Are the poor fat?

I don't find it more expensive at all! I'm eating only whole, unprocessed natural foods, nothing from a box, and my grocery bills have not gone up at all. In fact they've probably gone down.

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

Um.... That is not a shotgun or a hunting rifle, nor are the bullets economical. Just sayin', one "hunter" to another.

I make less than $20, 000 a year. Grew up in a trailer where often times we didn't have running water or electricity because of inability to pay bills. I've even been homeless for short periods of time. The only reason I share this with you is that you know that I know what it's like to be in at the lower end of the income spectrum here in the states. Right now I feel pretty well off making that much annually.

The point is, I can still make smart food choices. One thing that me and my family growing up noticed is that eating out costs WAY more than cooking ourselves. When I first started trying to eat healthy I had to pay more becuase I didn't have basics like olive oil or spices and what not. Now I don't have to spend too much. I can get all my produce for the week for about $20 bucks and then buy chicken/beef for an additional $15 bucks. I'd say that's pretty affordable. Now it does take a bit of extra time to actually cook it but it's worth it in the end. I actually ended up saving quite a bit of money just from cooking at home rather than going and grabbing junk at the store and "cheap" fast food.

That's just my own experience. Maybe I am lucky that I live in an area where I have access to produce but I do have to take about a 5 hour round trip bus ride for 20-30 minutes of shopping. Just saying. We can always find excuses for something... or we can just suck it up and do what we have to do. When I make poor choices in food it's because I am making poor choices, not because there are not better options.

(I should also mention that I do all this cooking and everything while also working two full times jobs.)

I love what you said. I think a lot of the problem with the obesity epidemic is convenient food. It takes less time and planning to make hotdogs and boxed mac 'n cheese for dinner than to make something healthier.
There are many times that I don't feel like making dinner, but ordering a pizza or eating fast food when I fail to plan isn't good for my family.
We do regularly order pizza and have a carpet picnic and our kids think that is great, but it is because we plan to do it not because we are too busy to do a healthier option.

All I hear is excuses. I am on a limited budget, and grew up on public assistance and have always eaten healthy (minus the fours years of undergrad when I lived on pizza and beer). It IS possible. With stores like Aldi and Bottom Dollar, you CAN get healthy options for low prices. Prep and planning are key. I can take 10 minutes and do a meal plan for my week and I end up saving money. My brother has lots of kids and does the same thing. Cutting out meat once in a while and using beans or eggs in place as well cuts a budget hugely as well- i.e. pinto or black beans on a salad instead of chicken. Tasty and veg. friendly!

I make less than $20, 000 a year. Grew up in a trailer where often times we didn't have running water or electricity because of inability to pay bills. I've even been homeless for short periods of time. The only reason I share this with you is that you know that I know what it's like to be in at the lower end of the income spectrum here in the states. Right now I feel pretty well off making that much annually.

The point is, I can still make smart food choices. One thing that me and my family growing up noticed is that eating out costs WAY more than cooking ourselves. When I first started trying to eat healthy I had to pay more becuase I didn't have basics like olive oil or spices and what not. Now I don't have to spend too much. I can get all my produce for the week for about $20 bucks and then buy chicken/beef for an additional $15 bucks. I'd say that's pretty affordable. Now it does take a bit of extra time to actually cook it but it's worth it in the end. I actually ended up saving quite a bit of money just from cooking at home rather than going and grabbing junk at the store and "cheap" fast food.

That's just my own experience. Maybe I am lucky that I live in an area where I have access to produce but I do have to take about a 5 hour round trip bus ride for 20-30 minutes of shopping. Just saying. We can always find excuses for something... or we can just suck it up and do what we have to do. When I make poor choices in food it's because I am making poor choices, not because there are not better options.

(I should also mention that I do all this cooking and everything while also working two full times jobs.)

