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Being healthy is cheap as can be, but the gap is indeed increasing. One need only spend 10 minutes at their favorite discount grocer checkout line to see why.

Being healthy is cheap as can be, but the gap is indeed increasing. One need only spend 10 minutes at their favorite discount grocer checkout line to see why. I'm not sure what the answer is, but it's very sad. Why are we destroying our bodies? edit: this quote is getting at it, but seems to ignore the real problem. > Research shows that health care accounts for only 10% to 20% of overall health outcomes > when patients living in public housing have problems like pest infestations or lead paint, their team finds them attorneys to hold their landlords to account. > Such approaches, Moore says, can address social determinants on a local level. But they need to be implemented more widely. Do we have many people dying from lead and pests nowadays? To me it seems like we've adopted the uber model for health in the United States. Free market and damn the externalities. Resulting in a nice profit transfer from the working class to Mondelez et al.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
This doesn’t solve the problem of people who die of seizures, diabetes, or other ailments because they can’t afford their medication or insulin. Being lucky is not a healthcare strategy. There is a caravan of Americans who went to Canada to get affordable insulin [1]. From a “first world country”. The answer is universal healthcare. Everything else is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-health-insulin/american-caravan-arrives-in-canadian-birthplace-of-insulin-for-cheaper-medicine-idUSKCN1TU0T4 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-health-insulin/ame...
- ndiscussion 7y ago
  edit: type 2 Diabetes is a preventable condition, please see my parent edit. Even if it wasn't preventable, apparently only 20% of the disparity is due to unequal healthcare. We don't need better health care. We just need people to care about their health. to the people commenting that t1 is not preventable.. yes. I know that. I also know that type 2 is 23x more common in the US so it's really a nitpick imo: http://diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/ http://diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/
  - jedberg 7y ago
    > Diabetes is a preventable condition You should probably look into Type 1 diabetes.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Type 1 Diabetes is not. Please do not state misinformation. You can’t will a pancreas to cooperate.
    - ndiscussion 7y ago
      please see that we have 23x type 2 as type 1 in the US: http://diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/ http://diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        This still doesn’t address the wild inefficiencies in the US healthcare system causing us to spend more per capita than any other first world country with poorer outcomes. People should take care of their health, but that is not going to fix US healthcare (such as private insurance, pharma, and healthcare providers gouging healthcare consumers). Stab at the heart of the beast.
  - krisrm 7y ago
    Type 1 diabetes is not preventable, and it makes it necessary to take insulin. If there were a clear path to eliminate that 20% disparity, why shouldn't that path be pursued?
    - ndiscussion 7y ago
      Perhaps it should be pursued. Actually yes, I think it should. But I think the article is trying to imply that it all has to do with wealth as a cause, not wealth as a substitute identifier for a host of healthy habits. The healthy habits are not expensive, but mostly rich people seem to adopt them.
hanniabu 7y ago
Unhealthy foods are cheaper than healthy foods, partially due to sugar subsidies. This is what happens when corporations run the government. They lobby for things that are beneficial to their bottom line rather than what's better for the well being of the population.
- skybrian 7y ago
  Or maybe sugar would be cheaper without government intervention? The U.S. government also maintains a minimum price for sugar via tariffs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Sugar_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Sugar_Program
  - Retric 7y ago
    Their are several kinds of sugars. White sugar (Sucrose) is more familiar as a granular sweeter, but industry has no problem working with a cheaper liquid.
- anonuser123456 7y ago
  That's right. Corporations are forcing people to stuff themselves with potato chips, Captain crunch and pop.
  - ZeroGravitas 7y ago
    They literally pay people to market these things to children. You actually name check a 44% sugar cereal that has a cartoon character as a mascot! The person who invented the flavor described it as having a quality she called "want-more-ishness".
    - umvi 7y ago
      So you are saying parents are at the mercy of the whims of their children when it comes to buying food?
      - 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
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deleted 7y ago
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JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
