I historical times, poverty was associated with being thin. obviously, not having enough money to buy food would keep you from becoming fat. But in modern societies, poverty is now associated with being overweight-why is this? Do poor people tend to eat to many “bad” foods? Or is poverty in the USA special-it implies immobility and passivity-which might account for the obesity.
Anyway, you are poor-is is better to be fat or thin?
This GD thread from 2005 went to six pages:
I think a lot of it has to do with unhealthy foods being cheap, while healthy nutritious foods are more expensive. A bag of baby carrots costs $2.50 at my supermarket, but a McDonald’s double cheeseburger is only $1 or so.
Just curious, ralph, what part of the world are you posting from? it would help in answering you if we knew what to assume you know or don’t.
Regarding your question, I suspect from what my wife tells me from her medical practice, that it’s also a question of education and knowledge to a certain extent. Other unhealthy behaviours also correlate with poverty, especially smoking.
Also, supermarkets in the US tend not to locate in poor neighborhoods, and the public transit systems are generally not very good. So if you live in a poor area, and don’t have a car, your food choices are limited to what you can find at fast food chains and convenience stores. I think I remember reading that the city of LosAngeles is trying to pass certain by-laws restricting fast food restaurants in poor areas.
Also, I suspect that there a far more poor people who live on government assistance than manual labour. So
the opportunity to exercise is rather limited. (unless you’ve been to jail)
Yeah, but think of how many lbs of potatoes, rice, beans, etc. that you can buy for a couple of bucks. Also, frozen veggies are on sale quite frequently. There’s no way that these types of food would cost more than eating at McDonald’s all of the time.
I wondered about this about 25 years ago when I met my wife. At the time, neither of has had any money to speak of, and she was buying generic food (in the early 80s in the US, it wasn’t uncommon to find white boxes of food in grocery stores with black lettering: “Mashed potatoes” or something. This was before store brands, and I remember seeing a six-pack of “BEER” in a store. I thought I was on a sitcom set). She bought a lot of junk like macaroni and cheese, because it was cheap. So I stick by her answer then: crap food is cheap, whether you buy it at McDonald’s or with food stamps at the grocery story. And crap food is usually fattening, fried, and loaded with carbs.
You’re not accounting for the lack of places to buy those good foods, though.
Lots of poor neighborhoods lack grocery stores or anywhere to buy food beyond greasy fast food joints and junk-food stocked corner stores. If people are poor, they likely have to take the bus or walk to work, and probably have a very difficult time getting to a regular store if there isn’t one in the immediate area. (**Trupa **mentioned this already, it seems)
Thus, fattening and unhealthy food is better than no food at all, so that’s what they get.
Also, poor people tend to work lots of hours and may not have the time or energy to spend preparing healthy food, and opt for pre-made, processed stuff. If you’re working a 16 hour day and then come home exhausted and want something to eat, you’re going to crack open a can of something or throw something in the microwave and then pass out asleep so you can get up again in a few hours to go to work, not spend an hour preparing a healthy meal.
It’s a multitude of factors.
Other posters have chimed in pretty well.
There are factors working against exercise and in favor of cheap fattening food for many poor people. If you’re in the inner city, you’re probably going to be too afraid to go jogging or else you’ll get mugged. Plus working an 8 hour (or more) work day at a soul draining minimum wage job and having to take care of children on top of that can make exercise simply too exhausting a prospect.
I’m pretty sure that like me ralph is in the Greater Boston Area.
This is also a factor in meal preparation. A sack of beans and a sack of rice are certainly very cheap, but a stack of frozen pizzas on sale or a bag of food from the dollar menu at McDonald’s are not too expensive, either, and are much quicker and easier to prepare.
ETA: Or, what Leah M said.
This is a blog written by two teachers in my area. They attempted to eat for one month on one dollar a day.
They had to spend a lot of time on meal prep, they had to buy in bulk, and they were seriously lacking in fresh fruits & vegetables. I found it an interesting look on food costs and food accessibility.
I have a relative whose family has always been on the poor side. They have access to the grocery store and she has to economize and cook at home. She still cooks mainly fattening gut-busting feel good fat-salt-sugar foods. It’s not lack of education or knowledge, it just makes them feel better to fill their guts with less healthy food. Every meal has to have dessert, too. It seems more like a cultural thing than an education or economic thing, to me. By culture I mean poverty culture. You can’t afford much, but at least you can have a full belly. It’s almost like a self-prescribed anti-depressant.
