Are the poor fat?

_Pseudonymous_ · February 2014

If you are willing to cook your own food from scratch, eating healthy is NOT more expensive than unhealthy.

I can prepare an extremely healthy meal at home for less than $2-3 per person in a family of 4.

However, if you want to buy pre-made foods, whole plates of just cooked food (eating out), etc., then it is a LOT more expensive.

So... people are to blame for their own weight, whether rich or poor. It's a choice.

But poor people can't just buy their way into healthy eating the way rich people CAN, but only sometimes DO.

Your definition of "willing" includes "has the resources, knowledge, and time". Many poor work longer hours, have less access to kitchen equipment, and less knowledge/experience cooking.

Yes, they can CHOOSE to change these things, just like anyone can CHOOSE to become a gourmet french chef, learn to play the french horn, or get a college education. But there's a lot more that goes into making these things a reality than just making a CHOICE.

I work 75 hours a week and am teaching myself to cook. I'm not going to school for a course in french cuisine. I have a teeny tiny kitchen with a barely functioning fridge that was passed down to us by some friends who upgraded their fridge. I'm just looking up recipes and resources on the internet and using them. I never used to cook, no idea how. Just trying to teach myself. Sometimes I fail sometimes I don't. I am not exactly rich (see post where I make under $20,000 a year). I have less knowledge and experience but that doesn't stop me.

So yeah, in my opinion, I would say that that is a choice.

emmullins55 · February 2014

sooo true!

rissyroo2002 · February 2014

Good job!!

jkestens63 · February 2014

I

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.

I can grow ANYTHING.....until i put it in a container. I can murder the healthiest plants in two days in a stupid pot.

There is a foot of snow outside, not growing nothin'.

kennie2 · February 2014

I think its up to the person really,
I spend less money on food than my friends do and I have a healthy high raw diet filled with fruit and veggies in abundance and then back up options of rice potatoes and beans when I'm low on fruit.
And I can do that on about £25 a week easy!

avm1962 · February 2014

I am a Food Producer (top end luxury items) - I always believed that people need to get back into the kitchen, and learn to cook. I was having this rant one day during an interview with a journalist. Later that week, she tweeted me with a challenge. "Put your money where your mouth is Mrs xxxx". It was the "Live below the line" (google it) challenge. I had £5 to live on, for five days. (I raised money for Unicef in the process). I was not allowed to forage (which was my first thought), no fishing, snaring, shooting - and if I ate anything from the garden - I had to count man hours and costs.
I did complete the challenge successfully. TV got involved too - and that was good for raising my fund for charity.
It did however, give me a whole new perspective on people who do indeed "live below the poverty line".
I found I had to buy very cheap, very fatty foods. I bought sausages which were quite frankly disgusting, I used the fat from frying the sausage as stock for risotto. I bought cans of peas for 19p (there was more mush than peas) - I had peaches which were tinned and steeped in syrup - fresh fruit was totally way out of budget.
By the end of the five days my stomach ached - I could smell grease in my skin - I was bloated - I did gain weight - and my whole bodily functions ceased. I could not afford to buy the foods which cater for my allergies - again - resulting in massive stomach pain.
I felt sluggish - didnt sleep well - and no notion of exercise as I felt so weighed down by fat -
everything cheap - was low in nutrition - and high in fat.
It was an eye opener - poverty - real poverty - does not finance good nutrition.

jenifr818 · February 2014

Tagging to read later. It's gonna end so well :noway:

bennettinfinity · February 2014

Food deserts are defined as:
An area where the distance to a supermarket is more than ¼ mile, the median household income is at or below 185% of the Federal Poverty Level, over 40% of households have no vehicle available, and the average Healthy Food Availability Index score for supermarkets, convenience and corner stores is low (measured using the Nutrition Environment Measurement Survey).

