Are the poor fat?

Enigmatica

Based on my own experience, it's much more expensive to buy high quality nutrient dense foods than high calorie nutrient deficient foods. I could fill my cart up with wheat/corn/soy/dairy based products that can be mass produced and it would cost me less than I spend on a few bags of organic veggies and meats, sprouted seed proteins, and the gluten-free/dairy-free my health requires. Carbs and fats are relatively inexpensive - and people have learned to be happy with them. Clean high quality proteins are usually rather pricey. So I totally understand how people on a tight budget end up buying high carb/unhealthy fat laden products that make them feel like they're getting more for their dollars. Unfortunately there's a lot of evidence that those cheap foods usually lack nutrients and contain chemicals intentionally added to make people want to eat MORE, too. People in this situation may be more fairly considered trapped in a vicious circle, than lazy or undisciplined.

knra_grl

Depends on where you shop and what you buy. If you buy the basics and stay out of the pre-packaged foods groceries can be relatively cheap - you have to watch the prices of things and watch the sale flyers and you can save a lot of money. I usually buy fruit, veg, meats and dairy according to what's on sale - if you shop once or twice a week and buy what's on sale you can usually eat healthy on the cheap - it's the taxable non food and pre-packaged convenience foods that push my grocery bill up. Minute Rice is way more expensive than regular long grain rice and doesn't taste as good either.

Try keeping food and personal hygiene/cleaning products/paper products in different categories and see what your actual food budget is. I try to stock up when personal hygeine items and other taxable items go on sale.

I will admit though I had to do a double take when I went out and bought cheese the other day (I bought 3 different varieties and it was expensive). Good thing I am eating that in moderation now! But I also went yesterday and bought enough salad stuff for approximately 4 meals for 2 people with $8 which I think is pretty damn cheap.

edit because my spelling sucks :P

Mia_RagazzaTosta

Ill weigh in. We live below the national poverty level. I can buy a economy pack (100) honeybuns for the same price as three d'anjou pears. I can buy 25 tacos for the price of one uncooked, unseasoned pork tenderloin.

However- i live in a rural area. We saved and scrounged and went hungry to make an investment. We bought chickens and heirloom seeds. Now, i get 38 eggs a day (at $0.02/per egg) and up to 400lbs of produce a season (ex. Zuchinni ends up being under $0.01). It was a $300 investment and takes about 10 hours out of my day. We plan on hatching eggs to raise meat birds (they'll end up about $0.03/lb) and are going to invest in milk goats or a dairy cow.

$300 wouldnt have bought my family a months worth of healthy food in a store.

Eta- we ended up saving enough for the gun im holding in my pic-a hunting rifle. Another investment to bag meat for the cost of a bullet

Really impressive!

rml_16

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.

I can see this being the case in many places, but there are other places where it's the opposite.

I grew up in a really small town where the richest people pretty much lived across the street from the poorest, or at least within a block. I mean, you're in the "good" part of town and you cross the street and you're in the "bad" part. Anyway, there were a few major grocery stores and they were mostly built close to where there was more poverty and pretty much everything was in walking distance.

gamagem

Let's see ... I can get 4 lbs of boneless/skinless chicken for $8 at the supermarket. For another $4 I can get a container of seasoned breadcrumbs and an 8-pack of whole wheat rolls. For $1.50 each I can have 8 sizeable, high-protein, low-fat chicken sandwiches (roughly 420 calories, 55g of protein, 7g fat, 30g carbs). Now the Spicy Chicken Sandwich at McDonald's apparently costs $1 in most of the country (I had to Google that) and gives me 380 calories, 15g protein, 17g fat, and 41g carbs (along with nearly half a day's worth of sodium). So for an extra 50 cents I can have nearly 4x the protein, less than half the fat, 3/4 of the carbs, and more net calories which all adds up to a meal that is going to leave me satiated for longer and thereby inclined to eat less. Tell me again how eating healthy has to be more expensive ... Bulls**t.

Stop buying into the low fat, reduced sugar, less this, less that marketing gimmicks that actually require you to pay more for less (often smaller portions) and simply make better dietary choices.

