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The Urban Food Desert Myth
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Gallowmere1984 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »
To compare poverty in a third world/developing country with that of a first world country is patently ridiculous. We aren't saying people are starving, or surviving on aid rations. It's a straw man of the highest order.
Poverty is relative.
Seems simple then, the solution to the obesity problem is use a bit self control and eat less. But of course, if they had more self control they might not be "poor" in the first place.
I'm surprised to see that your experiences have led you to conclude that poverty is an issue of poor self-control. Didn't you open the conversation with something about starving children in Africa? Have they failed to sufficiently exercise self-control or is it only the poor in the US and UK who have morally failed?
Maybe you should read what I was replying to. But to answer the 2nd part of your last question, yes, by and large.
So poverty is the result of outside forces in some countries, but self-inflicted in others?
When you are poor but so are the vast majority of your countrymen, there might be an outside cause; when the vast majority are rich but you are poor, it's time to look at yourself.
In what country are the vast majority rich (by the standards of their own country)?
In the U.S., for example.
You and I must have vastly different definitions of either "rich" or "majority".
https://dqydj.com/net-worth-in-the-united-states-zooming-in-on-the-top-centiles/
OK, fine, vast majority are "not poor", better?1 -
janejellyroll wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »
To compare poverty in a third world/developing country with that of a first world country is patently ridiculous. We aren't saying people are starving, or surviving on aid rations. It's a straw man of the highest order.
Poverty is relative.
Seems simple then, the solution to the obesity problem is use a bit self control and eat less. But of course, if they had more self control they might not be "poor" in the first place.
I'm surprised to see that your experiences have led you to conclude that poverty is an issue of poor self-control. Didn't you open the conversation with something about starving children in Africa? Have they failed to sufficiently exercise self-control or is it only the poor in the US and UK who have morally failed?
Maybe you should read what I was replying to. But to answer the 2nd part of your last question, yes, by and large.
So poverty is the result of outside forces in some countries, but self-inflicted in others?
When you are poor but so are the vast majority of your countrymen, there might be an outside cause; when the vast majority are rich but you are poor, it's time to look at yourself.
In what country are the vast majority rich (by the standards of their own country)?
In the U.S., for example.
LOL, you are not serious, right?
I guess everything is relative and you are not in the US
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janejellyroll wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »
Many people do find it easier to moralize about what the poor should do and how they've failed than to seriously try to understand what's going on in people's lives and consider *how* change can actually come about.
We already know how. Laws of thermodynamics, CICO etc.So what's more important to you? Understanding the situation or feeling superior?
Let's see, we have obese people, who we can all agree do not need even more food, a subset of them are also "poor", and they use their limited resources to buy things (food) they do not need? I'm sorry, I'm not even going to try to understand irrational beings.
I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying.
I understand perfectly, you were trying to find excuses.-1 -
I work in Washington DC and I am white and I have to preface what I am going to write next by stating that this is my opinion as a private citizen.
I am very familiar with Michelle's "My Plate" initiative and the inner city food desert because in my career I have worked at both the USDA and the US Navy Yard in SE DC. Until recently, (last 8 to 10 years) there was only 1 large grocery store (a Safeway) near South Capital Street and it was nearer the waterfront condos and wharf than it was near the low-income apartments and houses.
Things were so dire (in 2000) that the Navy brought in restaurants and a farmer's market for employees inside the base. If you didn't have a car, there was nothing close by. Not even food trucks would venture into SE. And, after dark - "forgetaboutit". While there were a few corner markets that carried some frozen items like hot pockets and pizza as well as soda, candy, beer, chips, cigarettes, and lottery tickets, there were TONS of fast food restaurants closer to these neighborhoods than grocery stores. Domino's Pizza, Wendy's, KFC, Taco Bell are all generally more accessible than a grocery store. And, with $10.00 a mom can get a bucket of chicken and two sides (and nod, nod, wink, wink, sodas for the kids) or a loaf of bread, a half a dozen eggs, and a half a gallon of milk, which she still has to cook (if she has the time or the means).
The food isn't where these people are, because the areas are considered high crime / high risk and companies don't want to put their stores in a high crime area. (Industry leaders who met with the DC Council said that they couldn't attract employees that wouldn't steal from them and managers would rather quit than work a night shift in a DC store). Furthermore real estate per square foot is expensive and why lease to a grocery store when you can clear out the poor people and put up a high dollar / high rise apartment, with a grocery store in the lobby?
