Are the poor fat?

ruqayyahsmum

In Plymouth (UK) it is much much more expensive to eat healthily. Theres an article in the local paper today stating that 60% of Plymouth adults are obese/overweight.

I don't believe its a lack of education here though because the information is everywhere (sometimes too much so imho) by the government, in schools, health clubs everywhere, the media etc etc

Sadly unemployment here is high and food banks are busier then ever People have to make cuts and sometimes its the food bills which means less healthy stuff ><

My husband is lucky that he has a full time job but we still only bring home £18k a year for a family of 4 plus 2 cats and dog lol

I tend to visit the supermarkets late in the evening and try stock on reduced priced items now which helps a lot, also visiting more than one supermarket to buy the items on offer and cooking from scratch rather than anything processed helps

Our best investment was a slow cooker for healthy nutritious homemade soups and stews which don't break the bank.

the schools info comes from the government which is based on studies payed for by food companys. the information they give out particularly about dairy has proven to be flawed but they dont change the advice they give.
we sadly are ending up with a generation of sheep
the most recent advert advising parents to swap full sugar pop for diet pop, why cant they tell them to swap for a glass of semi skimmed milk or plain water?
my friend sees nothing wrong with allowing her small children to drink up to 2 litres of pepsi max a day and now shes smug about it because the government said to

paperfiish

There are so many ignorant or willfully hateful comments on here that it's just not worth the time, or other people have answered them better than I could.

That being said, I take a lot of issue with the continued use of "the poor". It's a way of phrasing that is dehumanizing and removes community or society members from relating "the poor" to people on par with them and worthy of respect. It is a practice in the English language used to quite literally make someone "the other", and for that reason many marginalized groups have balked at the use of such phrasing. "The poor", "the handicap", "the obese", "the gays" and other such means of labeling groups of people removes them from their human essence and individuality and lumps then into a gray, faceless, often subtly threatening mass of "others".

There are people who live in poverty. I am a person who has lived under the poverty line her entire life. I am also a person who is fat, for many complex reasons, but poverty was definitely a very large factor in what I ate while living at my poorest as a child, and the economic gains I've made as an adult have seen a proportional amount of access to healthier foods. There is a ****ton more I could say on this matter, but really I've learned in my life that people are mostly unwilling to change their views about people living in poverty, since its an easy way to distance yourself from "the other" rather than acknowledge the complex interplay of socioeconomics, health, and access and how much we all play into systematic oppression of marginalized groups.

Because, you know, the poor are lazy and uneducated and don't really care or want anything better because it's easier being poor than working and that is neither horribly bigoted nor ignorant of social complexity and economic oppression, right?

ggilbert95

I just came across this post on a thread, "Why is eating healthy so darn expensive?"

"This is why poor people are usually the fat ones. Takes discipline to cut down on unimportant living expenses and buy healthy food, which is much more expensive (MUCH, MUCH MORE - if the farmers weren't subsidized) to grow, produce. Also, the cost if you are determined to eat healthy (and exercise) is a very good reason to grow your own. Even if you only have a patio, I grew tomatoes, cucumbers, etc., in pots on my sundeck."

I agree in a lot of ways.

Thoughts?

LOL Gas stations have apples/bananas/oranges for 25cents to a dollar!

Socioeconomic status is being used as an EXCUSE to continue to ruin one's heal. Doesn't bother me though, their choice.

3laine75

but their being overweight is an obvious testament to the notion that they can afford to eat enough to put themselves in caloric excess. You'd think that being truly poor would result in being underweight/malnourished, instead of the opposite.

All it show is they have access to cheap calories although not necessarily cheap nutrition. I suspect if you look at the diets of many poor people they will be very high in carbs and fat but low in protein without even considering micros. They may be overweight but that does not necessarily mean they are properly nourished or have anything near approaching access to a basic balanced diet.

I cannot speak for the States but in the UK there certainly are poor people who struggle to make even a basic standard of living. Sure, they are not poor in comparison to people in developing countries but that is not to say they do not struggle tremendously.

I'm in the uk too and I disagree. Many of the 'poor' that are interviewed for the pieces that we see on the news etc claim to have went days without food so their children can eat - but strangely they are still very much overweight.