I love what you said. I think a lot of the problem with the obesity epidemic is convenient food. It takes less time and planning to make hotdogs and boxed mac 'n cheese for dinner than to make something healthier.
There are many times that I don't feel like making dinner, but ordering a pizza or eating fast food when I fail to plan isn't good for my family.
We do regularly order pizza and have a carpet picnic and our kids think that is great, but it is because we plan to do it not because we are too busy to do a healthier option.

I'll just add that there have been times in my life - even while fully employed and technically unable to qualify for government assistance programs - the $35 listed as used for making good food choices for the week was in the ballpark of what I had to buy food for the month, not counting transportation or cooking expenses. I was not a gambler nor a drug user, either, so I wasn't 'squandering' my paycheck.. . . just something to consider.

I make less than $20, 000 a year. Grew up in a trailer where often times we didn't have running water or electricity because of inability to pay bills. I've even been homeless for short periods of time. The only reason I share this with you is that you know that I know what it's like to be in at the lower end of the income spectrum here in the states. Right now I feel pretty well off making that much annually.

The point is, I can still make smart food choices. One thing that me and my family growing up noticed is that eating out costs WAY more than cooking ourselves. When I first started trying to eat healthy I had to pay more becuase I didn't have basics like olive oil or spices and what not. Now I don't have to spend too much. I can get all my produce for the week for about $20 bucks and then buy chicken/beef for an additional $15 bucks. I'd say that's pretty affordable. Now it does take a bit of extra time to actually cook it but it's worth it in the end. I actually ended up saving quite a bit of money just from cooking at home rather than going and grabbing junk at the store and "cheap" fast food.

That's just my own experience. Maybe I am lucky that I live in an area where I have access to produce but I do have to take about a 5 hour round trip bus ride for 20-30 minutes of shopping. Just saying. We can always find excuses for something... or we can just suck it up and do what we have to do. When I make poor choices in food it's because I am making poor choices, not because there are not better options.

(I should also mention that I do all this cooking and everything while also working two full times jobs.)

I love what you said. I think a lot of the problem with the obesity epidemic is convenient food. It takes less time and planning to make hotdogs and boxed mac 'n cheese for dinner than to make something healthier.
There are many times that I don't feel like making dinner, but ordering a pizza or eating fast food when I fail to plan isn't good for my family.
We do regularly order pizza and have a carpet picnic and our kids think that is great, but it is because we plan to do it not because we are too busy to do a healthier option.

I'll just add that there have been times in my life - even while fully employed and technically unable to qualify for government assistance programs - the $35 listed as used for making good food choices for the week was in the ballpark of what I had to buy food for the month, not counting transportation or cooking expenses. I was not a gambler nor a drug user, either, so I wasn't 'squandering' my paycheck.. . . just something to consider.

Point taken. One set of my grandparents (and parent) lived in similar monetary circumstances and often went hungry, so I hear you.

The thing is, when you have that little money, you can't buy enough at even a fast food place to make you overweight, let alone obese. And if you started that way, you're going to be losing weight. So, the 'very' poor aren't really part of this discussion because by definition, they can't be overweight/obese.

To be fat, you must be able to buy or barter for enough calories to get you there and keep you there.

Counterpoint: when you have that little money and get anything that resembles a surplus, your body is seriously craving calories more than it is worrying about nutrition. You're at that point, monetarily, and find a dollar on the ground: Do you buy a dollar's worth of bananas, or a dollar's worth of ramen noodles?

I make less than $20, 000 a year. Grew up in a trailer where often times we didn't have running water or electricity because of inability to pay bills. I've even been homeless for short periods of time. The only reason I share this with you is that you know that I know what it's like to be in at the lower end of the income spectrum here in the states. Right now I feel pretty well off making that much annually.

The point is, I can still make smart food choices. One thing that me and my family growing up noticed is that eating out costs WAY more than cooking ourselves. When I first started trying to eat healthy I had to pay more becuase I didn't have basics like olive oil or spices and what not. Now I don't have to spend too much. I can get all my produce for the week for about $20 bucks and then buy chicken/beef for an additional $15 bucks. I'd say that's pretty affordable. Now it does take a bit of extra time to actually cook it but it's worth it in the end. I actually ended up saving quite a bit of money just from cooking at home rather than going and grabbing junk at the store and "cheap" fast food.

