The Hidden Link Between Where Your Food Comes From and Our Chronic Health

Written By Hoksey Native Seeds

Something's not right in the Midwest, and it's showing up in our bodies.

Iowa ranks 11th in the nation for adult obesity. Rural areas across the Midwest have diabetes rates pushing past 13%, and in some counties, more than 40% of adults are dealing with obesity. We're talking about heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and certain cancers—all conditions that poor diet directly contributes to. In fact, approximately one million Americans die annually from diet-related chronic diseases.

But here's what's wild about this: we live in one of the most productive agricultural regions on earth. The Midwest feeds the world, and yet the people living here are getting sicker from what they're eating.

The Disconnect Nobody's Talking About

Megan McKay from the Mint ’N More Foundation put it plainly in a recent Prairie Farm Podcast: if she could snap her fingers and change one thing, it would be for more people to pay attention and choose local, chemical-free grown food. Not as some trendy thing, but because that demand would drive everything else—it would get more farmers producing better food, create better distribution systems, and help farmers reconnect with their land and their consumers.

That connection matters more than most people realize.

When you're buying your food from a gas station or relying on ultra-processed stuff from a big box store because that's what's accessible or affordable, you've lost something fundamental. You don't know where it came from, what went into it, or who grew it. And increasingly, research shows that this disconnection from our food sources is linked to worse health outcomes.

Why the Midwest Is Struggling

The numbers tell a brutal story. Adults in rural areas have obesity rates of 34.2% compared to 28.7% in metropolitan areas. And it's not just weight—rural residents experience higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, and stroke than their urban counterparts.

Part of it is access. Many rural communities in Iowa and across the Midwest have become food deserts, where the nearest grocery store might be 20 miles away, but there's a gas station or fast food joint right down the road. When you're working long hours at a factory or on a farm, exhausted, and need to feed your family, you're going to grab what's convenient and affordable. That often means highly processed foods loaded with sodium, saturated fat, and added sugars—exactly the stuff that drives chronic disease.

But it goes deeper than access. There's a skills gap too. A lot of people have lost the knowledge of how to grow food, preserve it, cook it from scratch. That connection to food production that used to be common? It's fading fast.

What Local Food Systems Actually Do

Here's where it gets interesting. Programs like CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) and farmers markets aren't just feel-good operations. Research shows they can measurably improve health outcomes. One federally qualified health center found that low-income diabetics who participated in a farmers market initiative increased their fruit and vegetable consumption by 1.6 servings per day on average.

CSAs and farmers markets create something that the industrial food system doesn't: a relationship. When you pick up your weekly share from Jill Bebout's farm or shop at your local farmers market, you're not just buying vegetables. You're connecting with the person who grew them, learning about seasonal eating, getting recipes, building community. That matters for health in ways that are hard to quantify but absolutely real.

And the farmers? They want this too. Many got into farming to be connected to their land and their community. They'd love to produce food that goes directly to people they know rather than into some anonymous commodity system. Local food systems strengthen regional economies while giving farmers a viable path to sustainable agriculture.

It's Not Just Individual Choices

Look, almost half of U.S. adults have pre-diabetes or diabetes. This isn't about personal willpower or making better choices. This is a systems problem. When the cheapest, most accessible food options are the ones making people sick, that's not individual failure—that's a food system that's fundamentally broken.

The Midwest needs policies that support local food infrastructure, make fresh food accessible in rural communities, and give farmers viable markets for sustainably grown produce. We need schools teaching kids where food comes from and how to grow it. We need health care systems that prescribe CSA shares and farmers market vouchers alongside medications.

What Actually Changes This

Consumer demand drives everything. If enough people start choosing local, sustainably grown food—supporting their regional farmers through CSAs, shopping at farmers markets, asking their institutions to source locally—the whole system starts to shift. Farmers grow more of what people want. Distribution improves. Prices become more competitive. More farmers enter the market.

It's not about being perfect or having a massive garden. Start small. Join a CSA if you can swing it. Hit up your local farmers market. Ask questions about where your food comes from. The connection you build with your food sources might be one of the most important things you can do for your long-term health.

The chronic health crisis in the Midwest isn't inevitable. It's the result of decades of disconnection from our food systems. Reconnecting—one farm, one family, one meal at a time—might just be the best preventive medicine we've got.

Ready to start building that connection? Check out Hoksey Native Seeds' pollinator and native grass mixes to start growing food sources for local ecosystems right in your own backyard. Supporting pollinators supports the farmers and local food systems that keep communities healthy.

Sources:

Hoksey Native Seeds
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