I would also put money on them not having gone days without cigarettes and/or alcohol (which is okay as they can get extra benefits if they are alcoholics).

I do not find it more expensive to eat properly, it just takes a bit more time and effort to prepare. If you heat your kid a tin of beans and sausage there is more time for you to sit on your backside and watch more telly - these news pieces get brought up regularly by whoever the opposition party is at the time because telling people to get off their arses won't win votes at the next election.

traerjudy

Agree

stutba

You can make your own food for a fraction of the cost of prepackaged. You will have healthier choices. Homemade bread, vs store bought bread with so many chemicals added you can compare bread to a yoga matt! Bag of potatoes $3.00, (at least 3 meals from the bag), vs the frozen packaged potatoes, 1 meal equal $3.00. The list can go on.
So to say to be poor means you have less quality of food is hog wash. If you are on a budget, you can still have quality food, you might have to learn how to cook, make it from scratch, and stop buying the prepackaged crap!

3laine75

You can make your own food for a fraction of the cost of prepackaged. You will have healthier choices. Homemade bread, vs store bought bread with so many chemicals added you can compare bread to a yoga matt! Bag of potatoes $3.00, (at least 3 meals from the bag), vs the frozen packaged potatoes, 1 meal equal $3.00. The list can go on.
So to say to be poor means you have less quality of food is hog wash. If you are on a budget, you can still have quality food, you might have to learn how to cook, make it from scratch, and stop buying the prepackaged crap!

Yep, exactly the same here - people simply don't go to the effort.

paperfiish

LOL nevermind, I couldn't do it. Thought I could ignore this thread and leave it at that but nope. So lets talk about SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS :happy: Please refer to google if you don't know what that means or believe that it's a synonym for "excuse".

Please note: Not all factors affect "the poor" equally! Some people living in poverty are affected by different factors to different degrees! This is why a discussion about "the poor" as a faceless homogeneous mass will never be a real discussion, because it ignores the variability of factors at play within a person or families poverty! How's that for annoying? It's much easier to pigeonhole an entire group of people, amirite?

So here are some FACTORS to consider next time before you make authoritative blanket statements about people you don't know living in a system you might not have experienced or fully understand:

The first and foremost important factor in every aspect is ACCESS: Access relates to many variables, including access to transport, access to grocery stores, access to a comprehensive education, access to birth control and sexual health services, access to food in general, access to general health and nutritional care, access to jobs, and access to community resources. This factor plays a LARGE PART of how much one factor plays into a persons poverty versus another factor. A persons level of access determines what steps need to be taken to alleviate the effects of poverty on their life. If a person has ZERO ACCESS to, say, birth control, then that will play a large part in their ability to regulate how many children they might have if they are sexually active and therefore how much money is spent on expenses related to children.

Now that you understand the important of access, lets take a look at some of specific factors that access plays into and how they might affect a person living in poverty.

TRANSPORTATION

Transport is a ~huge~ factor in general access to other resources. PUBLIC TRANSIT can be an effective resource for families suffering from a lack of personal transportation. A family living without a car in New York might not suffer from a lack of personal transportation because the city is built to accommodate public transit. Many larger cities have public transit in some form, though the majority of American cities public transport systems are severely lacking in enough buses, routes offered, times offered, and efficiency. If you live in California please try to take the 91 metro line from LA to the IE any time from 9am to 2pm or after 8pm during the week (or at all on the weekend), and tell me how far you get.

Public transit is pretty much a laughable concept for most people living in semi-rural to rural neighborhoods. A lack of personal transportation in these areas can not only be extremely isolating, it can severely affect ones ability to access food, health care, education, and jobs. Having a mode of personal transport is not a guarantee towards better access, however. Whether in an urban, suburban, or rural setting, the cost of maintenance and gas for cars can also be extremely prohibitive on when and how personal transportation is used. Since the majority of people living in poverty cannot afford a newer car and often suffer from low credit scores that exclude them from loans for a newer vehicle, people in poverty tend to drive older vehicles. These often need a lot more maintenance just to keep them running, and they tend to be highly inefficient on fuel, so the relative cost of repair and gas for an older car is much higher than a newer vehicle. AREA can greatly affect gas prices, so it's not unusual for a tank of gas to cost anywhere from $50 to $100 dollars. If you only get 20 to maybe 30 mpg and do not have the money for many repairs, limiting your use of personal transportation to extreme necessities is one way to save money, but it will often result in less trips to the grocery store, doctors, and possibly missed days at school.

