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> but education and public health have not improved significantly, and possibly even declined for the lower middle-class. There’s an upper limit to the proport

> but education and public health have not improved significantly, and possibly even declined for the lower middle-class. There’s an upper limit to the proportion of the population that can do doctoral/professional/executive level work because people’s capacities are limited. If you bump up against that limit further attempts to increase qualifications or learning will fail or the qualifications will be debased. If there is a single first world country where life expectancy has declined from 20 years ago to now I haven’t heard of it. > And while people used to be poor here, nobody was malnourished in the bad old days, but now, with their new industrialized middle-class diets, they are getting "starving fat" like American inner city kids. Starving fat doesn’t exist. If people choose to eat bad food that’s their choice. We can lament it; we can take action to encourage healthier diets but that doesn’t mean “starving fat” isn’t an oxymoron.

dpau 7y ago
> Starving fat doesn’t exist. If people choose to eat bad food that’s their choice. We can't place blame fully on consumers. "Food deserts" are spreading while quality, variety and abundance of fresh food is decreasing. Meanwhile fast food is cheap, heavily marketed, and engineered for its addictiveness. In many areas poor people don't actually have much choice.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  Food deserts are a problem of lack of demand, not lack of supply. Where there are people who want fresh produce people will sell it to them. See any US neighborhood mainly populated by recent immigrants from countries where people cook. > The Geography of Poverty and Nutrition: Food Deserts and Food Choices Across the United States > We study the causes of “nutritional inequality”: why the wealthy tend to eat more healthfully than the poor in the U.S. Using two event study designs exploiting entry of new supermarkets and households’ moves to healthier neighborhoods, we reject that neighborhood environments have economically meaningful effects on healthy eating. Using a structural demand model, we find that exposing low-income households to the same food availability and prices experienced by high-income households would reduce nutritional inequality by only 9%, while the remaining 91% is driven by differences in demand. In turn, these income-related demand differences are partially explained by education, nutrition knowledge, and regional preferences. These findings contrast with discussions of nutritional inequality that emphasize supply-side issues such as food deserts. https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/AllcottDiamondDube_FoodDeserts.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/AllcottDiamondDube_FoodDe...
- dcolkitt 7y ago
  Except this isn't really supported by the evidence. We have examples of fast food being restricted, and it has virtually no impact on obesity or health[1]. We now have tons of data regarding the Federal government's efforts to build full-fledged grocery stores in low-income areas. And the results show virtually no impact on health[2] The second point I want to make is that you have a mis-placed emphasis on "fresh food". Frozen or canned vegetables, fruits and legumes are actually more nutritious than fresh produce. And the cost, variety and quality of canned and frozen produce has been improving steadily for decades. The food desert hypothesis sounds compelling, but simply doesn't jibe with the evidence. Obesity among the lower classes is almost certainly driven by cultural and/or genetic factors, not lack of access to healthy food. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/20/393943031/why-los-angeles-fast-food-ban-did-nothing-to-check-obesity https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/20/393943031/wh... [2] https://www.vox.com/2015/12/22/10644738/food-desert-evidence https://www.vox.com/2015/12/22/10644738/food-desert-evidence
  - dpau 7y ago
    i deserve to be downvoted for lack of evidence. and i have a skewed view of things. i have lived in two separate "food deserts" in the rural US in the past three years, where the nearest food sources are either fast food, "comfort food", or dollar general/family dollar, with the nearest grocery store a 20-30 minute drive. both towns have a local farmers market during growing months, but prices are very expensive compared to local wages. i see your point, but still don't think that all blame can be placed on poor consumers.
  - dTal 7y ago
    >We have examples of fast food being restricted, and it has virtually no impact on obesity or health[1] Your own link does not support your point, and contains a detailed analysis of why that particular experiment failed (it was completely ineffectual at actually restricting fast food). Focusing on physical locations of supermarkets is missing the forest for the trees. As your link points out, the problem is that healthy food costs more. A "food desert" is just as real if you can't afford it, as if the food weren't there. >Obesity among the lower classes is almost certainly driven by cultural and/or genetic factors Ouch. Lower classes genetically inferior? That's a real dangerous road you're on pal.
- IanDrake 7y ago
  >Meanwhile fast food is cheap That's just not true. It's cheap to you. It's actually terribly expensive compared to a bag of rice and potatoes, which you can buy in bulk and cook easily with a hot plate and a pot. This is a problem elites constantly have. They keep projecting their mindset onto everyone else. >In many areas poor people don't actually have much choice. They don't have a Whole Foods a mile away, so they can't get a bag of rice? Everyone is a victim these days. Oh, wait... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CO0COAI https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CO0COAI https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007S9ULGY https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007S9ULGY Free shipping anywhere in the US. If you keep telling people they're a victim soon they'll agree.