It's "cheap" if your labor is valued. I imagine the relationship between health consequences and income could somewhat be related to having multiple jobs, long hours, and being too tired to prioritize health after a long day. That fast food looks quick, convenient and affordable when you're going from one job to another and don't have much time or the additional money to spend on healthier fast casual eating options. I do not disagree that whole fruits and vegetables are, by and large, cheap and ubiquitous. If the health outcomes were tied to "cheap and ubiquitous" produce, we'd be off the charts. Yet, here we are. My point is workers who are barely scraping by are disadvantaged to not have the flexibility that higher-income earners do, to actually have the time/energy to cook a healthy meal. Or pay someone else to do it. They end up opting for meals that don't offer the macronutrient composition they need (e.g., frequently the issue is overconsumption of carbs), and are lacking in micronutrients as well (because there aren't enough fruit/vegetable servings in their diet).
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Most poor people eat out with a fraction of the frequency of richer people. Its finding the time and motivation to burn the calories you consume that's the hard part.
  - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
    And when not eating out, your fastest, most affordable option is processed foods, typically high in carbs and low in micronutrients. It's poor quality food. Regarding weight: it's more practical to limit calorie consumption than "burn" them through exercise. An hour of high-intensity cardio might only burn 200 calories. Eating less calories is easier. To get some volume, generous portions of fibrous vegetable help-- so your stomach doesn't feel empty.
    - opportune 7y ago
      Yeah, for most people who aren't obsessive calorie counters I really think eating more fibrous vegetables is the best way for them to make a healthy lifestyle change that would allow them to lose weight / maintain a healthy weight. I do it every time I go on a diet/cut. You can feel just as full eating 1lb of broccoli with a moderate amount of butter and salt (about 300kcal) as you do eating an entire bag of chips (about 1500 kcal). And making the broccoli is almost as convenient: you can get microwaveable bags that you just zap for x amount of time, empty into a bowl with some butter, add salt, mix and enjoy. Two minutes of actual effort, 10 minutes total time. I think a lot of it has to do with the way we arrange food in stores, profit margins for food producing businesses, availability (you can't usually get frozen broccoli at a gas station), what food gets marketed, etc. Really if you put even a small amount of effort in getting veggies to taste good they taste as good as most junk food and processed food. It may never taste as good as spicy cheese flavored corn chips but is still pretty good
nosianu 7y ago
> Do we have many people dying from lead and pests nowadays? You misunderstand the problem. You "die" from a heavy metal or other accumulating poisons only if you get an acute poisoning with a pretty large amount. But if you get only tiny amounts for decades you don't die. You just suffer form a lot of "minor" ailments, and most of the time nobody even attributes it to lead (or mercury or whatever). That's because the correlation with aging is almost 1 - after all this can go on for decades with imperceptibly tiny increases in issues, completely in line with aging. Your brain will function less well. Your eyes may be dry and other minor sight issues. Key word "minor", you will not have some big clear symptoms, you will have lots of small issues. A few more warts from decade to decade. A bit more psoriasis. A few cramps. You are more easily tired ("it's the stress"). Maybe some slight depression, occasionally, and you don't get anything done. You get more colds than ten years ago and they last longer. Allergies start and grow. Check my history, I posted about it, I had chronic (mercury) poisoning diagnosed, and only through luck and persistence. I have a long list of such symptoms that are all gone now even though I'm ten years older now than when I started (chelation) treatment, and which I myself, just like any doctor, always thought were "normal" issues that everybody has. That includes stuff like a nodule disappearing from my thyroid and the thyroid shrinking to normal size, to the great amazement of the endocrinologist, under chelation treatment within less than a year, after it had been there for over two decades. Needless to say, instead of asking questions and following up on how I achieved the miracle - nothing at all. And it wasn't some random miracle that cannot be explained, clearly this had to do with the chelation treatment, since that exact area became very active exactly after the 4th or 5th such treatment. Nobody cares. Anyway, your post shows one of the problems: If there isn't a big problem visible right away there is none. Heavy metal poisonings with tiny amounts over decades are next to impossible to prove, unless you are "lucky" and for some reason when you are tested you actually have quite a bit moving around in your blood (unusual for such chronic exposure, where most of it is stored in various organs). So nobody knows - wants to know? - how big the problem really is. My own doctor, researcher at a university clinic, is pretty pessimistic though.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