I'm not questioning the veracity, but those definitional criteria seem awfully restrictive... essentially the following neighborhood could be defined as a food desert:
- a neighborhood where over half the people have cars (rides with friends or neighbors?)
- a neighborhood where half the people make a MINIMUM of nearly double the poverty rate (those earning less surely qualify for assistance)
- a neighborhood where the nearest supermarket is a mere 1321 feet away (even at a leisurely 2MPH pace a 1/4 mile is only 7.5 minutes; quicker than it takes to find a parking space)

I realize there are individuals that would fall into the extreme ends of all these criteria, but we'd be talking more about exceptions and not the rule. Surely not enough to explain a general trend.

rosebette · February 2014

I can't believe how judgmental folks are toward poor people and poor people who are overweight and obese. I had many of the same assumptions until I became active with a community organizing group that works in urban areas. I also ended up teaching nontraditional students at night who were low income people with families on financial aid (scholarships). The food issue is not just about money and wise choices but about time; these students were often working, going to school to improve their economic status, and raising families. As many posters have said, there are "food deserts" in urban areas where it's hard to get to a grocery store without a car, so fresh food is not available, and there's no question that the processed food industry in both the U.S. and the U.K. have made it cheaper to eat junky processed foods than fresh foods. Also, people who have less education are often more susceptible to the aggressive marketing of these foods. Often these cheap processed foods are also what show up in food pantries and subsidy feeding programs. But another issue I have found with the working poor (and this number is growing in the U.S., as wages haven't adjusted for inflation since the 90s) is that many people with families are working 2 jobs or 40+ hours a week just to survive. One can't make a garden or spend time creating home-cooked meals under those conditions, or if there is a small amount of time, the person at the end of the day is so exhausted, he or she reaches for whatever is cheap and convenient -- yes, sometimes using food for comfort.

By the way, the school I work at provides snacks for the students: granola bars and fruit. When we looked at our budget and thought about what to cut, we found that buying granola bars (a General Mills product) in bulk was much cheaper than buying apples.

I do believe the food industry bears a large responsibility for the poor eating habits of low income people. If you think the food industry is not to blame, look at foreign countries where obesity was not a problem, but that are now having the problem. Often the problem is happening in areas where American style fast food and processed foods are making their way into those areas.

BeachGingerOnTheRocks · February 2014

Food deserts are defined as:
An area where the distance to a supermarket is more than ¼ mile, the median household income is at or below 185% of the Federal Poverty Level, over 40% of households have no vehicle available, and the average Healthy Food Availability Index score for supermarkets, convenience and corner stores is low (measured using the Nutrition Environment Measurement Survey).

http://www.baltimorecity.gov/Government/AgenciesDepartments/Planning/BaltimoreFoodPolicyInitiative/FoodDeserts.aspx

A quarter mile?

Is the City of Baltimore saying that 1/4 mile is too far for someone to carry groceries?

I live 1.7 miles from my grocery store, and when I don't have the car, I put a backpack on and ride my bike. When I lived in an urban environment, I shoved the groceries in the bottom of the stroller and hoofed it. I had to make more trips, but that resulted in me losing weight, not gaining.

I've lived in poverty in urban areas and in rural areas. I much prefer to be poor in a rural area.

The part of the country where I live now grows a good portion of the produce that feeds the region. As a result, we can eat healthy on a shoestring budget. Fast food is far more expensive for us to consume than fresh. We are also lucky to have several chains of discount or "box" type grocers that are bare bones and offer nutritious foods for far cheaper. Nonetheless, we have one of the country's highest rates of obesity. And I think of my own extended family. A get together meal is loaded with fried foods, biscuits, and gravy. It costs pennies to make biscuits and gravy, and they're among the most calorie-dense foods a person can eat. The problem is education and a sense of caring. A good portion of my family simply doesn't care. There's no other way to put it. Life is crappy enough that indulging in fatty food is a pleasure they don't want to give up.

I don't offer nutrition advice to my family. It is information wasted on people who have no interest in it. I wouldn't doubt it is the same for many of the working poor.

Ang108 · February 2014

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?

Thoughts ?

I think this is a very US-American issue, plus the word " poor " would have to move out of the area of cultural perception into the area of being clearly defined.
I work in humanitarian aid ( and have for over 30 years ) and for example here in Mexico the truly poor ( people who earn less than 1000.- dollars a year and not just those who have only one TV and drive a car that is ten years old or older ) are usually thin, because eating at a caloric deficit for almost all their lives does not allow people to gain weight. I have had the same experience in Africa and Asia.

rml_16 · February 2014

Food deserts are defined as:
An area where the distance to a supermarket is more than ¼ mile,

Then I have lived in a food desert my entire life.

bio_fit · February 2014

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

Quoted for the pure AWESOMENESS. This is truly inspirational, self sufficiency has always been a dream of mine :drinker:

kjo9692 · February 2014

Food deserts are defined as:
An area where the distance to a supermarket is more than ¼ mile,

Then I have lived in a food desert my entire life.

