3 ms·

Food spending in America. Dining out vs buying groceries

30 points by ottbot 16y ago

hugh3 16y ago
It seems like there could have been much more interesting information extracted from this dataset than they actually got. Instead we're getting gems like the fact that people who make more money wind up spending more money on food, and "the people who are spending the most money on food overall devote more money to dining out". Families with children spend more money on food than single people. The analysis goes on to ask interesting questions but not answer them. "how did people in Austin spend $12,447 on food and drink last year, while people in Miami spent half as much? What are they buying in Austin? And what aren't they eating in Miami?" Perhaps because Miami has a lot of old people and old people spend a lot less on food than young people? The data exists to figure out whether this would be sufficient to account for it, but they don't bother doing the analysis. Oh, and the one graph I really wanted to see was "proportion of food budget spent on going out" vs "income" which I suspect might show some interesting behaviour. But the graph wasn't there.
- tjmaxal 16y ago
  they aren't exactly a very serious site
  - hugh3 16y ago
    I'm not asking them to be serious, I'm just asking them to be interesting.
tjmaxal 16y ago
I would like to see this data overlayed with an obesity map.
- wmblaettler 16y ago
  See: http://www.ers.usda.gov/foodatlas/ http://www.ers.usda.gov/foodatlas/
- hugh3 16y ago
  Hmm, to first order I don't see much correlation. Pulling some statistics off Forbes the five fattest cities in America are: 1. Memphis TN: Obesity rate 34%, food spending $4667 (near bottom) 2. Birmingham AL: Obesity rate 31.3%, food spending $7109 (slightly above average) 3. San Antonio TX: Obesity rate 31.1%, food spending missing from list? (Or did I miss it?) 4. Riverside CA: Obesity rate 30.8%, food spending $5675 (below average) 5. Detroit MI: Obesity rate 30.1%, food spending $2246 (dead last) And rounding out the top ten we have a bunch of poorish Southern cities plus San Diego. I didn't bother to look them all up but San Diego has a surprising-to-me-ly small food spending. OK, so I suppose there's a tendency towards the fattest cities being among the lowest-spending, with Birmingham being a slight outlier. I suspect what we're seeing is just the well-known "poor people are fatter" phenomenon, but complicated by a bunch of factors such as race, age distribution (few old people are fat) and local cuisine (southern and Mexican cuisine are particularly fattening). I'll repeat what I always say though: poor people aren't fat because they're poor, they're fat for the same reason they're poor -- they're not too bright, have poor impulse control, don't plan ahead, and so forth.
  - btmorex 16y ago
    >I'll repeat what I always say though: poor people aren't fat because they're poor, they're fat for the same reason they're poor -- they're not too bright, have poor impulse control, don't plan ahead, and so forth. Evidence? Not saying it's necessarily false, but I can't help but notice that healthy food is much, much more expensive than food that's bad for you. Calorie-wise, eating food packed with high fructose corn syrup is probably one of the cheapest ways to eat. You end up spending way more (I know because I do) buying vegetables, lean meats, dairy, etc.
  - spamizbad 16y ago
    > I'll repeat what I always say though: poor people aren't fat because they're poor, they're fat for the same reason they're poor -- they're not too bright, have poor impulse control, don't plan ahead, and so forth. And if a wealthy person is fat is it because they're big-boned? My theory is, farther up the social ladder, people become more "lifestyle conscious" -- it's hard to give a shit about that stuff when you're poor. The decision to lead a healthier lifestyle is often justified by health benefits, but the internal calculus is based on a desire to fit in and conform to social norms. This matches my own life experience: When I was poor, I didn't give a damn about what I ate or whether I exercised. I got fat. As soon as I started making real money, I started paying more attention to these things, because everyone around me felt they were important and this rubbed off on me, and now I'm back to a healthy weight and not eating junk from a bodega.
jerf 16y ago
"Brian Wansink, the director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, estimates we make 227 decisions about what to eat every day..." That doesn't pass the smell test. The only way I can get that number is to devalue "decision" to the point of uselessness; if I decide to each hamburgers for dinner, well, I decided not to eat lasagna and I decided not to eat spaghetti and I decided not to eat at McDonald's and I decided not to eat at Wendy's. Maybe that's not exactly what they did, but I couldn't find an actual description of the methodology, and j'accuse.

