# How do women in poverty become obese? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 12, 2017, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123 "2017-07-12T20:14:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/41 "2017-07-13T00:35:19Z")
Or they’re buff from walking/biking everywhere instead of driving/riding, and getting odd jobs in manual labor whenever they can. It’s like bitching about poor people with cellphones. Want them to work? Well, these days having a cellphone and/or computer access is pretty much a requirement for getting work in many places, and those phones may be second or third hand refurbished models, not the latest and greatest. A cell phone is cheaper than a cellphone and a computer together, so a lot of poor folks do all their computer stuff on their phone. It’s how they keep in touch with people, call for help, look up stuff like directions to get someplace. It’s like bitching about what food they put in their carts at the grocery store. People are just so damn nosy and judgmental. ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/42 "2017-07-13T00:37:55Z")
The OP is making several questionable assumptions, such as… 1. In order to become obese, you need to consume significantly more calories than the US Recommended Daily Allowance. 2. Extra calories cost more money, because either A. You have to eat more food to get more calories, or B. High-calorie food costs more money than low-calorie food. 3. People who are poor have the same eating habits now as they did in the past. It seems to me that most of the posts in this thread are challenging assumption #2B, but that’s far from the only logical error made by the OP. Personally, I want to challenge assumption #1. It is possible to become obese just from a modest increase in calories, on the order of 10%. Also, two different people can eat the exact same quantity of the exact same food and one of them may become obese and the other may not. Recent studies are pointing toward causes that are beyond the person’s control, such as gut flora. We tend to have this mental image of metabolism as if calories are units of currency. People say things like “calories in, calories out”, which is a stupendous oversimplification. The truth is much more complicated. When you eat food, some of it is converted into usable energy, some of it is stored as body fat, and some of it passes along undigested. The percentages of each vary quite a bit depending on multiple factors, including genetics, disease, and as I mentioned above, gut flora. And making a conscious decision to cut back on the quantity of food, or the type of food, often backfires because the whole thing is driven by hunger, which is in itself a complex mechanism. Cutting back on food can lead to intense hunger which quickly overwhelms your conscious control and leads to eating more than if you just listened to your hunger in the first place. Also, losing weight tends to activate your body’s starvation response. Add all this up and you can begin to understand why 95% of people who diet to lose weight end up gaining all of the weight back, and then some, within five years. And I haven’t even touched the topics of exercise. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/43 "2017-07-13T01:39:41Z")
I would think one difference between men and women re weight gain would be hormonal. Men have more testosterone (and less estrogen), which makes it easier for them to keep weight off. Of course, this is a very general concept. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/44 "2017-07-13T01:46:17Z")
I don’t know if the OP has noticed, but more and more people are obese all over the place. Obviously, if you look at all the people in poverty, some percentage of them will be impoverished due to poor decision-making skills, including about what foods they choose to cook and eat. You’re not noticing the poor who aren’t obese, and you’re not paying as much attention to all the obese people who aren’t impoverished (who probably have better, newer clothes which fit them better, making their obesity a less glaringly distinctive). ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/45 "2017-07-13T01:47:47Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > I would think one difference between men and women re weight gain would be hormonal. Men have more testosterone (and less estrogen), which makes it easier for them to keep weight off. Of course, this is a very general concept. I think this is probably a fairly small influence, however. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/46 "2017-07-13T01:49:30Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > The OP is making several questionable assumptions, such as… > > 1. In order to become obese, you need to consume significantly more calories than the US Recommended Daily Allowance. > > 2. Extra calories cost more money, because either > A. You have to eat more food to get more calories, or > B. High-calorie food costs more money than low-calorie food. > > 3. People who are poor have the same eating habits now as they did in the past. > It seems to me that most of the posts in this thread are challenging assumption #2B, but that’s far from the only logical error made by the OP. > > Personally, I want to challenge assumption #1. It is possible to become obese just from a modest increase in calories, on the order of 10%. Also, two different people can eat the exact same quantity of the exact same food and one of them may become obese and the other may not. Recent studies