Similarly, the cost of even GETTING a drivers licence can often be out of reach for many people living in poverty. Unless they have access to a reliable vehicle and a person who can teach them to drive, a person looking to learn how to drive will have to rely on driving school services (if available in their area) and these can be highly cost prohibitive. Likewise, access to transport to & from the DMV, and access to a car on testing day are all factors that determine if a person can get their licence.

Disability is another factor that plays into transportation as well. A disproportionate amount of people living in poverty are also people living with disabilities. Physical disabilities can make driving difficult or prohibitive, either physically or in the expense of buying a vehicle that is modified for a persons needs. Public Transit and physical disabilities are often at odds, even when buses include an area specifically designed for such accommodations, and it's an unfortunate truth that we still live in a country that doesn't always enforce the ADA or train their employees to follow it. Budget cuts to public transportation, too, can be annoying to those looking to save a bit of money by skipping the car for the day, but devastating and isolating to those living in poverty or with disabilities.

AREA

Where you are affects your access as much as how you get there. This is extremely obvious in Urban vs Suburban vs Rural comparisons, but in a less obvious way to many, what area you live in within your community can deeply affect your access to certain things. Focusing on food, not only does area affect if and where your grocery stores might be, but the PRICES in those grocery stores for various items. I recently lived in an area that, aside from the small enclave of poverty-line apartments on a back street where my place was located, the majority of the neighboring houses belonged to middle or upper-middle class families. This meant that despite my income level I had relatively easy access to grocery stores with healthy food. The rest of my family still lived in a poor area but had access to the same store brand as I did. However, the PRICES between the two stores was vastly different! I could get a head of romaine lettuce for about $1. At the store in my family's neighborhood, that same lettuce was $1.79. A bag of lays potato chips at my store was about $4 dollars. At my family's store it was about $3.25. THIS IS NOT UNUSUAL. There's a reason why people "shop around". That's an excellent way of saving money...if you have access to enough transportation. The price of a banana in a well developed neighborhood will not be the same as the price (or quality) or a banana in the middle of a food desert. Anyone who suggests otherwise is woefully mistaken.

Of course, if you live in a rural area where hunting and farming are an option, this might not be as big of a problem, but then other factors will come into play more than they might if you were in an urban setting. Likewise, urban gardening requires some space. Many urban apartments have minuscule or NO patio or outside area of any kind, or restrict residents use of these areas and forbid things like starting a container garden, or these areas might not have enough sun to sustain a garden in the first place. While gardening is a great way to offset problems with access to grocery stores, it requires space and other resources that are often not present in poverty-level/section 8 style housing in urban and some suburban areas.

Similarly AREA can contribute greatly to activity level based on how safe an individual feels there, and what spaces are available to them. Urban areas have fewer parks and safe spaces for communities to use for physical activity. Possibility for violence against their person may influence an individual to stay at home, or the aesthetic feel of an area may discourage people from engaging outside. Being sedentary plays a key role in health, so having access to safe, effective activity spaces is key. The distribution of these spaces, however, is disproportionate. Cities and towns often neglect to place or properly maintain public spaces in poverty-stricken areas, while wealthier areas usually have more and better maintained spaces. Next time you call someone lazy for not being poor and not walking/whatever in their area, please drive to the poorest area in your city and take a walk. Were the roads and sidewalks well maintained? Were there adequate street lights? Was the street clear of debris and well paved? Were there plenty of open green areas to be in, or trees to shade you from the sun? Was it possible for you to avoid traffic and resulting fumes? Was it relatively hospitable to your activity? Would you want to use that space for activity again, maybe on a daily basis? The answer might be yes. It can depend on where you are, and some cities work to help maintain spaces for activity even in the most impoverished areas. For many people, however, this isn't the case.


EDUCATION

"The poor are uneducated", "the poor just don't know any better", "the poor just don't care about education", "the poor don't want to learn", "the poor--" STOP. Seriously stfu and sit down because it's time to talk about education and access.