30 points by ottbot 16y ago

hugh3 16y ago

It seems like there could have been much more interesting information extracted from this dataset than they actually got. Instead we're getting gems like the fact that people who make more money wind up spending more money on food, and "the people who are spending the most money on food overall devote more money to dining out". Families with children spend more money on food than single people. The analysis goes on to ask interesting questions but not answer them. "how did people in Austin spend $12,447 on food and drink last year, while people in Miami spent half as much? What are they buying in Austin? And what aren't they eating in Miami?" Perhaps because Miami has a lot of old people and old people spend a lot less on food than young people? The data exists to figure out whether this would be sufficient to account for it, but they don't bother doing the analysis. Oh, and the one graph I really wanted to see was "proportion of food budget spent on going out" vs "income" which I suspect might show some interesting behaviour. But the graph wasn't there.

tjmaxal 16y ago
they aren't exactly a very serious site
- hugh3 16y ago
  I'm not asking them to be serious, I'm just asking them to be interesting.

tjmaxal 16y ago

I would like to see this data overlayed with an obesity map.

wmblaettler 16y ago
See: http://www.ers.usda.gov/foodatlas/ http://www.ers.usda.gov/foodatlas/
hugh3 16y ago
Hmm, to first order I don't see much correlation. Pulling some statistics off Forbes the five fattest cities in America are: 1. Memphis TN: Obesity rate 34%, food spending $4667 (near bottom) 2. Birmingham AL: Obesity rate 31.3%, food spending $7109 (slightly above average) 3. San Antonio TX: Obesity rate 31.1%, food spending missing from list? (Or did I miss it?) 4. Riverside CA: Obesity rate 30.8%, food spending $5675 (below average) 5. Detroit MI: Obesity rate 30.1%, food spending $2246 (dead last) And rounding out the top ten we have a bunch of poorish Southern cities plus San Diego. I didn't bother to look them all up but San Diego has a surprising-to-me-ly small food spending. OK, so I suppose there's a tendency towards the fattest cities being among the lowest-spending, with Birmingham being a slight outlier. I suspect what we're seeing is just the well-known "poor people are fatter" phenomenon, but complicated by a bunch of factors such as race, age distribution (few old people are fat) and local cuisine (southern and Mexican cuisine are particularly fattening). I'll repeat what I always say though: poor people aren't fat because they're poor, they're fat for the same reason they're poor -- they're not too bright, have poor impulse control, don't plan ahead, and so forth.
- btmorex 16y ago
  >I'll repeat what I always say though: poor people aren't fat because they're poor, they're fat for the same reason they're poor -- they're not too bright, have poor impulse control, don't plan ahead, and so forth. Evidence? Not saying it's necessarily false, but I can't help but notice that healthy food is much, much more expensive than food that's bad for you. Calorie-wise, eating food packed with high fructose corn syrup is probably one of the cheapest ways to eat. You end up spending way more (I know because I do) buying vegetables, lean meats, dairy, etc.
- spamizbad 16y ago
  > I'll repeat what I always say though: poor people aren't fat because they're poor, they're fat for the same reason they're poor -- they're not too bright, have poor impulse control, don't plan ahead, and so forth. And if a wealthy person is fat is it because they're big-boned? My theory is, farther up the social ladder, people become more "lifestyle conscious" -- it's hard to give a shit about that stuff when you're poor. The decision to lead a healthier lifestyle is often justified by health benefits, but the internal calculus is based on a desire to fit in and conform to social norms. This matches my own life experience: When I was poor, I didn't give a damn about what I ate or whether I exercised. I got fat. As soon as I started making real money, I started paying more attention to these things, because everyone around me felt they were important and this rubbed off on me, and now I'm back to a healthy weight and not eating junk from a bodega.

jerf 16y ago

"Brian Wansink, the director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, estimates we make 227 decisions about what to eat every day..." That doesn't pass the smell test. The only way I can get that number is to devalue "decision" to the point of uselessness; if I decide to each hamburgers for dinner, well, I decided not to eat lasagna and I decided not to eat spaghetti and I decided not to eat at McDonald's and I decided not to eat at Wendy's. Maybe that's not exactly what they did, but I couldn't find an actual description of the methodology, and j'accuse.