True, white carbs are cheap. It’s easy to bulk up on them without spending a lot.
I think that there’s a psycholigical effect going on as well. If you’re not terribly sure of your next meal, you might tend to load up. If this happens on a daily basis, welcome to Fat City, population You.
The poorest years of my life were also the fattest, for me. There were a lot of factors, but a big part of it was that I couldn’t afford a gym membership and in most parts of Canada it’s not like you can easily go out for a walk everyday or whatnot.
The other thing was that I was depressed. I had an education but could hardly find a job - finding a minimum-wage cashier job was difficult. I felt like a loser and thought my life was going nowhere. I found the work soul-crushing and at the end of the day I had no energy. Eating was one thing I could afford that made me feel a little bit better, and I didn’t think it mattered that I was getting fat since my life was such a disaster anyways - **levdrakon **is right, it’s a self-medicating thing.
This also holds true for poor kids. There are some neighborhoods in my city where it’s just not safe for kids to play outside. (Think open air drug dealing and gang activity.) The responsible parents and grandparents in these neighborhoods keep their kids indoors rather than letting them run around outside. It’s really sad.
If you are truly poor the odds are good that you may not be able to keep the electricity on and that makes storage of fruits, vegetables, meats, and other foods very difficult. Hell, some of the truly poor live in their cars or in hotel rooms and have no access to refrigerators/freezers/stoves/etc. at all so they really don’t have a way to prepare the bulk food items that should be the staples in their diet.
And beyond that you have to shop within your budget. The jug of laundry detergent that washes 32 loads is $4.99. The jug that washes 128 loads is $15.99. If you are cost concious you buy the bigger, cheaper bottle right? Except that you only have $22 to last you the next 10 days and that has to buy gas and groceries, not just toiletries, so you can’t spend what you have for the week on the budget size item because otherwise you starve for the next 10 days.
As I say, I am puzzled by the role of starches in the diet. In Brazil, the poor survive (largely) on white rice and beans (with a tiny bit of fatty meats), also some greens (typically kale).
Yet, obesity seems rare (compared to the USA)-is the difference the level of physical activity?
I have heard of starched being blamed for obesity-yet there are many regions of the world where the poor subsist almost entirely on starchy food (Africa-manioc, S. America-rice, Peru-potatos), and do not get obese.
One has to wonder how much starch these people are getting. Around these parts, it’s pretty cheap.
I don’t think a boiled potato is that bad. It’s really easy to eat four potatoes that have been turned into deep-fried french fries or potato skins or something, slathered in a fattening sauce.
When I think of the south, I think of both poverty and good ol’ fattening soul food. You can’t tell me steamed chicken & potatoes is more expensive to make than breaded, deep-fried chicken and potatoes, but guess which gets eaten more in the south, and has more of a comfort food appeal?
Well there’s starchy, natural foods and starchy boxed foods.
My roommate is dirt poor right now (don’t ask) and he eats boxed mashed potatoes, boxed macaroni & cheese, generic white bread, Bisquick, butter and eggs. Every so often he gets a pound of high-fat ground meat (the leaner it is, the more expensive it is). He just got some money and bought a head of iceberg lettuce, some cheap frozen entrees, some canned meat-ish stuff, a case of soda and some generic salad dressing.
That’s about the extent of the diet for someone who has about $20/mo to spend on food and has access to a full kitchen.
Refined carbs, fat, salt and sugar. Iceberg lettuce barely counts as anything but a smidge of fiber.
Now, dude has the metabolism of a jackal so he doesn’t gain any weight eating this way but if I ate this way I’d be fat (uhm…I already am but that’s a different story). My metabolism would fight against me for sure.
I’ve never seen him buy fruit or anything greener than iceberg. I figure it’s just not economically feasible to buy 1lb of apples for $2 instead of 3 boxes of 'mac and a pound of butter for $3.
Even when he had $50 to spend at the grocery store, he had to buy a ton of non-perishables because he truly does not know when he will be able to afford groceries again.
Would rice and beans serve him better? Perhaps. But the produce still runs you a good chunk of change and you can’t do too well without it.