I second this! I wait for chicken breasts to go on sale (about once a month) and stock up. I bought a used freezer ($50) to store all of that meat and any containers of homemade spaghetti sauce, and homemade beans in. I buy my quinoa in bulk on amazon and it's much cheaper per oz then buying it in the grocery store, same with zero sodium chicken and beef bouillons. I also shop at a local vegetable market for most of my fruits and vegetables, which costs nearly half less then buying it at the grocery store. My grocery bill really didn't change and since I rarely eat out, I actually spend less to eat healthy then I did to eat unhealthy. So, personally my opinion is that the excuse of being poor keeps you from eating healthy is just that, an excuse.

somefitsomefat

I thought it was lack of education?

Ding ding ding.

SpeSHul_SnoflEHk

I agree with much of what has been said here. There are a lot of poor in industrialized nations who are living way above the truly impoverished. I see many of these poor here in the States doing things such as paying $5-6 for a pcak of cigarettes, or people on the program formerly known as food stamps, and they have bags and bags of fast food in their car.

Play the voyeur, and you can see that they are not eating at a reasonable rate either. I saw a receipt in a "poor" friend's car the other day. Apparently she had 2 McDouble's and a large fry with a shake. I said, "McDonald's is so gross" and she said, yeah, but it's cheap and I can afford it. Did she really need two cheeseburgers and a large fry? Could she have gotten away with one cheeseburger and a small fry with a water? My guess is yes.

I think there is something to the fact that some cheap foods are higher calories, even those bought in the grocery store. Yet, I think with a little prior planning, one can still develop a nutritious calorie appropriate diet on a budget.

I think obesity is more a matter of choices than circumstance neccessarily. We have people who come in our clinic, for obesity classes, and they learn quite a bit, and guess what? Their incomes don't change, and nothing else other than being armed with eduation change either. Yet, they usually will lose weight and keep it off.

parkscs

Cheap food is generally unhealthy and in my experience you see many more obese poor people than obese affluent people. It doesn't mean you definitely will get fat when poor and it doesn't mean you can find ways to eat healthy without a lot of income. But as a general matter, I'd say it's accurate that you see more poor people getting fat.

UsedToBeHusky

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

nccarolb

I can tell you from experience that it is much cheaper to eat junk than to eat healthy foods. I am careful about what I purchase but I eat almost no meat because I can't afford it. And, have you ever noticed that a healthy cereal is twice as much as a sugar laden, tooth rotting cereal? I will also say that I have a son with Celiac disease and is lactose intolerant along with other health issues, so I spend most of my grocery allotment on food for him. That being said, I do manage to eat reasonably healthy by eating lots of beans and lots of veggie based soups. And, it takes a fair amount of effort because I work two jobs to make ends meet which makes it more difficult to prepare home made, healthier foods.

I am lucky enough to have the knowledge to make healthier decisions than some others do. However, if you have never been the parent choosing to buy two packs of 88 cent hot dogs instead of the $10 pack of chicken because you can get the same number of meals out of each item, get off your high horse. And, by the way, for those of you advocating cutting out extras, I do that, too. Some folks are just genuinely less wealthy than others.

broox80

I was poor growing up (like as in dumpster diving poor), and my dad and I were thin, while my mom and sisters were overweight.

Now my family has a very tight budget (one income family, plus working on paying off debt), and we have a grocery budget of $90 a week, for the five of us (this includes non-food items like tp and also stuff to pack school lunches-plus one of my kid's is lactose intolerant so she needs different foods, like almond milk)). We do not get any type of assistance for food (or anything else). We're all thin, healthy and we eat a pretty well balanced diet, (we do eat out several times a week, and that's budgeted separately, but if we added that to our grocery budget it would bump it up to around $130 a week).

Also-I tried the whole container garden thing and it cost a lot of money to set up, and then nothing grew (we got a grand total of three strawberries and one tomato from it ). Definitely cheaper to just go to the store and buy veggies/fruit on sale, or buy frozen.

DAMN!!! I need to take some budgeting advise from you!! I have 4 in my fam (one is a toddler so he doesnt eat much) and our weekly grocery bill is anywhere from 150-250!!! I tend to pile in some unnecessary things from time to time though and we have dogs so that is with dog food added in too!! Great job on the budgeting though for realz!!!

