4 ms·

Think have some strange causation going on here. Have you ever had to figure out how many calories you could get per dollar -- let me tell you it looks a lot mo

Think have some strange causation going on here. Have you ever had to figure out how many calories you could get per dollar -- let me tell you it looks a lot more like Taco Bell than grass-fed meat and a kale smoothie. Have you ever had to work 2 terrible mind-numbing boring jobs for 60 hours a week and then threw a couple kids or even grandkids into the mix? Not a lot of spare money or time to get a gym membership. There's also social norms, a lack of future orientation (that is a well known effect of living in poverty), etc. Being poor is unhealthy -- blaming its effects on individual's not "being responsible and eating and exercising right" is an individual cop-out for a structural problems.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago
When I was poor buying healthy meat and greens at the mexican grocery store cost me very, very little. I don't believe for one second the "the poor must eat big macs and drink full sugar colas or they will die" nonsense.
- undersuit 11y ago
  When you were poor you apparently had time to make a meal with the meat and greens you bought. But llamataboot mentioned time constraints so you must've missed that.
- VLM 11y ago
  "we" have lived thru a major cultural shift where 30 years ago when I was a starving student, we didn't have loans (or high tuition) and we did starve. All of us, pretty much. Entire generations went to uni unable to afford junk food because a meal at the restaurant was like one weeks groceries, its unaffordable. I ate a lot of salad. Even pizza delivery was kinda an investment to be budgeted and rarely experienced. Economic changes over the last couple decades mean college students today are poorer than ever on the balance sheet with $100K of college loans etc, but have wealthy people level cash flows. So when your tuition alone is $30K, you can squeeze the bank for an extra $6 for a big mac at any time. Or all college students today have new iphones, new macbooks, etc. But this is a very new phenomena and has lead to weird cultural beliefs among the very young (say gen Y and younger), like "all poor people pig out on junk food" because modern college students think they experienced real poverty in school when they used the same macbook for two years instead of upgrading every six months like the rich kids (LOL). There are weird statistic warping exceptions, like homeless people have no where to cook or eat, so they disproportionately eat at McDonalds. Also, for very poor people, an occasional trip to the McDonalds for a value meal is like my occasional trips to the $200/plate steakhouse, so their intake skews junkfood, but its very low. And there are the struggling addict types where the money is getting spent in the next 5 minutes and if its not food in the belly it'll be injected death so they skew toward junk food as a preventative. There is some truth to poor people are often poor because they find ways to waste money, and junk food being a very expensive way to eat, it is in itself a minor status symbol in that culture. My class level would show off the expensive watch my aunt bought me when I graduated, even though my people never wear watches anymore, but they'd show off they bought an entire 2L bottle of corn syrup soda, because, thats what they can afford and their peers can't afford.
  - llamataboot 11y ago
    whew! a lot of anecdata in that analysis. Why don't we just look at the evidence? From one quick google. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/21/AR2008022101091.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02... http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/79/1/6.short http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/79/1/6.short http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/data/Journals/INTEMED/12037/ioi50100.pdf http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/data/Journals/INTEMED/12037/... http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002822307016173 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002822307...

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

When I was poor buying healthy meat and greens at the mexican grocery store cost me very, very little. I don't believe for one second the "the poor must eat big macs and drink full sugar colas or they will die" nonsense.

undersuit 11y ago
When you were poor you apparently had time to make a meal with the meat and greens you bought. But llamataboot mentioned time constraints so you must've missed that.
VLM 11y ago
"we" have lived thru a major cultural shift where 30 years ago when I was a starving student, we didn't have loans (or high tuition) and we did starve. All of us, pretty much. Entire generations went to uni unable to afford junk food because a meal at the restaurant was like one weeks groceries, its unaffordable. I ate a lot of salad. Even pizza delivery was kinda an investment to be budgeted and rarely experienced. Economic changes over the last couple decades mean college students today are poorer than ever on the balance sheet with $100K of college loans etc, but have wealthy people level cash flows. So when your tuition alone is $30K, you can squeeze the bank for an extra $6 for a big mac at any time. Or all college students today have new iphones, new macbooks, etc. But this is a very new phenomena and has lead to weird cultural beliefs among the very young (say gen Y and younger), like "all poor people pig out on junk food" because modern college students think they experienced real poverty in school when they used the same macbook for two years instead of upgrading every six months like the rich kids (LOL). There are weird statistic warping exceptions, like homeless people have no where to cook or eat, so they disproportionately eat at McDonalds. Also, for very poor people, an occasional trip to the McDonalds for a value meal is like my occasional trips to the $200/plate steakhouse, so their intake skews junkfood, but its very low. And there are the struggling addict types where the money is getting spent in the next 5 minutes and if its not food in the belly it'll be injected death so they skew toward junk food as a preventative. There is some truth to poor people are often poor because they find ways to waste money, and junk food being a very expensive way to eat, it is in itself a minor status symbol in that culture. My class level would show off the expensive watch my aunt bought me when I graduated, even though my people never wear watches anymore, but they'd show off they bought an entire 2L bottle of corn syrup soda, because, thats what they can afford and their peers can't afford.
- llamataboot 11y ago
  whew! a lot of anecdata in that analysis. Why don't we just look at the evidence? From one quick google. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/21/AR2008022101091.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02... http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/79/1/6.short http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/79/1/6.short http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/data/Journals/INTEMED/12037/ioi50100.pdf http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/data/Journals/INTEMED/12037/... http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002822307016173 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002822307...