs being shut down. These two interviews

have answered our research question, but they also have given us ideas into what the community

should do in order to receive better healthy food organizations and maybe more parks for

exercising. The main idea to allow all of this to occur is to have the community be more aware of

not just the healthy food resources but also the high amount of fast food restaurants and the lack

of grocery stores.

Conclusion and Recommendations

We concluded that both communities do indeed have some sort of resource that gives

them access to organic food but not many residents are aware of them. Our research told us that

the community we live in is a food desert. This is due to the high amount of fast food joints and

restaurants in our community compared to the little amount of grocery stores. We then evaluated

how the communities health is and we had found that are communities aren’t doing well. We

also found that most living in our community have become adapted to the living conditions here

and don't know any different when it comes to food. Due to the fact that the community is

low-income, residents can only afford certain foods meaning expense plays a role in organic

food availability. Due to this we found that residents are most probable to compare the price

between two similar products and choose the cheaper one. We can say that most would prefer

the non-organic over organic food.

 Our action is to help the organic food programs/resources such as Pacoima beautiful, be

more well known among the community. Also, to help advertise more healthy food in order to

establish a good nutrition for the community. We will attempt to make fruits and vegetables

more accessible than fast food such as growing gardens in schools. Also have more grocery

stores than fast food restaurants, and contact SNAP providers to bring back the services for low

income communities. We also recommend for parents to pay attention to their children’s diets

and manage a way to try to have at least one home cooked meal. As said for schools, we believe

teachers will pay an active role in teaching students on health eating and the dangers of fast food.

This could also include to have some sort of law where organizations such as Pacoima Beautiful

should be more advertised. For all of this to be taken into action, we believe informing the public

will have an effect and may stir up a change in people’s lives. We could also contact the

government and state how low income communities should be given resources to receive organic

food and be more acknowledged about their community to get their attention.
 References

Weintraub, L. (2017, December 17). Nutrition: Access to healthy foods remains an issue for

many families. From ​https://www.fns.usda.gov/pressrelease/2018/fns-0005-18

Boessenkool, A. (2018, June 20). These young people want Pacoima to be beautiful. Here's what

they are doing about it. From

https://www.dailynews.com/2018/06/18/these-young-people-want-pacoima-to-be-beautiful-heres-what-they-ar

e-doing-about-it/

Abram, S. (2017, August 28). More than 700,000 people may be eligible, but not enrolled for

food stamps in LA County. From

https://www.dailynews.com/2017/05/23/more-than-700000-people-may-be-eligible-but-not-enrolled-for-food-

stamps-in-la-county/

Benefits & Services. (n.d.). From ​https://www.cdss.ca.gov/Benefits-Services

Shelley, S. (2017, August 28). Growing food-stamp program welcomed at drive-throughs,

farmers' markets and Amazon. From

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailynews.com/2017/01/10/growing-food-stamp-program-

welcomed-at-drive-throughs-farmers-markets-and-amazon/amp/

Data Access and Dissemination Systems (DADS). (2010, October 05). From

https://nature.berkeley.edu/classes/es196/projects/2010final/FlemingL_2010.pdf

USDA Statement on SNAP Access at Farmers Markets. (n.d.). From

https://foodforward.org/2017/01/food-deserts-in-los-angeles/

School Meals. (n.d.). From

http://www.lapublichealth.org/wwwfiles/ph/hae/ha/lahealthfoodinsec_0304.pdf
Food Access Research Atlas. (n.d.). From

https://www.dailynews.com/2017/12/16/nutrition-access-to-healthy-foods-remains-an-issue-for-many-families

Economic Research Service. (n.d.). From

https://www.usa.gov/federal-agencies/economic-research-service

NYT: Music Popcast for 04/30/2008. (2018, August 28).

Giving the Poor Easy Access to Healthy Food Doesn't Mean They'll Buy It. (n.d.). From

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/upshot/giving-the-poor-easy-acce

ss-to-healthy-food-doesnt-mean-theyll-buy-it.amp.html

US Census Bureau. (n.d.). Census.gov. From

https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml?src=bkmk
 Appendix A:

Parent Survey Questions

1. Would you buy the cheaper non- organic chicken for $5 or the organic chicken for $15?
 Appendix B:

Student Survey Questions

1. Do you live in the San Fernando or Pacoima area?
2. Do you eat vegetables?
3. (If yes) How often do you eat vegetables?
4. Why do you eat vegetables?
5. (If no) Why don’t you eat vegetables?
6. Do you eat fruits?
7. (If yes)How often do you eat fruits?
8. Why do you eat fruits?
9. (If no) Why don’t you eat fruits?
10. Do you eat fast food?
11. (If yes) why do you eat fast food?
12. (If no) why don’t you eat fast food?
13. Home cooked meals are easily accessible to me.
14. Fast food meals are easily accessible to me.
15. I eat more home cooked meals in a week than I eat fast food
16. Vegetables are usually included in my home cooked meals.
17. How many days a week do you eat a home cooked breakfast.
18. How many days a week do you eat a home cooked lunch.
19. How many days a week do you eat a home cooked dinner.
20. How many days a week do you eat fast food for breakfast.
21. How many days a week do you eat fast food for lunch.
22. How many days a week do you eat fast food for dinner.
 Appendix C:

Interview Questions

1. What programs does San Fernando/Pacoima provide to help low income families receive

organic food?

2. Do you believe the community has healthy resources?

3. What is something you would want to improve of San Fernando/Pacoima health resources?

4. Are you worried about the future of San Fernando/Pacoima regarding its health resources?

5. What do you think are the reasons why our community is mostly surrounded by fast food?

6. Do you think the community is aware of how surrounded they are of fast food and their health

resources?

7. Do you believe San Fernando/Pacoima is at high risk of obesity, diabetes, and other health

diseases due to poor eating habits?

8. Do you think future generations will consume more organic food and less fast food?

9. Any other information you might have that will help us complete our research?
 Appendix D:

Parent Survey Responses

​
 Appendix E:

Student Survey Responses

 Appendix F:

City of San Fernando

Appendix G:

City of Pacoima
 Appendix H:

City of Beverly Hills

Appendix I:

Flyer Page 1
Appendix J:

Flyer Page 2