With the gentrification of the Navy Yard district, "The Yards" ball field (Go Nats!) and multi-million dollar apartments, things began to improve in order to attract higher income residents. (It's the law of supply and demand). There is also the Eastern Market area that is within walking distance, but, the shops in there are more boutiques and cater to people who can pay more for their food.
The low-income apartments and houses were bull dozed and the elderly and poor were moved out to PG County in Maryland (to make room for the gentrification), beginning 2003. So, those people who want to shop at a grocery store still have to get in their cars and drive somewhere else around the beltway in Maryland or Virginia (or get someone to take them if they don't have a car). There are now some strip malls with anchor stores like Giant or Safeway, but they are not where these folks can get to easily from the "projects".
Michelle's "My Plate" initiative was not just about the food desert, it was also about portion control and "clean" eating; not eating a ton of grains and empty carbs and things from a box. It was about getting kids familiar with home grown foods and learning to grow them and eat them. Children who are used to fast food as their only food are not accustomed to eating "fresh" fruit and vegetables. Additionally, many of these children are fed at school and the food is basically all from a box, a can or frozen (based on the contracts that the District has with its vendors). It's kind of like going to a foreign county as an American tourist and the first thing people generally look for is food that they are familiar with. These kids are being taught that other food exists and that they should try them and perhaps want to have them more often. There is a huge non-profit program sponsored by the Friends of the National Arboretum that goes to schools and helps them build urban gardens so that the kids can become familiar with good nourishing food.
In relation to the obesity epidemic, many of the fast foods are high in sugar and salt. If that is all a person is eating (e.g. the Super Size Me movie) then obviously something is going to happen metabolically to a person't body. Some time ago Dr Oz and Oprah also discussed that many African Americans (as well as poor white people) are predisposed to certain medical conditions because they have generationally survived dire conditions and that their bodies adapted to allow them to survive. They hold onto salt; their pancreases exude glucose. Additionally, add the stress of being poor, not feeling safe (these kids can't even play outside due to gun violence a lot of times) and not having access to minerals like iodine, they become hypothyroid / develop acute adrenal fatigue.
It's all actually quite depressing... Anyway - that's all I have to offer the discussion.17 -
janejellyroll wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »
To compare poverty in a third world/developing country with that of a first world country is patently ridiculous. We aren't saying people are starving, or surviving on aid rations. It's a straw man of the highest order.
Poverty is relative.
Seems simple then, the solution to the obesity problem is use a bit self control and eat less. But of course, if they had more self control they might not be "poor" in the first place.
I'm surprised to see that your experiences have led you to conclude that poverty is an issue of poor self-control. Didn't you open the conversation with something about starving children in Africa? Have they failed to sufficiently exercise self-control or is it only the poor in the US and UK who have morally failed?
Maybe you should read what I was replying to. But to answer the 2nd part of your last question, yes, by and large.
So poverty is the result of outside forces in some countries, but self-inflicted in others?
When you are poor but so are the vast majority of your countrymen, there might be an outside cause; when the vast majority are rich but you are poor, it's time to look at yourself.
In what country are the vast majority rich (by the standards of their own country)?
In the U.S., for example.
The majority of people aren't rich in the US, let alone the "vast majority." I think this conversation might be more productive if you took some time to research income and wealth distribution in the US. It might help you better understand what you're discussing here. Right now you appear to be developing theories based on incorrect information.6 -
janejellyroll wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »
Many people do find it easier to moralize about what the poor should do and how they've failed than to seriously try to understand what's going on in people's lives and consider *how* change can actually come about.
We already know how. Laws of thermodynamics, CICO etc.So what's more important to you? Understanding the situation or feeling superior?
Let's see, we have obese people, who we can all agree do not need even more food, a subset of them are also "poor", and they use their limited resources to buy things (food) they do not need? I'm sorry, I'm not even going to try to understand irrational beings.
I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying.
I understand perfectly, you were trying to find excuses.
If that is what you think, you truly don't understand what I was saying.7 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »spinnerdell wrote: »
Are you talking about them having gardens, or at least knowing people who have gardens? (Same could apply to fishing, hunting, I suppose.)Gallowmere1984 wrote: »One would think, the truly screwed are the poor who live in areas where it can be 60+ miles to a reasonably sized town. However, these people often tend to be cash poor, but environment resourceful, so to speak.
I live on the outskirts of a small rural town in Nevada with the nearest supermarket 3 miles away. Some of my neighbors who don't have cars rely on a gas station convenience store for their groceries, a limited and expensive resource.