Education is a HIGHLY POLITICAL AND MONETARILY CHARGED SYSTEM that punishes those who live in poverty by decreasing their ability to gain access to better and higher levels of education by sucking what little money there might be in "poor" schools away and then blaming it on poor performance on test scores. Who do those punishment-cuts hit most? Children. It's cut from their ability to access one-on-one time with teachers, it's cut from their educational material, and it's cut from their nutritional programs. Children living in poverty often depend on school food to provide them with 1 to two meals every weekday. Next time you want to see the "quality" of mist school lunches for children living in poverty, please find your way to the "worst" school in your area and ask to buy a school lunch. Then please choke that **** down with the carton of warm chocolate milk they give you (or if you're really being persnickty, try the plain milk lol) and come back to talk with me about school lunches and nutritional education. Like grocery stores, school lunches and nutritional education for children varies depending on where you live. And if you don't believe that schools divide their district lines to keep people in poverty out of "rich" schools then please compare a k-12 district chart to one of the same area outlining neighborhoods by income, and tell me why a district line can exclude children living on one side of a street (usually the one with apartments).

There is so much related between poverty, education and nutrition that I don't even have time for it here. Try googling terms like "school to prison pipeline" or the statistics of students living in poverty that attend or complete a college degree. Believe me, people living in poverty want to be (or are) educated, but our educational system in impoverished communities is often designed to be a barrier, not a stepping stone.

HEALTH CARE

I feel like this one should be obvious. Better access to health care means more preventative steps are taken to keep people from getting to a medical crises state. People living in poverty have limited access to general health care, and often NO access to things like dental, vision, sexual/reproductive care, and mental health care. Dental problems can lead to altered eating habits if you're living with tooth pain or missing/no teeth (because the only thing currently covered for 18+ adults by most public health insurances is tooth extraction). Statistics have proven that access to sexual health care, sexual education, and birth control methods leads to an overall lower rate of STIs and unwanted pregnancies, but access to these resources is often limited or unavailable for people living in poverty (and don't make me lol with abstinence only talk, seriously). Access can be restricted by other factors such as religious, cultural, or familial disagreements with birth control or sexual education, but just as important in restrictions is budget cuts to essential services like Planned Parenthood, eliminating coverage for these services in public low-income health plans, and political policies that restrict or block these services in an area.

Also, another obvious affect of a lack of health care and poverty: the effects of injuries, hospitalizations, and undiagnosed or untreated medical conditions that can restrict proper activity levels! Who knew that access to a doctor could mean so much! Gee!

JOBS, WAGES and TIME

Recent statistics show that there is only 1 job for every 3 unemployed people in America (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/09/unemployed-job-opening_n_3568646.html). This is obviously not evenly distributed though. Areas with a higher poverty rate also tend to be areas with higher unemployment rates (duh). Once again, access is key: if you can't get to a job, how can you do it? While many people living in poverty are also employed, that doesn't guarantee that they are receiving a LIVING WAGE. Likewise, a job can often mean sacrificing TIME for MONEY. If you have the money to eat relatively well but are working two jobs, then the likelyhood or resorting to fast food to feed yourself or children after a long day, or overeating in an effort to combat exhaustion, increases. Many families living in poverty juggle not only one or even two jobs, but attempts at gaining a higher education as well! TIME, especially LEISURE TIME, is a key factor in eating a healthful diet as well, and often those living in poverty have very little of it. LEISURE TIME is another factor that plays a key role in health, and the toll of America's No Vacation Nation attitude can be felt on our health system, especially by those who literally can NOT take a vacation if they want to survive.

Also a key factor under wages and time: CHILD CARE! If you have a child who isn;t in school (either too young or on vacation) then finding affordable child care is really hard. Many families must sacrifice wages for parenting time, or wages for child care. Either way they lose wages and time, which affects what they can afford to buy for food and how much time they might have to make that food.

RESOURCES

Buying a slow cooker to save on time is a great idea if you're living in poverty and want to eat in a more healthful manner. If you do not have access to water or electricity, this is not a practical option. About 2 million Americans still live without running water or insufficient running water (http://www.rcap.org/stillwithoutbasics). These statistics are mostly for rural communities, but people living in poverty in urban or suburban areas can suffer from short-term or long-term lack of water, electricity, and other necessary utilities for basic American living. If you're lucky your neighbor might let you run an extension cord from his balcony through your window to power some lights or a minifridge. If your not, than many aspects of life, including food choice and food prep are deeply affected. Uncooked canned food tastes disgusting, for the record. Fast food is often the best choice for a hot meal when you live without utilities, but it's also incredibly unhealthy and calorically dense.