are pointing toward causes that are beyond the person’s control, such as gut flora. > > We tend to have this mental image of metabolism as if calories are units of currency. People say things like “calories in, calories out”, which is a stupendous oversimplification. The truth is much more complicated. When you eat food, some of it is converted into usable energy, some of it is stored as body fat, and some of it passes along undigested. The percentages of each vary quite a bit depending on multiple factors, including genetics, disease, and as I mentioned above, gut flora. And making a conscious decision to cut back on the quantity of food, or the type of food, often backfires because the whole thing is driven by hunger, which is in itself a complex mechanism. Cutting back on food can lead to intense hunger which quickly overwhelms your conscious control and leads to eating more than if you just listened to your hunger in the first place. Also, losing weight tends to activate your body’s starvation response. Add all this up and you can begin to understand why 95% of people who diet to lose weight end up gaining all of the weight back, and then some, within five years. > > And I haven’t even touched the topics of exercise. Very good post. I agree with just about everything you’ve said. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/47 "2017-07-13T01:50:16Z")
Obesity doesn’t cost much. People don’t become obese overnight, gaining 100 lbs requires 350,000 calories. If it takes you 10 years, that is 35,000 calories a year. If you are eating a lot of junk food, you can easily afford that for $20/year. While obese, caloric needs go up by not by a bunch. An extra 100 lbs will probably increase your metabolism by 1000 calories a day. Again, an extra $0.50-$1 a day. Its not hard. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/48 "2017-07-13T01:52:23Z")
It’s cheaper to cook at home than it is to eat out, even at McDonald’s. However, many of the same people who are poor are also poorly educated and trained and may not have this awareness. Moreover, access to supermarkets might be difficult for some people depending on where they live, in which case it might be more convenient to go to a local convenience store which has limited availability of healthy foods and excessive quantities of junk, much of which is pricey even by junk food standards. Also, speaking from my own experience as a broke grad student in the past. There were times when my funds were tight and I’d be in between work checks and loan deposits and grabbing meals one at a time for, say, $5 actually seemed like a better deal than going out and shopping for $75-100 for 14 days worth of groceries. The shit food may or may not be cheap, but it sure seems that way, and it saves you labor. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/49 "2017-07-13T01:56:19Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Also, preparing meals from such food takes more time than tossing a frozen pizza into the oven – impoverished people often are working long hours at low-wage job(s), and don’t have time or energy to prepare good meals. Cite was given, this is not generally true. OK, the % of poor adults working more than full time is still many time the % with a Cadillac, to compare to the other side’s one time favorite myth about poor people. 🙂 Poverty in the US has a high correlation with under-participation in the workforce, though full time participation doesn’t immunize people from relative poverty. Like the question of eating habits, it’s not necessarily a simple relationship. But the two are somewhat related. The social decision has been made to provide aid (food, housing, cash) that’s competitive with low skill low wage work depending on personal situation and preference, especially at the margin if considering extra hours of low skilled work. That’s to avoid the perceived greater ill of physical want, which would also be suffered by children. But at the rough de facto compromise arrived at, in a patchwork system with various perverse incentives, plus poor education, work skills and work habits mismatched to employer needs, the result isn’t poor Americans working longer hours as a rule than people farther up the scale, it’s the other way around. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/50 "2017-07-13T02:02:30Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > It’s cheaper to cook at home than it is to eat out, even at McDonald’s. However, many of the same people who are poor are also poorly educated and trained and may not have this awareness. Moreover, access to supermarkets might be difficult for some people depending on where they live, in which case it might be more convenient to go to a local convenience store which has limited availability of healthy foods and excessive quantities of junk, much of which is pricey even by junk food standards. > > Also, speaking from my own experience as a broke grad student in the past. There were times when my funds were tight and I’d be in between work checks and loan deposits and grabbing meals one at a time for, say, $5 actually seemed like a better deal than going out and shopping for $75-100 for 14 days worth of groceries. The shit food may or may not be cheap, but it sure seems that way, and it saves you labor. I think there is also an element of relative lack of creature comfort that influences poor people to make food choices based on short term enjoyment alone. I can see a mindset of, “I don’t have much but dammit I’m gonna eat what tastes good.” Their lives aren’t stable or comfortable enough for such perceived sacrifices to make sense. ETA: I don’t believe for one second that this mindset is limited to poor people alone, I just think it’s more prevalent. ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/51 "2017-07-13T03:39:12Z")