Me too! It's the same as the Sahara over here then.

jenilla1 · February 2014

If you take advantage of sales and cook from scratch, it's not that expensive. I have a super tight budget but I still eat healthy foods. I just don't eat any of that hipster food that is marketed as healthy and costs 5 times as much. Beans, rice, oats, in-season or frozen fruits and veg, and meat on sale. I just got chicken on sale for $1.15 a pound.

Not so sure it's the poor who's fat. I look around and it's everybody who's fat. I think it's a struggle for people who don't know much about nutrition and maybe don't have a lot of time to cook. Most of the so-called unhealthy foods are consumed (in my opinion) because they are super convenient and because people have developed a taste for it. It's really not THAT much cheaper. It's just easier and tastes better (I think it tastes like crap, but I know tons of people who just LOVE junk food and fast food.)

bio_fit · February 2014

There is a foot of snow outside, not growing nothin'.

Try perpetual spinach! It laughs in the face of snow.

BrockFnSamson · February 2014

It's completely affordable to eat healthy.

The healthiest diets cost about $1.50 more per day than the least healthy ones.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/12/pinpointing-the-higher-cost-of-a-healthy-diet/

People need to stop with the BS excuses.

Ang108 · February 2014

I can grow ANYTHING.....until i put it in a container. I can murder the healthiest plants in two days in a stupid pot.

I'm not quite that bad, but container gardening is more difficult, at least for me. It's also much more expensive than planting in the ground. The initial setup is very expensive - pots, seeds, dirt. But pots also need fertilized more often because nutrients are depleted more quickly in the contained area.

I have been poor. Not dumpster diving poor, but near poverty level. I was a lot thinner then than I am now that I have money for whatever food I want. I was also younger then, had 2 young children to keep up with, and quite frankly we just could not afford a lot of junk. When one bag of potato chips costs as much as a bag of carrots AND a bag of apples, and you have only that much, only an idiot would buy the chips.

I have a container garden on my roof top with right now around 300 plants/containers. It took me a few years to establish, because I refused to buy pots and now use recycled containers from buckets to coffee cans and 2 or 3 liter soda bottles from the garbage. I also recover my own seeds from my plants, or participate in exchanges where all it costs me is postage. I am just one person, but for about 8-10 month I cover all my vegetable & herb needs for an investment of no more than the equivalent of 50 dollars. It is true that it is more work; especially watering as often as twice a day in this semi-tropical country, but since it's my hobby and the way I combat stress and keep from eating when I don't need to, it is time very well spent.

dorisopen9 · February 2014

Food deserts are defined as:
An area where the distance to a supermarket is more than ¼ mile,

Then I have lived in a food desert my entire life.

Dito.

One thing that surprises me in all the "healthy food is so expensive" answers and in particular the "high end food producer": have you never heard of cupboard staples? Oats, beans, rice, pasta, eggs? Eggs and beans, lots of healthy proteins and dirt cheap. Why a high end food producer has to buy nasty cheap sausages instead of eggs is beyond me.

Then again, maybe if you cook with lobster and caviar everyday you have not yet encountered beans and eggs on the shelves of the local gourmet palace.

firesweetheart · February 2014

Not so sure it's the poor who's fat. I look around and it's everybody who's fat. I think it's a struggle for people who don't know much about nutrition and maybe don't have a lot of time to cook. Most of the so-called unhealthy foods are consumed (in my opinion) because they are super convenient and because people have developed a taste for it. It's really not THAT much cheaper. It's just easier and tastes better (I think it tastes like crap, but I know tons of people who just LOVE junk food and fast food.)

^^
YES! It's a combination of factors and for each person and family it's different. Loving the comments on this topic, some super inspirational while others.....amusing?

Are the poor fat?

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