June 17, 2025|Cryotherapy, Dementia, Depression & Anxiety, fat removal, Mobile, Pain Management, Physical Therapy, Recovery, Skin Care, weight loss

Every June 19 we celebrate the final enforcement of emancipation in 1865. Yet freedom to live long, healthy lives is still uneven. Black, Latino, Indigenous, and Asian families often face higher rates of chronic disease and shorter life expectancy than their White neighbors. Those gaps didn’t appear by chance—they were designed into housing maps, retail zoning, and food supply chains that still shape daily choices. Here’s how that history unfolded, why it matters to all minorities, and how we can rewrite the script together.

The Maps That Still Shape Our Bodies

In the 1930s the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation drew “red lines” around neighborhoods considered risky for mortgages—usually the same blocks where Black or immigrant families lived. Banks pulled back, parks shrank, and highways later sliced through. A modern review of 200 studies shows higher asthma, heart disease, and pre-term births in those once-outlined districts. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Minnesota tells the same story. State health officials call our racial health gap “one of the widest in the nation,” tracing much of it to historic housing segregation that still dictates school funding, green space, and clinic access. health.state.mn.us

When the Supermarket Leaves

Pull up any map of “food deserts” and you’ll notice familiar patterns: the same redlined neighborhoods often lack a full-service grocery. A 2024 investigation into so-called “supermarket redlining” found Black shoppers paying more at smaller stores for fewer healthy options, leaving families with higher rates of diabetes and hypertension. baystatebanner.com

Latino communities feel a similar squeeze. Nationwide, 19 percent of Hispanic households struggled with food insecurity last year—well above the national average—because local stores stocked fewer fresh items and charged more for staples.

Liquor Stores on Every Corner

While grocery chains fled, liquor outlets multiplied. Urban-health researchers have linked high alcohol-outlet density in disinvested neighborhoods to greater rates of violence, chronic liver disease, and drunk-driving deaths. link.springer.com Reinforcing cycles of stress and substance use, these outlets cluster most tightly where residents already face higher unemployment and underfunded schools.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

Structural decisions translate into stark health statistics across minority groups:

Diagnosed Diabetes in U.S. Adults (CDC, 2024)

• American Indian / Alaska Native: 13.6 %
• Black: 12.1 %
• Hispanic: 11.7 %
• Asian: 9.1 %
• White: 6.9 %

Source: CDC National Diabetes Statistics Report 2024 cdc.gov

Maternal mortality, heart disease, and asthma follow similar lines, proving that geography and policy still drive biology.

Planning a Different Future

Because these gaps were planned, they can be un-planned. Here’s what works:

• Champion neighborhood wellness hubs. Small, family-run centers—like Body Techs Wellness + Rehab—keep prices realistic, hire locally, and treat clients like relatives, not numbers.
• Take care on the road. Mobile health services bring cryotherapy, compression therapy, and health screenings to job sites, parks, and community events, erasing one big barrier: transportation.
• Push for healthy-retail ordinances. Cities from Minneapolis to Baltimore now offer tax credits for fresh-food markets in low-access zones and cap new liquor licenses where outlets already cluster.
• Grow food-justice projects. SNAP-doubling at farmers’ markets and neighborhood gardens measurably increase fruit and vegetable intake within a single season.
• Invest in culturally skilled care. Training more providers of color—and supporting doulas, therapists, and rehab specialists who share patients’ languages and histories—improves trust and health outcomes for every minority group.
  

How Body Techs Leans In

We’re a small, minority-owned center built on family values, and we put those values to work:

• Juneteenth $10 Core-Session Day (11 AM–3 PM). Bring a friend, cool your body, and warm your spirit—everyone is welcome.
• Free monthly workshops. From chronic-pain management to affordable healthy cooking, our staff shares practical tools for lifelong wellness.
• Mobile cryo trailer. We bring advanced recovery tools to sports fields, construction sites, and neighborhood festivals, meeting people where they already gather.
  

Freedom Means the Chance to Thrive

Juneteenth honors freedom once denied but ultimately delivered. True freedom includes the right to fresh food, safe streets, clean air, and top-tier health care—regardless of ZIP code or skin color. The forces that fenced off those essentials were deliberate; our collective response must be just as intentional. By supporting local wellness hubs, demanding fair food and retail policies, and lifting each other up, we can ensure every Minnesotan—and every American—has the freedom not just to live, but to thrive.