That's just my own experience. Maybe I am lucky that I live in an area where I have access to produce but I do have to take about a 5 hour round trip bus ride for 20-30 minutes of shopping. Just saying. We can always find excuses for something... or we can just suck it up and do what we have to do. When I make poor choices in food it's because I am making poor choices, not because there are not better options.

(I should also mention that I do all this cooking and everything while also working two full times jobs.)

I love what you said. I think a lot of the problem with the obesity epidemic is convenient food. It takes less time and planning to make hotdogs and boxed mac 'n cheese for dinner than to make something healthier.
There are many times that I don't feel like making dinner, but ordering a pizza or eating fast food when I fail to plan isn't good for my family.
We do regularly order pizza and have a carpet picnic and our kids think that is great, but it is because we plan to do it not because we are too busy to do a healthier option.

I'll just add that there have been times in my life - even while fully employed and technically unable to qualify for government assistance programs - the $35 listed as used for making good food choices for the week was in the ballpark of what I had to buy food for the month, not counting transportation or cooking expenses. I was not a gambler nor a drug user, either, so I wasn't 'squandering' my paycheck.. . . just something to consider.

Point taken. One set of my grandparents (and parent) lived in similar monetary circumstances and often went hungry, so I hear you.

The thing is, when you have that little money, you can't buy enough at even a fast food place to make you overweight, let alone obese. And if you started that way, you're going to be losing weight. So, the 'very' poor aren't really part of this discussion because by definition, they can't be overweight/obese.

To be fat, you must be able to buy or barter for enough calories to get you there and keep you there.

Counterpoint: when you have that little money and get anything that resembles a surplus, your body is seriously craving calories more than it is worrying about nutrition. You're at that point, monetarily, and find a dollar on the ground: Do you buy a dollar's worth of bananas, or a dollar's worth of ramen noodles?

If you are actually starving you, you take the ramen! But then you wouldn't be fat and this post is about if the poor are fat, not malnourished. Besides, haven't you heard? Americans aren't "hungry," they are "food insecure." I wonder why they changed the term. I'd be interested to know.

I make less than $20, 000 a year. Grew up in a trailer where often times we didn't have running water or electricity because of inability to pay bills. I've even been homeless for short periods of time. The only reason I share this with you is that you know that I know what it's like to be in at the lower end of the income spectrum here in the states. Right now I feel pretty well off making that much annually.

The point is, I can still make smart food choices. One thing that me and my family growing up noticed is that eating out costs WAY more than cooking ourselves. When I first started trying to eat healthy I had to pay more becuase I didn't have basics like olive oil or spices and what not. Now I don't have to spend too much. I can get all my produce for the week for about $20 bucks and then buy chicken/beef for an additional $15 bucks. I'd say that's pretty affordable. Now it does take a bit of extra time to actually cook it but it's worth it in the end. I actually ended up saving quite a bit of money just from cooking at home rather than going and grabbing junk at the store and "cheap" fast food.

That's just my own experience. Maybe I am lucky that I live in an area where I have access to produce but I do have to take about a 5 hour round trip bus ride for 20-30 minutes of shopping. Just saying. We can always find excuses for something... or we can just suck it up and do what we have to do. When I make poor choices in food it's because I am making poor choices, not because there are not better options.

(I should also mention that I do all this cooking and everything while also working two full times jobs.)

I love what you said. I think a lot of the problem with the obesity epidemic is convenient food. It takes less time and planning to make hotdogs and boxed mac 'n cheese for dinner than to make something healthier.
There are many times that I don't feel like making dinner, but ordering a pizza or eating fast food when I fail to plan isn't good for my family.
We do regularly order pizza and have a carpet picnic and our kids think that is great, but it is because we plan to do it not because we are too busy to do a healthier option.