This doesn’t solve the problem of people who die of seizures, diabetes, or other ailments because they can’t afford their medication or insulin. Being lucky is not a healthcare strategy. There is a caravan of Americans who went to Canada to get affordable insulin [1]. From a “first world country”. The answer is universal healthcare. Everything else is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-health-insulin/american-caravan-arrives-in-canadian-birthplace-of-insulin-for-cheaper-medicine-idUSKCN1TU0T4 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-health-insulin/ame...

ndiscussion 7y ago
edit: type 2 Diabetes is a preventable condition, please see my parent edit. Even if it wasn't preventable, apparently only 20% of the disparity is due to unequal healthcare. We don't need better health care. We just need people to care about their health. to the people commenting that t1 is not preventable.. yes. I know that. I also know that type 2 is 23x more common in the US so it's really a nitpick imo: http://diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/ http://diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/
- jedberg 7y ago
  > Diabetes is a preventable condition You should probably look into Type 1 diabetes.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Type 1 Diabetes is not. Please do not state misinformation. You can’t will a pancreas to cooperate.
  - ndiscussion 7y ago
    please see that we have 23x type 2 as type 1 in the US: http://diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/ http://diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      This still doesn’t address the wild inefficiencies in the US healthcare system causing us to spend more per capita than any other first world country with poorer outcomes. People should take care of their health, but that is not going to fix US healthcare (such as private insurance, pharma, and healthcare providers gouging healthcare consumers). Stab at the heart of the beast.
- krisrm 7y ago
  Type 1 diabetes is not preventable, and it makes it necessary to take insulin. If there were a clear path to eliminate that 20% disparity, why shouldn't that path be pursued?
  - ndiscussion 7y ago
    Perhaps it should be pursued. Actually yes, I think it should. But I think the article is trying to imply that it all has to do with wealth as a cause, not wealth as a substitute identifier for a host of healthy habits. The healthy habits are not expensive, but mostly rich people seem to adopt them.

hanniabu 7y ago

Unhealthy foods are cheaper than healthy foods, partially due to sugar subsidies. This is what happens when corporations run the government. They lobby for things that are beneficial to their bottom line rather than what's better for the well being of the population.

skybrian 7y ago
Or maybe sugar would be cheaper without government intervention? The U.S. government also maintains a minimum price for sugar via tariffs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Sugar_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Sugar_Program
- Retric 7y ago
  Their are several kinds of sugars. White sugar (Sucrose) is more familiar as a granular sweeter, but industry has no problem working with a cheaper liquid.
anonuser123456 7y ago
That's right. Corporations are forcing people to stuff themselves with potato chips, Captain crunch and pop.
- ZeroGravitas 7y ago
  They literally pay people to market these things to children. You actually name check a 44% sugar cereal that has a cartoon character as a mascot! The person who invented the flavor described it as having a quality she called "want-more-ishness".
  - umvi 7y ago
    So you are saying parents are at the mercy of the whims of their children when it comes to buying food?
    - 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago

It's "cheap" if your labor is valued. I imagine the relationship between health consequences and income could somewhat be related to having multiple jobs, long hours, and being too tired to prioritize health after a long day. That fast food looks quick, convenient and affordable when you're going from one job to another and don't have much time or the additional money to spend on healthier fast casual eating options. I do not disagree that whole fruits and vegetables are, by and large, cheap and ubiquitous. If the health outcomes were tied to "cheap and ubiquitous" produce, we'd be off the charts. Yet, here we are. My point is workers who are barely scraping by are disadvantaged to not have the flexibility that higher-income earners do, to actually have the time/energy to cook a healthy meal. Or pay someone else to do it. They end up opting for meals that don't offer the macronutrient composition they need (e.g., frequently the issue is overconsumption of carbs), and are lacking in micronutrients as well (because there aren't enough fruit/vegetable servings in their diet).