Interesting article on obesity in poverty stricken areas. > **[How the food stamp diet is leaving the Rio Grande Valley both hungry and obese](https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2013/11/09/too-much-of-too-little/?utm_term=.f8750ad02157)** > > This is what the problem looks like: > High poverty -\> food stamps -\> processed foods -\> obesity -\> diabetes -\> high health care costs ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/52 "2017-07-13T04:09:37Z")
> [@Orwell](#): > > I don’t know how old you are, but you really think Home Ec is where people learned to cook, and about nutrition? My wife and I both took Home Ec, and that is NOT where we learned to cook, and neither did our parents. Home Ec in our two schools was a joke. > > We learned to cook from our parents, grandparents and other older family members, and from cooking TV shows. And for the record, my family was quite poor, but my dad grew a garden and we ate at home-cooked meals 99 percent of the time. We ate out about three times a year. You can eat real cooked food for less money than fast food or processed crap. Home Ec? WTF? I’m approaching 40 (37) and I nor anyone I know has taken Home Ec. How long has it been since such classes have been taught _anywhere_? I hear “home ec” and I think of I Love Lucy. lol > [@beowulff](#): > > OK, anecdote alert. > > I was waiting for the light to turn green at a busy intersection, and the ubiquitous panhandlers were working the stopped cars. But, this couple (young guy and girl) caught my attention. Although they were both dressed rather slovenly (as is required by the panhandler’s union), they were both in excellent shape - as a dedicated gym rat, I could tell that they both worked out frequently. I thought to myself “You too are much too buff to be begging - if you have the time and money to go to the gym, you shouldn’t be panhandling.” You never know, though. Freaky genetics don’t discriminate socioeconomically. I know this homeless man in Flint, who has been homeless for decades, who is fucking shredded like a MMA pro. And I swear to god he is homeless and actually mentally disturbed somehow (I’m not sure exactly how). He was given a month’s membership to my former gym (I’m not sure of the specifics there it was just mentioned in casual conversation) and the body he had on display was amazing. And he was fucking homeless. And honestly seemed like a drug addict (although I admit that is speculation). This was like a decade ago and I just saw him walking down the street in Flint yesterday. Until a few years ago, I saw him walking all over the city all the time. He was still as dirty and weatherbeaten as ever. And from what I could see in briefly passing him by, still fucking ripped. If he had the resources and desire, he could definitely be a top tier bodybuilder. But 99.9 of the time, superb physical fitness is probably a sign of a pretty decent, non-homeless standard of life, you’re right. > [@Broomstick](#): > > Or they’re buff from walking/biking everywhere instead of driving/riding, and getting odd jobs in manual labor whenever they can. Unless you are a genetic anomaly like the guy I describe above, you don’t get buff from walking and biking. Especially if you lack the proper nutrition to support your activity. But there are exceptions. ---
**Author:** ![Contemplation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Contemplation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contemplation)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/53 "2017-07-13T04:41:12Z")
In this thread I did point out that homeless people are often very thin, but poor people are not homeless tend to get fat. The obesity - poor correlation is strong among women, but not among men. > **[Poor Women Tend to Be Fatter Than Poor Men](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/poor-women-are-fatter-than-poor-men/380365/)** > > … and fat women tend to be poorer than fat men. Why the obesity-poverty link splits along gender lines. > **[Early poverty linked to obesity in women, not men](http://www.futurity.org/poverty-women-obesity-766192/)** > > Adolescent girls, but not boys, from economically disadvantaged families have a high risk of being overweight or obese as adults, new research shows. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/54 "2017-07-13T04:53:27Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > As this is GQ, I will correct the above - somewhere around 74% of poor households in the US do not have one year-round, full time worker. ([Cite](http://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/commentary/the-myth-the-idle-rich).) Unless “impoverished” doesn’t mean “poor” or “often” doesn’t mean “about a quarter of the time” or “long hours” doesn’t mean full time. > > Regards, > Shodan Those statistics often need to be taken with a big chunk of salt, though; look at how specific the conditions are. They don’t include people working short-term jobs or under the table. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/55 "2017-07-13T05:03:01Z")
[Cracked](http://www.cracked.com/article_22718_5-soul-crushing-realities-being-poor.html) discussed this very thing back in 2015. Check #4 on that list. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/56 "2017-07-13T13:43:57Z")