  - slumdev 7y ago
    I wouldn't buy food from Amazon until they get a handle on their counterfeit problem. It's gutter-oil-at-scale waiting to happen.
    - IanDrake 7y ago
      >I wouldn't buy food from Amazon Again, YOU wouldn't. You're projecting. The argument is that a poor person (in the US) can't buy unprocessed food because they don't have a grocery store nearby.
      - slumdev 7y ago
        I don't think that argument fails, generally. The availability of rice, beans, and potatoes in bulk quantities on Amazon still does not make them accessible to the poor. The poor are frequently unbanked, and prepaid card schemes with predatory fees are not an improvement. They also are more likely to live in neighborhoods where packages are stolen. Apart from that, if people eat nothing but the foods that can be stored unrefrigerated for long periods, they're going to end up with health problems, even some of the same ones caused by processed foods.
  - chimprich 7y ago
    > It's actually terribly expensive compared to a bag of rice and potatoes What about the time cost? To make food from fresh, you need significantly more time to prepare and cook the ingredients. You also need more frequent shopping trips to ensure fresh food is ready for cooking. If you're working long hours or working shifts, or are living on your own, this becomes significant. Also of course rice and potatoes on their own are not very nutritious. Brown rice is better than white rice, but that takes longer to prepare again. Preparing a meal from fresh also takes more willpower and energy than selecting more immediately available calories. I'm pretty sure that's a lot easier after coming home from an office job rather than a 12-hour factory shift.
- jandrewrogers 7y ago
  The term "food desert" is defined in such a way as to exclude most forms of inexpensive vegetables that poor people actually eat, such as frozen or canned, and many other foods which are approximately just as healthy. These people don't lack access to healthy food, they simply don't have the money to buy expensive boutique fresh foods that only the odd cultural elitist thinks is necessary for healthy eating (and absent any scientific evidence). We've defined "food desert" to mean "nobody buys expensive, unnecessary food", which sounds suspiciously like poor people are demonstrating good judgment. True food deserts are very rare. I've been poor in many parts of the US. All food deserts per the conventional definition, while never lacking in plenty of healthy food options in reality. Asserting that the vegetables that poor people eat are not hipster enough to count as "vegetables" is a bizarre way to demonstrate that one cares about the welfare of poor people.
i_haz_rabies 7y ago
It's not really "their choice." Try eating well when you live 2km away from a grocery store, work 2 jobs and have to consider a bus ticket's impact on your budget. Unless you're very determined, you're going to have fast food.
- whiddershins 7y ago
  Is this comment based on personal experience?
  - i_haz_rabies 7y ago
    Not my own experience, but close 2nd hand.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  If you have access to cooking facilities and a fridge you can absolutely do that. I used to have to watch my budget carefully and I ate a lot of frozen vegetables fried in butter among other cheap and nutritious things like porridge. If a bus ticket will meaningfully move your budget beans and rice are cheap as hell and nutritionally complete, as are potatoes and milk. If you’re not determined that’s a choice.
  - i_haz_rabies 7y ago
    This isn't something the average urban poor family is going to think about or attempt for many, many reasons, and I don't consider that to be their fault. I think we have a fundamental disagreement about responsibility that won't be resolved on an internet forum.
  - DanBC 7y ago
    > If you have access to cooking facilities and a fridge A lot of people have inconsistent access to both of these. They may not have a fridge at all; they may only have a microwave. Or they may have a fridge and a cooker, but not have the money to pay for electricity to run them. Most poor people would benefit not from fridges, but from freezers. These allow you to buy frozen veg and keep it for a few months, and they allow you to batch cook and freeze. > beans and rice are cheap as hell and nutritionally complete, Absolutely not nutritionally complete - you're missing vitamins A & D and some minerals (eg, calcium).
jbotz 7y ago
"starving fat" is not an oxymoron. You can absolutely get fat from excess calories while literally starving from malnutrition, i.e. lack of essential nutrients.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  Starvation != malnourishment. You need a very monotonous diet to get a deficiency disease on any first world country and most developing ones, in part because so many foods, and salt, are fortified. Eating nothing but pizza or nothing but McDonald’s will not leave you in great health unless you’re very active but you’ll get enough minerals and vitamins unless you eat nothing but fries.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

dpau 7y ago

> Starving fat doesn’t exist. If people choose to eat bad food that’s their choice. We can't place blame fully on consumers. "Food deserts" are spreading while quality, variety and abundance of fresh food is decreasing. Meanwhile fast food is cheap, heavily marketed, and engineered for its addictiveness. In many areas poor people don't actually have much choice.

