Britanni Marie Dighero stood in an aisle of the Coronado Meat Market and Bakery in South Los Angeles, reading the ingredient list on a package of her favorite fudge cookies into a video camera. She occasionally stumbled over phrases like "propylene glycol mono" and "diesters of fats and fatty acids."
"I never read this before, and I'm really sad right now," said Britanni, a high school senior.
"If you can't read it, don't eat it," added another student, Jessica Orellana.
The spot they were taping, called "Do You Mind Reading What You're Eating?," will be included on a website the students are developing as part of a broader effort to fight childhood obesity and related diseases, including diabetes.
They are working in neighborhoods where a third of the children are overweight and about half are not physically fit -- and where a scarcity of supermarkets is a long-standing source of community ire.
The website is one of several projects statewide called Healthy Eating, Active Communities, sponsored by the California Endowment. It was no accident that the students were making their video at Coronado Market, a small full-service grocery store on Avalon Boulevard. Coronado was the first to get a market makeover: A new wooden produce rack can be moved outside in good weather. Bananas are stacked near the checkout to catch shoppers' eyes. A produce aisle was relocated near the entrance.
A pegboard above it displays dozens of herbs, spices and dried peppers. The store started to sell leaner meats, and the in-house bakery tried to use less lard. On the front door is a poster with the headline: "A healthy life starts with your shopping cart."
Students from the Accelerated School, a South L.A. charter, have worked on makeovers at two stores; negotiations are underway to start on a third.
"Ideally, when you are working with these neighborhood stores, they're more rooted in the community, so they are more likely to stay in it for the long run," said Reanne Estrada, an associate with Public Matters, an education, media and civic engagement consulting firm that has been working with the high school students.
"The goal is to get the store owner to think differently about their inventory," said Nathan Cheng, a business consultant in Oakland who has worked for a decade to make nutritious food available in low-income neighborhoods and who has helped with the Los Angeles market makeovers. A makeover can run $10,000 to $35,000, he said.
