The South Bronx Farmers Market offers the ability to help prolong the need for long term care services by offering healthier produce options, recipes, cooking demonstrations and an abundance of information about the local farmers and their products. Studies have shown that by incorporating healthy meals into our daily lifestyle, we can reduce many illnesses and diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and more.

This alone can have a large impact on the ever growing need for long term care services as our life span continues to increase. It is clear that as we age we too begin noticing unwanted health ailments. By visiting the South Bronx Farmers Market we can work together as a community to provide positive information on healthy eating to our young family members and prolong or even prevent the major diseases that affect a large portion of our senior community. Our younger population can take what they’ve learned and apply it to the care of their elderly parents and grandparents by creating healthier meals and options for their loved ones to choose from.

The top reasons for our elderly community needing long term care services is due to a long term disease that could have possibly been prevented had they been provided with information about healthy eating and its relation to long term diseases. We have much of this information at our fingertips now and should be spreading the word across our community starting at a very young age.

Though there is a long list of common life altering diseases, diabetes is one of the top leading diseases that causes greater long term health care needs down the road. Heart disease, liver disease, kidney disease and respiratory disease are at the top of the list right beside diabetes. All of these diseases lead to future health concerns and chronic illnesses if they are not taken care of in the early stages. Luckily, changing our diets and incorporating healthier meals is a great step in preventing most diseases along with some light daily physical activity such as walking!

Long term care services for our senior community can be quite costly to family and friends. Why not do ourselves a favor and become educated on the health benefits of eating locally grown fruits and vegetables. Let’s be productive with our time now and help decrease, prolong, and even prevent the need for long term care services by visiting the South Bronx Farmers Market. Eat healthy. Eat local. Support our community!