A vegetable garden, fruit trees, and backyard chickens supplement my diet very nicely, a luxury unavailable to most urban food-desert-dwellers, I'm guessing.
This, but usually it's not that they can't do it, in a realistic sense. It's that often, draconian city zoning codes levy fines for such things. Kinda defeats the purpose of growing your own food when you end up getting hit for 10x the value of the food potential in fines. Can't have people dodging your shady local sales taxes, ya' know?
I'm not aware of any fines for growing gardens. That seems weird. I am in a city and grow vegetables, and I happen to know that laws permit chickens too. The problem is (a) space, and (b) if your building prohibits chickens. The lower income neighborhoods have houses often (but in other areas not), so space depends. However, there are also LOTS of options for community gardens.
I am not actually convinced that home gardening is cheaper for most in a city -- it's not for me with the kind of space I have, the time it takes, chance of crop failure, etc. There are some things I am very successful with (tomatoes) and others less so. I don't have a big yard, though -- most of my gardening is on my rooftop. With a yard I think it would be easier.
I would certainly agree that space is usually the limiting factor. Hell, I eat nearly four pounds of various vegetables on a daily basis. I don't even think a full yard could cover that, and I really am not even that diverse in my choices. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, peppers, cauliflower and green beans are all easy to grow, but would definitely require a large amount of land to cover just my own consumption. I live in a two bedroom apartment, by myself, and with minimal furniture and I still can't imagine where I would even grow the peppers that I can eat, and that's by far the smallest part.
You forgot your kail. You could grow it well into the cold months with a hoop house.
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lemurcat12 wrote: »Oh, I don't think the obesity rate is lower among the rural lower income, is it? It would be interesting if stats were broken down more specifically: urban, by income quintile; rural, by income quintile. Even so it would be skewed by age and lying and other factors.
Also, with the poor in a city, the cost of a car isn't the issue so much as the cost of having a car. I have a car, and yet often choose not to drive it due to the cost/time involved with parking, etc. For example, my mom stops for groceries after work (or did before she retired), because she has her car. I also stop after work, but I never drive to work so don't have a car when I do this. (Where I live it's easy, though.)
Most commutes in the US are quite short, also. I think exceptions are around big cities and out in the sticks, as well as people who choose, for whatever reason, to live far from where they work (spouses have jobs in different places, live in-between, for example).
Anyway, like I said, I don't happen to think food deserts are the issue with obesity.
There are a few stores I only shop at when I bike commute or walk/run due to traffic backups or parking. In heavy snow, it can also often be more convenient to take the bus(es) than un-bury your car.
Yeah, that's true here too, especially as lots of us who have cars don't have covered parking.0 -
stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »
To compare poverty in a third world/developing country with that of a first world country is patently ridiculous. We aren't saying people are starving, or surviving on aid rations. It's a straw man of the highest order.
Poverty is relative.
Seems simple then, the solution to the obesity problem is use a bit self control and eat less. But of course, if they had more self control they might not be "poor" in the first place.
I'm surprised to see that your experiences have led you to conclude that poverty is an issue of poor self-control. Didn't you open the conversation with something about starving children in Africa? Have they failed to sufficiently exercise self-control or is it only the poor in the US and UK who have morally failed?
Maybe you should read what I was replying to. But to answer the 2nd part of your last question, yes, by and large.
So poverty is the result of outside forces in some countries, but self-inflicted in others?
Yes. When poverty and obesity coincide, it's self inflicted.
When poverty and starvation coincide, there are likely external factors.
Why is this so hard to accept?
I don't think you understand my question -- my question isn't about poverty *and* obesity, it's about poverty. The argument is being made that in some countries poverty is self-inflicted, the result of poor self-control, while in other countries it is the result of outside forces. I am not sure what evidence exists for this argument, but I'm not yet convinced by it.
I understood your question. In the industrial world, with universal education, remaining poor is a choice. It may not be a conscious choice, but it is a choice nonetheless.
Pursuing the quick, the easy, the temporarily satisfying is how and why the poor remain poor.
It's easy to use a payday loan to buy sneakers, it's harder to wear Walmart wonders.
And yeah. I've been ramen poor. I didn't know how poor I was until I enlisted in the military, and discovered that my first paycheck(monthly) was more than my parents had been making while providing for a family of 5 with no public assistance.
That was 1996 and about $900 a month.