DEMOGRAPHICS

If you don't think that race, gender, and sexuality play a massive part in WHO we see the most living in poverty, then here's a couple statistics for you: http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/ | http://www.nclej.org/poverty-in-the-us.php | http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/headlines/beyond-stereotypes-poverty-in-the-lgbt-community/ | http://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/factsheet-disability.aspx | http://www.fccmh.org/resources/docs/MentalIllnessandPovery.pdf


CONCLUSION

A myriad more factors play key roles in the socioeconomic status of an individual, and paired with these factors, that status can deeply affect a persons access to healthy foods and their ability to engage in meaningful, sustainable activity levels. This can result in an increase in obesity. Not all people living in poverty are fat, but people who live in poverty are certainly at risk for the factors that can play in to ill health, and that might result in weight gain.

But lol lazy fat stupid right? :grumble:

ldrosophila

over fed but under nourished yep

iamhealingmyself

You can make your own food for a fraction of the cost of prepackaged. You will have healthier choices. Homemade bread, vs store bought bread with so many chemicals added you can compare bread to a yoga matt! Bag of potatoes $3.00, (at least 3 meals from the bag), vs the frozen packaged potatoes, 1 meal equal $3.00. The list can go on.
So to say to be poor means you have less quality of food is hog wash. If you are on a budget, you can still have quality food, you might have to learn how to cook, make it from scratch, and stop buying the prepackaged crap!

Yep, exactly the same here - people simply don't go to the effort.

I agree on this 100%. My own family, some with and some without incomes all cry the same thing when I talk about eating better (I'm eating Paleo now since January 2nd or as close to it as I can re:all grass fed meat, but I'm working up to it-which btw I'm doing 100% on $400 foodstamps and feeding 3 people. Only reason I'm getting them at all is because I've been out of work since last July with 2 herniated discs, 1 collapsed disc and degenerative disc disease and bulges in all my other vertibrate (no, I don't collect disability either) and I'm far from uneducated and lazy) it's too expensive, it's too time consuming, it's to _______ (fill in the blank with excuses). Makes me furious to hear people say "oh I could never give up _____ (fill in again with favorite processed garbage commodity fad of the week). I get it. I was a carbohaulic. I could eat a loaf of bread all by myself. I had my mother's sweet tooth and would binge on sweets (and I was a closet sweets eater and used sweets to inflict self destruction/emotional damage on myself). On and on excuse after excuse etc. etc. etc. I've been there. Know what? I finally decided that I was worth any effort I put forth to make better choices. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired and watching my body decay out from underneath me. I'm tired of looking 60 at 45. I'm tired of feeling like I've been hit by a semi truck day after day. As I said previously I've raised 3 kids alone on and off food stamps for the last 22 years. I made all those "poor people food choices" because 1. I didn't know any better (and I wasn't ready to know any better) and 2. I thought it was the right thing to do. I used to think more boxes, bags, pkgs in the house the more food we had and the better we would be. We used to by the cheap packaged meals (hamburger helper, rice a roni, noodles etc) but when they got to be over a $1.50 a pkg I decided to make my own. That's how I was raised. We never had packaged stuff, my mom made everything from scratch (except pastas) because in the 70's, guess what, it was way harder than now to make ends meet and she NEVER collected foodstamps - EVER!

My point is, everyone is at their own stage. The best thing those who've made the change can do is to mentor someone and help them get to that point where they can do it too. We need to hold cooking lessons - even if it's 5 girls from the neighborhood. Start SOMEWHERE!! We can complain all we want about the government, about people being lazy, about whatever but it's 500% more productive to help them get out of those situations, change their mind, give them confidence that they can do something good for themselves and their families. Start small. Teach them to make hamburger helper without a box. Once they get cooking skills, teach them to make healthier choices from there, teach them how to use coupons and shop sales cycles to save more and stock up (may many places online for this) buy more produce, less snacks. Teach them about nutrition (and not the mass-agra food pyramid either) real nutrition and how it can make them feel better and keep from getting all these diseases we see rampant today. Explain how making small changes can reverse diseases in progress (my grandmother cured her bone cancer (in the 80's) by changing her diet. Once they get momentum then teach them about 100% grass fed pasture raised, freedom loving meats and dairy. Instead of donating to a local charity, adopt a family and educate them, join a csa with them, cow share with them etc.