IpuffyheartHeelsinthegym

Nope. I'm a broke b!tch and I'm fit, too. Bam! Education is key.

MantisToboggan_MD

"Why is eating healthy so darn expensive?"

Is it more expensive? The premise needs to be reviewed.

"This is why poor people are usually the fat ones."..... I agree in a lot of ways

I would not agree with any statement that starts with a fallacy of the collective.

niki87lewis

Here (UK) it's true that to buy the ingredients to make a fresh salad for a couple of people (let's say the most basic garden salad, a lettuce, a pepper, a few tomatoes, a cucumber), you can buy around 200 biscuits or 30 chocolate bars. Which suggests something has gone badly wrong.

I know my food bill is pretty high, but that's because I eat a lot of meat and I have personal moral issues about not buying free range. But if you're ok with battery you can generally eat pretty cheap, if you stick to budget own brand stuff vs premium branded (in my local Asda it's 50 pence for a giant box of Smartprice bran flakes, over £3 for the equivalent Kellogg's box, they both taste of much the same amount of flavourless cardboard to me, I'm not poor but I see no reason to pay over the odds for things if I don't need to). Do Tesco still do two whole chickens for £4? Whilst the very thought of how that is viable makes me feel quite sick, it shows the options for cheap food exist.

I do love to but free range and fresh, but sometimes it's just no doable money wise. But u can buy a kilo of frozen chicken breasts for 3.99, bag of potatoes for 2lb and big bags of frozen veg for a £1. Don't see what's expensive about that....

tyrsnbdr

The "truely" poor can not afford to buy food, plus they usually have very physical jobs like farmers and construction. They need high caloritic food to survive.

There is very few "truely" poor people in the US.

Go to a third world country, see real poverty.

Wow, what rubbish!

We are what our experiences teach. I've traveled the world, been to war torn contries. I made friends with some Indian nationals who were estatic to make $25 a week cooking food. They never had a regular meal until they had the job. In Aghanistan, only Afghans that were fat were the super rich. Almost the whole contry lives week to week with out knowing if they will have food. One bad year of crops and they are starving.

Do I feel symthopthy to people who $300 budgeted for food, yes, of course I do. I was there too. Can it be hard to make enough money in the MAjor 1st world countries? Yes. Hard times can be had. Most of the 1st worlds have charity and places to get food. Do I feel symthopthy for the homeless people hanging out on the cornor begging for food? Yes, none of the are fat and some of them are starting to get as skinny as my 3rd worlds friends.

F00LofaT00K

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?

When I was unemployed and depending on food stamps, I discovered that high calorie foods are typically cheaper than lower calorie/lean foods. I was uneducated about caloric needs for my body and I gained some weight eating that way. I was eating the same quantity of food. . .but every bite had more calories. People will argue a LOT saying that it isn't impossible to eat healthy on a tight budget and they're absolutely correct, but people need to understand what their body needs and be educated about weight maintenance/gain/loss in order to eat well. If I was educated while poor, I would have just eaten less of the high calorie foods I was able to afford. Being poor doesn't make somebody fat if they are aware of how to eat.

salembambi

when you are poor sometimes the only comfort and escape you get from the stress of being fxcking poor is the cheap bag of chips you can eat for lunch & dinner

also everyones experience is different just because one poor person has access to healthy food/ has the ability to function well enough to create some kind of budget that allows for healthier food does not mean that is the case for most people



judging the poor on there body size is the last thing they need judging them on what they eat also is the last thing they need

tyrsnbdr

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

This.

SoulOfRusalka

I think there are a lot of cases where it's not a lack of education, or comfort eating, or whatever, it's the fact that organic fruits and vegetables are expensive and fast food is not. I personally lost a bit of weight, being practically broke, but that's because I didn't have a car and had to walk everywhere and eat cereal for dinner.
Basically, you can either buy crappy food, or good food but not enough of it. Not really good options to have.

rml_16

it's the fact that organic fruits and vegetables are expensive

Non-organic fruits and vegetables, local and in season, are cheaper. You don't have to eat all organic (or even partially) to be healthy.

Also, frozen vegetables are not only as nutritious as fresh, but moreso. And a lot cheaper.