I understand that your family may have used payday loans to buy sneakers, but my family didn't. We wore clothes from Walmart, in fact getting new clothes from Walmart was thrilling because most of the time our clothes weren't new at all. There was a lengthy period where my mom just had two shirts, we used a cooler for a fridge for months, a winter where we didn't have a hot water heater.
I'll try to reflect on the choices we made to put ourselves in such a situation, but to my POV my mom isn't a better person than she was when she was poor. She isn't a smarter person than when she was poor. She isn't poor anymore, but she hasn't magically transmogrified into a person who used to be irresponsible but has somehow learned to dismiss the quick, the easy, and the temporarily satisfying choices that made her poor.
"We're better than the poor" is, to my mind, such an unhelpful way to approach the discussion. Do I make better choices than some poor people? Absolutely. Some poor people probably make better choices than me. And there are some rich people who probably make poorer choices than me, but have sufficient wealth to insulate themselves from the full consequences of their choices.
We're in a society that pushes and glamorizes the quick, the easy, and the temporarily satisfying and some people -- of all income levels -- do sometimes pursue it. But look at who we critique the most for doing it (and often in somewhat coded language like "sneakers")? There was a time in my life when I supervised people who were quite close to the poverty level or below it and sometimes they would use payday loans. In the situations I knew about it was for things like major car repairs, unexpected home repair expenses, or simply to make the rent (we were in an area that had major layoffs and many people who were used to having two decent incomes were having to make due with much less). Do people take payday loans to buy sneakers? I'm sure some people probably do. But there are also people who are using them to try to survive in a situation where there aren't a whole lot of great options to cover unexpected major expenses.
"This thing you do that all sorts of people do, this is why you're poor."
I'm not convinced by the argument.
Exactly the opposite. See, you misunderstood the answer. Those who stayed poor in my neighborhood did that. We did thrift shops and Walmart.
There are ALWAYS better options than payday loans.
I apologize for my misunderstanding. Is your argument that poverty itself isn't self-inflicted, but that staying poor is?
Yes, exactly. Becoming poor can happen by accident, it may even last a generation or so. But multigenerational poverty has at its root the inability or unwillingness to defer happiness.
I observed, that in 9/10 situations, folks who had trouble making rent or car repairs and needed an advance for that or the water bill generally managed to keep their cable and electric and Flat screen
Sounds like Hillbilly Elegy, in part: https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062300546/hillbilly-elegy.3 -
I'm actually not sure what the argument that poor people should not be (or stay) poor has to do with this topic, but could be I'm missing the point.
I think that there are two different levels of how we can look at a problem:
(1) What should an individual do?
(2) Why it is that way and is there something we can do as a society to help/improve things?
For obesity, I agree that there are always things that an individual who really wants to lose weight can do. I don't think being poor dooms you to be fat. I also don't think anyone else is arguing that but some people seem to be arguing against that claim (that no one made). I do think that part of being empathetic is realizing that some people may have reasons/influences on the choices they make that you don't, or that are less of a stumbling block for you, and I think that's part of what's being discussed with things like the Orwell quote. I personally think that all else equal (although they wouldn't be) certain aspects of being poor or being in certain poor environments would make it easier for me to become or remain obese. (Other aspects, like if I happened to have a more physical job, might make it less easy.) Some of those things aren't directly related to being obese: for example, in the society I see around me, lower-income social groups are more likely to be fat. The one I'm in is mostly not fat. I think this makes me more bothered about being fat (in the absence of medical issues, which I never had) than I would be if my social circle were different. That, of course, has nothing to do with anything we'd want to address from a public policy POV, but I think it's fair to acknowledge it.
All that aside, I also think there are things we can do as a society -- even just having sidewalks, decent public transportation, and no stupid laws against gardening -- that make it easier to eat healthfully, to be reasonably active, and not to be obese. Will they actually get rid of obesity? Of course not, but I think they are positive things that make it easier for some people.
With respect to those kinds of things, though, I also think it's helpful to understand what actually does make a difference and what does not, what tends to be an influence on obesity, so on. So it matters that the food desert isn't actually why people are obese (based on at least some of the research, not just the truth that of course one COULD lose weight eating only poptarts--or the many other options that are reasonably available to the poor even in food deserts).6 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »I do think that part of being empathetic is realizing that some people may have reasons/influences on the choices they make that you don't, or that are less of a stumbling block for you, and I think that's part of what's being discussed with things like the Orwell quote.