We can either be part of the problem or we can be the solution. Face it, the government does not care about "the poor" or "the hungry" etc. They need people to be divided, weak and unable to oppose them. Mindless sheep who do as they are told. Don't point your fingers at someone else unless you're willing to offer that hand to help them out of their life crisis and make a difference in their lives (and yours!)

I'M WORTH IT AND WILL MAKE ANY SACRIFICE TO GET BETTER! but, not everyone is at that point. My line in the sand may be far ahead or far behind everyone else. Doesn't matter how, why or when we get there. The point is to stop making excuses and decide to make a change. 1 small change can make a world of difference.

stutba

A persons level of access determines what steps need to be taken to alleviate the effects of poverty on their life. If a person has ZERO ACCESS to, say, birth control, then that will play a large part in their ability to regulate how many children they might have if they are sexually active and therefore how much money is spent on expenses related to children.

Now that you understand the important of access, lets take a look at some of specific factors that access plays into and how they might affect a person living in poverty.

Some of your statements are utter nonsense. Lets talk birth control for one... The cheapest form of birth control is abstinence. If you cant afford children, don't have them!!! If you cant refrain from sex, there are other forms of birth control that cost little to nothing. Condoms are relatively inexpensive and in many cases, you can obtain them for free. Same goes for birth control pills. They are in many cases available for little to nothing for certain programs.

If you have children, they are the mother and fathers responsibility. They are not my responsibility or any individuals who did not contribute the egg or sperm.

This has nothing to do with the post and neither did your prior comments.

paperpudding

Why wolf, I won't quote your long post - but thank you for a very detailed and objective analysis of some of the issues re poverty and food intake.

Some of the posters' judgemental smug attitudes are really terrible.

beautifulwarrior18

I don't honestly believe that eating healthy is more expensive (omitting organic). Yes, a pizza is only 4 dollars and costs the same amount as a canister of greek yogurt, which in itself is not a meal, but most people who buy the cheap junk food don't pay attention to serving sizes. That $4 canister of greek yogurt will provide you with 10 servings and one serving of greek yogurt will make you feel fuller than one measly slice of pizza. Looking at protein sources, chicken and peanut butter are super cheap but that prime cut steak you shouldn't be guzzling is going to cost you a lot more.

I think poverty and obesity has a lot more to do with lack of access to fitness facilities and lack of education. Yes, you can get fit at home, but it's a lot more motivating if you can afford classes or see a personal trainer. Saying that eating healthy is expensive is an excuse, especially when you eat frozen pizza every night of the week and gobble up a half or an entire pizza.

And keep in mind in other countries, affluence is positively related with obesity.

pinkraynedropjacki

I'm poor.....and yet far from fat. People who complain it costs more to eat better are just lazy. It costs less to eat better cause you have to buy less in order to be satisfied with what you eat & be full. Lazy fat people just eat more & more & claim it costs less PER MEAL.... because they are not getting their hunger satisfied with that crap.


I don't buy into this bullpoop at all. It's just another excuse for fatties to stay fat.

pinkraynedropjacki

No. I have saved up now almost 6 grand since eating healthier. I ate junk food for the first 20lbs lost... I just counted calories. People are fat because they aren't educated, we make poor choices, eat too many calories and don't work them off. You don't need to eat organic expensive food to lose weight. I don't. That's a total load and a sad excuse.

It's almost as sad as people who think you need a gym member ship to get fit and use that as an excuse to why they're not..

Get off your lazy bums, learn to cook from scratch on a budget, no more excuses.



And no this isn't a rare growers market full of expensive "Organic" foods. I don't live in the country side, I live in the city, the most secluded capt city in the world... and i don't drive, so I cycle to get here. I use to make excuses like it costs too much, but not anymore, not after i actually compared what i was paying.