I'll just add that there have been times in my life - even while fully employed and technically unable to qualify for government assistance programs - the $35 listed as used for making good food choices for the week was in the ballpark of what I had to buy food for the month, not counting transportation or cooking expenses. I was not a gambler nor a drug user, either, so I wasn't 'squandering' my paycheck.. . . just something to consider.

Point taken. One set of my grandparents (and parent) lived in similar monetary circumstances and often went hungry, so I hear you.

The thing is, when you have that little money, you can't buy enough at even a fast food place to make you overweight, let alone obese. And if you started that way, you're going to be losing weight. So, the 'very' poor aren't really part of this discussion because by definition, they can't be overweight/obese.

To be fat, you must be able to buy or barter for enough calories to get you there and keep you there.

Counterpoint: when you have that little money and get anything that resembles a surplus, your body is seriously craving calories more than it is worrying about nutrition. You're at that point, monetarily, and find a dollar on the ground: Do you buy a dollar's worth of bananas, or a dollar's worth of ramen noodles?

If you are actually starving you, you take the ramen! But then you wouldn't be fat and this post is about if the poor are fat, not malnourished. Besides, haven't you heard? Americans aren't "hungry," they are "food insecure." I wonder why they changed the term. I'd be interested to know.

Let me connect the dots. A person who experiences the level of money shortage/food shortage I described learns to prioritize calories/dollar (peso, looney, pound, whatever) over almost all other food considerations. This learned behavior becomes almost habitual.

Food shopping is largely habitual, as well; stores have done studies tracking eye movements of shoppers, and most shoppers don't focus their eyes on the shelves until nearing the items they're intending to buy.

Combine these factors, and folks who are used to not knowing how far their next paycheck is going to get them will habitually reach for the highest calorie/dollar items they can reasonably afford. . . even when their financial situation improves. They have to learn new habits to change this cycle.

Americans don't hate poor people, we hate lazy, wasteful people.

Though I personally tend to avoid using the words 'hate' and 'people' in the same sentence, I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment.

I resent being made to feel as if somehow I bear more responsibility for helping someone than they bear themselves.

'Meet me halfway' is my mantra... if someone shows me they're doing their best to change their circumstances, i'll bend over backwards to help them out. If they're not interested in helping themselves, how can they possibly expect me to get worked up over it?

The problem with Big Government programs is they make no attempt to distinguish between these two scenarios and a lot of resources that could actually change lives is wasted on people who have no interest in changing.

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

Bravo to you! I wish I had the land to do all that. Right now I'm planning my gardening areas (mostly pots on the patio but I'm determined to stop buying crap "conventional" nutrient deficient produce). I also compost and vermicompost. I'm hopeful to have more than I need so I can sell it off at local markets and make some money to invest in better planting beds. I'd gladly convert my attached outdoor patio to a chicken coop if it was allowed! We have a field down the road in our neighborhood that would make a wonderful community garden if only they would permit it! Sometimes the community needs to come together and fight for what is right and what is wanted/needed. I've seen people using vacant lots adjacent to their apartment or home to garden on. If the space isn't being used, why not? I'd much rather look at a nice colorful garden than an empty lot collecting trash, etc.

Personally I think more education needs to be part of the foodstamp program. I'm not knocking it, believe me more years than not I was collecting something (if only 30-40 a month) to raise my 3 kids on my own because my full time job at $12.00 an hour still wasn't enough after taxes to pay the basic bills (and I mean basic!) A lot of people think you need to have vast experience, space, money etc. to grow food. Even if it's whatever you love the most and only one plant, get started! Any plant at a farm market that takes EBT (foodstamps) should permit you to buy plants that will produce food with foodstamps. This is a beginning for the program but they need much more support and education to the people collecting so they know how easy and affordable it can be. As soon as I'm more mobile I hope to be able to start providing some of that support locally.

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?

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.

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!

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:

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.