> [@cwthree](#): > > Many people living in poverty don’t have access to working cooking facilities. Also not correct. The US Census Bureau reported that 99% of poor households in the US had access to a stove and a refrigerator. 81% have a microwave. ([Cite](https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2011/07/22/fox-cites-ownership-of-appliances-to-downplay-h/148574).) Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/57 "2017-07-13T13:50:11Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Those statistics often need to be taken with a big chunk of salt, though; look at how specific the conditions are. They don’t include people working short-term jobs or under the table. They don’t include people working under the table, but working short-term is included in the definition of “full-time, year-round”. > [@needscoffee](#): > > Obviously, if you look at all the people in poverty, some percentage of them will be impoverished due to poor decision-making skills, including about what foods they choose to cook and eat. > > You’re not noticing the poor who aren’t obese, and you’re not paying as much attention to all the obese people who aren’t impoverished… Poor people are more likely to be obese than middle- or upper-class people. So we are definitely noticing the poor who are not obese and the non-poor who are. And we notice that lots more of the poor are obese, as compared to everyone else. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/58 "2017-07-13T13:52:06Z")
Been there, done that. Both the EBT and the free food thing. And I am not fat (5’6", 120 pounds). Several points: Selective perception is a big part. You notice the fat poor people. Cheap food is often loaded with calories. Boredom and frustration. Cheap and free food are easily available, and it’s often not the best, healthiest food. Hunger has no pride. I knew I was poor when I started accepting free food rather than go hungry. And once you are really hungry, you tend to eat more. And may I remain everyone that they could be in the same boat someday. “Change the name and the tale is told about you.” True story: I was in line at the grocery the day the entire EBT system went down. When my card wouldn’t go through, the cashier said in a very nasty voice: Don’t you have another way to pay? I spoke to the manager, telling him that was extremely insensitive, and someday she could be on the other side of the register with her EBT card. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/59 "2017-07-13T13:56:54Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Also not correct. The US Census Bureau reported that 99% of poor households in the US had access to a stove and a refrigerator. 81% have a microwave. ([Cite](https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2011/07/22/fox-cites-ownership-of-appliances-to-downplay-h/148574).) > > Regards, > Shodan Come on, man! How do you expect people to find the time to actually USE these items in between working 2-3 jobs for 120 hours a week? Besides, poor people don’t know how to cook, so even if they had the time, they don’t know how to use the stove and refrigerator to store, prepare, and eat home-cooked meals. And even though a smartphone and/or Internet is a requirement to live in today’s world, apparently, they can’t be used to learn how to cook or other traditional “Home Economics” topics. And even if poor people had the time, and the equipment, and the knowledge to cook healthy meals, they can’t find food to cook at the store, since they all live in food deserts that don’t sell the makings of a home cooked meal. So poor people eat prepared, unhealthy foods with lots of calories because it’s cheap. And because it’s so cheap, they have to eat a LOT of it. Since the amount of food you should take in everyday depends solely on the price of the food, and not the calories contained in the food or the relative healthiness of the food. So, poor people are pretty much screwed. ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123/60 "2017-07-13T14:36:58Z")
Hi Annie Thank you for your insight, I appreciate what you have been through. Can you provide us some thoughts on what you did or do that kept or keeps you from being obese? If cheap food is loaded with calories, what do/did you do different than other people in your situation who are overweight? > [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Been there, done that. Both the EBT and the free food thing. And I am not fat (5’6", 120 pounds). > > Several points: > > Selective perception is a big part. You notice the fat poor people. > Cheap food is often loaded with calories. > Boredom and frustration. Cheap and free food are easily available, and it’s often not the best, healthiest food. > Hunger has no pride. I knew I was poor when I started accepting free food rather than go hungry. And once you are really hungry, you tend to eat more. > > And may I remain everyone that they could be in the same boat someday. “Change the name and the tale is told about you.” > > True story: I was in line at the grocery the day the entire EBT system went down. When my card wouldn’t go through, the cashier said in a very nasty voice: Don’t you have another way to pay? I spoke to the manager, telling him that was extremely insensitive, and someday she could be on the other side of the register with her EBT card. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-women-in-poverty-become-obese/791123.md?page=4)