This is very well said. I also think even if empathy isn't a value for us personally, if one is planning policies or actions it is a good idea to start with where people *are* and that includes understanding the reasons and influences behind their choices.
If we think the problem is [x] and it's actually [y], then our proposed solutions might not work. At best, they're a waste of effort and money. At worst, they may actually make things worse than they were before.
And I think I was a big part of why the discussion got derailed into a discussion of whether or not people choose to be poor, so apologies for that.
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French_Peasant wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »spinnerdell wrote: »
Are you talking about them having gardens, or at least knowing people who have gardens? (Same could apply to fishing, hunting, I suppose.)Gallowmere1984 wrote: »One would think, the truly screwed are the poor who live in areas where it can be 60+ miles to a reasonably sized town. However, these people often tend to be cash poor, but environment resourceful, so to speak.
I live on the outskirts of a small rural town in Nevada with the nearest supermarket 3 miles away. Some of my neighbors who don't have cars rely on a gas station convenience store for their groceries, a limited and expensive resource.
A vegetable garden, fruit trees, and backyard chickens supplement my diet very nicely, a luxury unavailable to most urban food-desert-dwellers, I'm guessing.
This, but usually it's not that they can't do it, in a realistic sense. It's that often, draconian city zoning codes levy fines for such things. Kinda defeats the purpose of growing your own food when you end up getting hit for 10x the value of the food potential in fines. Can't have people dodging your shady local sales taxes, ya' know?
I'm not aware of any fines for growing gardens. That seems weird. I am in a city and grow vegetables, and I happen to know that laws permit chickens too. The problem is (a) space, and (b) if your building prohibits chickens. The lower income neighborhoods have houses often (but in other areas not), so space depends. However, there are also LOTS of options for community gardens.
I am not actually convinced that home gardening is cheaper for most in a city -- it's not for me with the kind of space I have, the time it takes, chance of crop failure, etc. There are some things I am very successful with (tomatoes) and others less so. I don't have a big yard, though -- most of my gardening is on my rooftop. With a yard I think it would be easier.
I would certainly agree that space is usually the limiting factor. Hell, I eat nearly four pounds of various vegetables on a daily basis. I don't even think a full yard could cover that, and I really am not even that diverse in my choices. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, peppers, cauliflower and green beans are all easy to grow, but would definitely require a large amount of land to cover just my own consumption. I live in a two bedroom apartment, by myself, and with minimal furniture and I still can't imagine where I would even grow the peppers that I can eat, and that's by far the smallest part.
You forgot your kail. You could grow it well into the cold months with a hoop house.
Holy crap yeah, how did I forget that? That's easily another pound or so.2 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »French_Peasant wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »spinnerdell wrote: »
Are you talking about them having gardens, or at least knowing people who have gardens? (Same could apply to fishing, hunting, I suppose.)Gallowmere1984 wrote: »One would think, the truly screwed are the poor who live in areas where it can be 60+ miles to a reasonably sized town. However, these people often tend to be cash poor, but environment resourceful, so to speak.
I live on the outskirts of a small rural town in Nevada with the nearest supermarket 3 miles away. Some of my neighbors who don't have cars rely on a gas station convenience store for their groceries, a limited and expensive resource.
A vegetable garden, fruit trees, and backyard chickens supplement my diet very nicely, a luxury unavailable to most urban food-desert-dwellers, I'm guessing.
This, but usually it's not that they can't do it, in a realistic sense. It's that often, draconian city zoning codes levy fines for such things. Kinda defeats the purpose of growing your own food when you end up getting hit for 10x the value of the food potential in fines. Can't have people dodging your shady local sales taxes, ya' know?
I'm not aware of any fines for growing gardens. That seems weird. I am in a city and grow vegetables, and I happen to know that laws permit chickens too. The problem is (a) space, and (b) if your building prohibits chickens. The lower income neighborhoods have houses often (but in other areas not), so space depends. However, there are also LOTS of options for community gardens.
I am not actually convinced that home gardening is cheaper for most in a city -- it's not for me with the kind of space I have, the time it takes, chance of crop failure, etc. There are some things I am very successful with (tomatoes) and others less so. I don't have a big yard, though -- most of my gardening is on my rooftop. With a yard I think it would be easier.
