“Welcome to Park City”, reads a panel while the camera passes in front of the rich ski town, a transition for a scene taking place in the beautiful house of $ 35,000 per month of Meredith. This is a detail that Mary Cosby, a member of the distribution of “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City”, likes to underline. Cosby’s scenes in his own 20,000 square feet often put into account his exquisite heads from head to toe or Alexander McQueen – many of them directly from the track and costing the equivalent of several months of rent. In order not to be overshadowed by the introduction by bronwyn newport of the fabulous coat of heart Saint -Laurent Red Fur at $ 15,000 of $ 15,000 – his sewing seems illustrative of a woman at the housewife of Salt Lake.
Such things can be fascinating. So much so that the Washington Post nicknamed 2024 “The year of Mormon women“, And it may seem that UTAH has become synonymous with housewives of Salt Lake, the distribution of” The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives “and the high -end real estate series” Sold on SLC “. These all show in light a certain type of lifestyle – the one I understand and that several times I found myself leaning – with Stanley cups ($ 50), blonde reflections ($ 200 and more, all The six weeks), Range Rovers and G Wagons ($ 85,000 at $ 150,000) and large houses in newly built communities (from $ 800,000), all symbolic of UTAH – at least at the time of the pop culture that our state currently has.
But appearances can be misleading. While reality TV cameras and our Instagram flows focus on some of the richest residents of the state, many here are difficult – and hungry. For me, the appeal of a sewing life juxtaposed to an extreme need in the same city, can be difficult to understand or even to believe.
Anyway, the reality is that more than 400,000 Utahns do not have constant access to food, and more 143,000 of them are children. In fact, 1 in 6 children from Utah is hungry. Nationally, 33% of families led by a single mother experience food insecurityAnd 1 in 10 households from Utah live food insecurity, with Higher numbers for black families, indigenous families and people of color.
For students, in particular, hunger has many costs. Going to school without enough to eat can train School performance reduction,, Delayed development, behavioral problems,, Higher suspension rate and a multitude of physical and mental health problems.
Through the state, we The political project heard stories of students in disastrous situations. In Logan, an athlete student was found to recover pizzas from the dumpster. In Ogden, a young woman living in her car described the reception of the cheese from the food from the food bank and the frustration of having no way to cook it “on your dashboard”. In Beaver, we learned a young student who used dog food – because there was nothing else at home. An elementary teacher in Salt Lake once told lunch – to discover a young boy putting potatoes in his pocket. When asked what he was doing, the boy simply replied that his little sister at home was hungry. He took them to her. And a primary school teacher in the Granite school district recently shared that when his students learned that they would receive packes of pantry to bring home, they applauded with joy. Historically, students were too embarrassed to accept additional food, but in The last expensive yearsThese take -out packs were more popular than ever.
These stories are increasingly common and educators have recognized the hunger of students as one of the biggest problems they face in class.
Fortunately, there are several practical ways to combat students’ hunger in Utah. Private donors, companies and the governor’s office work at approach the debt of state school mealsWhile the political project, the representative Tyler Clancy, the senator Kirk Cullimore and the hunger experts through the State strive to eliminate the category of school meals at a reduced price so that families with the eligibility threshold – those who do not qualify for federal programs like INSTANT Or TanfishWho works to feed their families and who are most likely to accumulate meals debt – qualify for costly meals. We also work to extend the Summer EBT program In UTAH beyond 2025 to ensure that students most at risk have access to food during the summer months.
It is fascinating to see the housewives argue on what constitutes a “large number of hair” or to marvel at the grip that a little -known member of the Osmond family seems to have on a distribution member. But it is time that we just change a little of our collective attention to the reality of children who live in our own cities, choosing food or eating dog food, then going to school. It is also a “real” side of the Utah from which we should not divert – and it is something that we can change.
This legislative session, we have the opportunity to tell a new story about Utah with House Bill 100 Food Safety Amendments. It is the story of a state that offers opportunities and that is deeply cares about its most vulnerable residents – its children living in poverty.
(Emily Bell McCormick) Emily Bell McCormick is founder of the political project.
Emily Bell McCormick is founder of The political project – A non -profit organization that creates movements in order to transmit a healthy and long -term policy at the level of the state.
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