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Most poor people eat out with a fraction of the frequency of richer people. Its finding the time and motivation to burn the calories you consume that's the hard part.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  And when not eating out, your fastest, most affordable option is processed foods, typically high in carbs and low in micronutrients. It's poor quality food. Regarding weight: it's more practical to limit calorie consumption than "burn" them through exercise. An hour of high-intensity cardio might only burn 200 calories. Eating less calories is easier. To get some volume, generous portions of fibrous vegetable help-- so your stomach doesn't feel empty.
  - opportune 7y ago
    Yeah, for most people who aren't obsessive calorie counters I really think eating more fibrous vegetables is the best way for them to make a healthy lifestyle change that would allow them to lose weight / maintain a healthy weight. I do it every time I go on a diet/cut. You can feel just as full eating 1lb of broccoli with a moderate amount of butter and salt (about 300kcal) as you do eating an entire bag of chips (about 1500 kcal). And making the broccoli is almost as convenient: you can get microwaveable bags that you just zap for x amount of time, empty into a bowl with some butter, add salt, mix and enjoy. Two minutes of actual effort, 10 minutes total time. I think a lot of it has to do with the way we arrange food in stores, profit margins for food producing businesses, availability (you can't usually get frozen broccoli at a gas station), what food gets marketed, etc. Really if you put even a small amount of effort in getting veggies to taste good they taste as good as most junk food and processed food. It may never taste as good as spicy cheese flavored corn chips but is still pretty good

nosianu 7y ago

> Do we have many people dying from lead and pests nowadays? You misunderstand the problem. You "die" from a heavy metal or other accumulating poisons only if you get an acute poisoning with a pretty large amount. But if you get only tiny amounts for decades you don't die. You just suffer form a lot of "minor" ailments, and most of the time nobody even attributes it to lead (or mercury or whatever). That's because the correlation with aging is almost 1 - after all this can go on for decades with imperceptibly tiny increases in issues, completely in line with aging. Your brain will function less well. Your eyes may be dry and other minor sight issues. Key word "minor", you will not have some big clear symptoms, you will have lots of small issues. A few more warts from decade to decade. A bit more psoriasis. A few cramps. You are more easily tired ("it's the stress"). Maybe some slight depression, occasionally, and you don't get anything done. You get more colds than ten years ago and they last longer. Allergies start and grow. Check my history, I posted about it, I had chronic (mercury) poisoning diagnosed, and only through luck and persistence. I have a long list of such symptoms that are all gone now even though I'm ten years older now than when I started (chelation) treatment, and which I myself, just like any doctor, always thought were "normal" issues that everybody has. That includes stuff like a nodule disappearing from my thyroid and the thyroid shrinking to normal size, to the great amazement of the endocrinologist, under chelation treatment within less than a year, after it had been there for over two decades. Needless to say, instead of asking questions and following up on how I achieved the miracle - nothing at all. And it wasn't some random miracle that cannot be explained, clearly this had to do with the chelation treatment, since that exact area became very active exactly after the 4th or 5th such treatment. Nobody cares. Anyway, your post shows one of the problems: If there isn't a big problem visible right away there is none. Heavy metal poisonings with tiny amounts over decades are next to impossible to prove, unless you are "lucky" and for some reason when you are tested you actually have quite a bit moving around in your blood (unusual for such chronic exposure, where most of it is stored in various organs). So nobody knows - wants to know? - how big the problem really is. My own doctor, researcher at a university clinic, is pretty pessimistic though.