I would certainly agree that space is usually the limiting factor. Hell, I eat nearly four pounds of various vegetables on a daily basis. I don't even think a full yard could cover that, and I really am not even that diverse in my choices. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, peppers, cauliflower and green beans are all easy to grow, but would definitely require a large amount of land to cover just my own consumption. I live in a two bedroom apartment, by myself, and with minimal furniture and I still can't imagine where I would even grow the peppers that I can eat, and that's by far the smallest part.
You forgot your kail. You could grow it well into the cold months with a hoop house.
Holy crap yeah, how did I forget that? That's easily another pound or so.
I'm just here to help.
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I currently live in the Central Valley in California. We have lots of access to lots of cheap fruits and veggies because we grow them. I am also in the downtown-ish area of a city here. The grocery stores nearest us are mainly the bargain types, Foods 4 Less, Foods Co., Grocery Outlet. We also have several Asian markets and an El Super nearby. But, when you go out of this area, it becomes more sparse until you get to "nicer" parts of town. Also, to get reliably fresh veggies that aren't about to rot, the nearest SaveMart or Vons is about 4.5 miles away. When you go farther north, there's about 2 miles in between Save Marts in one place.
There is also the phenomenon where people in poor areas pay more for basic necessities, like diapers, than people in wealthier areas, even when comparing the same store chains to each other, i.e. a Target in a poor area v. a Target in a wealthier area, but that's a different topic.
To try to argue that there are no systemic issues that are affecting people's ability to get out of poverty is to ignore the reality of the situation.
As for gardens, technically, we are not supposed to grow anything that can be harvested in the front; I know this because our neighbors are doing it anyway. Backyards are fine. You're also not supposed to have chickens in the city, but people do.6 -
Most people that aren't actively trying to lose weight would choose .99 box of Kraft Dinner over a 2.99 head of broccoli. I don't think the link between poverty and obesity is that much of a stretch.2
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Most people that aren't actively trying to lose weight would choose .99 box of Kraft Dinner over a 2.99 head of broccoli. I don't think the link between poverty and obesity is that much of a stretch.
They probably would. They would probably also choose 99 cents' worth of Kraft macaroni dinner over 50 cents' worth of dried beans. I think that is part of what makes this an intractable problem.3 -
His background argument was that the average working-class Englishman, especially in poor regions, couldn't afford healthy food. He was explaining that technically they could eat raw carrots and save on fuel so as to be able to afford healthier (if less palatable) food, but that no one would do that. The urban food desert argument is a little bit different. There are several variations on it, but the heart of it is that obesity is more prevalent among poor people because they don't have access to healthy foods. Given the level of social services in the US and Europe, they could afford them, which is a different situation than Orwell was describing.SpotLighttt wrote: »No, he [Orwell] was talking about cheap pleasures, among other things.
And yes, I think that was the point, that the reason isn't food deserts, but that doesn't mean it's not harder if you are poor.
I noticed that people were talking about places they'd lived that had only fast food and convenience stores because they thought food deserts were a big problem. Also, I'm thinking of the documentaries I've seen, which always seem to conclude that food deserts are the main culprit and that if more farmer's markets opened up, everyone would stop eating snack cakes and chips.You seem to be arguing against a point I'm not sure anyone here is actually arguing for -- that food deserts are the main problem.
To be clear, I'm not saying either that food deserts are or aren't a major cause of obesity - just that, if they are, focusing on them wouldn't solve the problem.
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sunfastrose wrote: »
Thanks for sharing this link! I liked the article, though I didn't agree with the conclusion. I do think that people who have a certain set of habits and ways of thinking and behaving ingrained will tend to rise out of poverty, if circumstances permit. And that people with the wrong set of habits and ways of thinking and behaving will find it hard if not impossible, even in the same or better circumstances.1 -
Over-eating and therefore obesity is an expected consequence of poverty.
Tasty food and drink is one of life's greatest pleasures. Poverty is rubbish. Therefore if you are poor you are likely to seek out "luxury" goods which bring pleasure to life which is within your means. This has the effect of increasing demand for those items, driving innovation and bringing lower prices. The bonus is that means more luxury items come into the reach of those on lower incomes. And so the circle goes on...
BRB going to actual starving children in Africa and tell them they are in fact, obese.
Eh?
Don't let me keep you though. Perhaps when you're done with your African Adventure you can swing by rural China and ask them about an increasing prevalence of overweight and obese individuals given the increased availability of cheap, easily accessible hyper-palatable foods despite ready access to whole foods and ask why they seek it out.
Funny you mentioned rural China.
1. the peasants are no longer so poor.
2. automation has made their work easier they no longer perform so much manual labor.
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