Wow you get ripped off at coles. I can get a 1kg bag of carrots there for 0.99. I know I sure as hell dont get those prices at the markets here in Melbourne. Not for any of those. Even a whole icebreg lettuce at coles is $1, yet the market will cost me $2.50

PunkyRachel

My husband and I am poor, like less than $15K a year poor. We get by on $300 a month for groceries average. its all in how you pinch those penny's. I watch sells, clip coupons, and buy my bread at the local outlet store for dirt cheap. I make my own sauces, using tomato paste or cream of ____ soup diluted with water and whatever spices I need. I buy boxes of whole wheat pasta for a dollar, store brand instant brown rice, for about $2-3. I buy frozen skinless boneless chicken breast, rolls of ground turkey whatever brand is cheapest at the time, canned tuna, and store brand turkey bacon. I buy whatever eggs are on sell, and even mix up my own milk. One box of nonfat powder milk last the whole month. I don't buy fresh fruit or veggies. I buy frozen veggies $1 a bag usually. Since I don't really like fruit at all, I will buy all natural flavored applesauce. I also buy 100% fruit/veggie juice to supplement.

Also when my husband lost his job last May (still not working) we did stop paying for our online games and stopped Netflix too. So I do have my priorities straight, and try not to waste money.

pinkraynedropjacki

Pinkraynedrop and misskittyninj, thank you for demonstrating perfect examples of smug posts so soon after I posted.

You can do it so everyone can do it. Nobody has any issues or barriers because you don't.

I love the simplicity in your little bubbles

Who said I don't have barriers? Didn't I say I was poor? I also have injuries.... but hey.... put me down as smug. After all I have just been there & done that right? Against all I had to face I still did it. Issues & all.:yawn:

Natmarie73

First off, only in first world countries are poor people fat. Secondly, people, in general, have a tendency to turn for food in comfort.

Yes I agree. In developing countries, being fat is a sign of wealth, as it used to be a few hundred years ago when only rich people could afford meat and rich food. These days, in Australia at least, cheaper food is very high in fat, sugar and high carb/fat fillers eg sausages, frozen chips, frozen pizzas, cheap supermarket cakes etc etc so people on lower incomes GENERALLY will be more likely to be overweight than those of us who can afford to buy lean beef/fish/chicken, organic vegetables, wholegrains etc etc. The only time in my life I put on weight was when I was a student living on $80 a week and eating fried rice, KFC and sausages because that was all I could afford.

However - there are as always exceptions to every generalisation. For instance in the mining industry here, which is a very high earning industry, there are a lot of overweight people - probably the majority of truck drivers are very overweight. And these guys and gals earn over $250,000 a year so are hardly "poor" and can afford to buy healthy food. So obviously, there are other factors at play as well such as a high level of alcohol consumption, lack of excersise, lack of health awareness, lack of education, can't be bothered attitude, high consumption of calorie dense food and soft drinks etc etc etc .

Overweight people can be found in both lower socio-economic areas as well as in wealthier areas however, in general, I would agree that people on lower incomes are more likely to be overweight and would find it harder to get access to information about healthy food choices and money to purchase healthier food.

paperpudding

Pinkraynedrop and misskittyninj, thank you for demonstrating perfect examples of smug posts so soon after I posted.

You can do it so everyone can do it. Nobody has any issues or barriers because you don't.

I love the simplicity in your little bubbles

Who said I don't have barriers? Didn't I say I was poor? I also have injuries.... but hey.... put me down as smug. After all I have just been there & done that right? Against all I had to face I still did it. Issues & all.:yawn:

Yes you said you were poor.
Your post was also smug.

The two are not mutually exclusive, you know.

And no, your experience does not mean you have been there done that with everyone's else's experience - that's exactly what I mean by smug.
Ie I've been poor as one person in one set of circumstances so I know what everyone else experiences in every circumstance of being poor.

Fiercely_Me

Many times it it also a lack of access. Many poorer neigborhoods have what is called food deserts. Food deserts are defined as urban neighborhoods and rural towns without ready access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food. Instead of supermarkets and grocery stores, farmer's markets, these communities may have no food access without a car or are served only by fast food restaurants and convenience stores that offer few healthy, affordable food options. The lack of access contributes to a poor diet and can lead to higher levels of obesity and other diet-related diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease.

This combined with lack of education about healthy food choices can be a problem.

Thanks for your input! Lack of access and education are two prominent barriers to health according to research.