barry-cotter 7y ago
Food deserts are a problem of lack of demand, not lack of supply. Where there are people who want fresh produce people will sell it to them. See any US neighborhood mainly populated by recent immigrants from countries where people cook. > The Geography of Poverty and Nutrition: Food Deserts and Food Choices Across the United States > We study the causes of “nutritional inequality”: why the wealthy tend to eat more healthfully than the poor in the U.S. Using two event study designs exploiting entry of new supermarkets and households’ moves to healthier neighborhoods, we reject that neighborhood environments have economically meaningful effects on healthy eating. Using a structural demand model, we find that exposing low-income households to the same food availability and prices experienced by high-income households would reduce nutritional inequality by only 9%, while the remaining 91% is driven by differences in demand. In turn, these income-related demand differences are partially explained by education, nutrition knowledge, and regional preferences. These findings contrast with discussions of nutritional inequality that emphasize supply-side issues such as food deserts. https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/AllcottDiamondDube_FoodDeserts.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/AllcottDiamondDube_FoodDe...
dcolkitt 7y ago
Except this isn't really supported by the evidence. We have examples of fast food being restricted, and it has virtually no impact on obesity or health[1]. We now have tons of data regarding the Federal government's efforts to build full-fledged grocery stores in low-income areas. And the results show virtually no impact on health[2] The second point I want to make is that you have a mis-placed emphasis on "fresh food". Frozen or canned vegetables, fruits and legumes are actually more nutritious than fresh produce. And the cost, variety and quality of canned and frozen produce has been improving steadily for decades. The food desert hypothesis sounds compelling, but simply doesn't jibe with the evidence. Obesity among the lower classes is almost certainly driven by cultural and/or genetic factors, not lack of access to healthy food. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/20/393943031/why-los-angeles-fast-food-ban-did-nothing-to-check-obesity https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/20/393943031/wh... [2] https://www.vox.com/2015/12/22/10644738/food-desert-evidence https://www.vox.com/2015/12/22/10644738/food-desert-evidence
- dpau 7y ago
  i deserve to be downvoted for lack of evidence. and i have a skewed view of things. i have lived in two separate "food deserts" in the rural US in the past three years, where the nearest food sources are either fast food, "comfort food", or dollar general/family dollar, with the nearest grocery store a 20-30 minute drive. both towns have a local farmers market during growing months, but prices are very expensive compared to local wages. i see your point, but still don't think that all blame can be placed on poor consumers.
- dTal 7y ago
  >We have examples of fast food being restricted, and it has virtually no impact on obesity or health[1] Your own link does not support your point, and contains a detailed analysis of why that particular experiment failed (it was completely ineffectual at actually restricting fast food). Focusing on physical locations of supermarkets is missing the forest for the trees. As your link points out, the problem is that healthy food costs more. A "food desert" is just as real if you can't afford it, as if the food weren't there. >Obesity among the lower classes is almost certainly driven by cultural and/or genetic factors Ouch. Lower classes genetically inferior? That's a real dangerous road you're on pal.
IanDrake 7y ago
>Meanwhile fast food is cheap That's just not true. It's cheap to you. It's actually terribly expensive compared to a bag of rice and potatoes, which you can buy in bulk and cook easily with a hot plate and a pot. This is a problem elites constantly have. They keep projecting their mindset onto everyone else. >In many areas poor people don't actually have much choice. They don't have a Whole Foods a mile away, so they can't get a bag of rice? Everyone is a victim these days. Oh, wait... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CO0COAI https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CO0COAI https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007S9ULGY https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007S9ULGY Free shipping anywhere in the US. If you keep telling people they're a victim soon they'll agree.
- slumdev 7y ago
  I wouldn't buy food from Amazon until they get a handle on their counterfeit problem. It's gutter-oil-at-scale waiting to happen.
  - IanDrake 7y ago
    >I wouldn't buy food from Amazon Again, YOU wouldn't. You're projecting. The argument is that a poor person (in the US) can't buy unprocessed food because they don't have a grocery store nearby.
    - slumdev 7y ago
      I don't think that argument fails, generally. The availability of rice, beans, and potatoes in bulk quantities on Amazon still does not make them accessible to the poor. The poor are frequently unbanked, and prepaid card schemes with predatory fees are not an improvement. They also are more likely to live in neighborhoods where packages are stolen. Apart from that, if people eat nothing but the foods that can be stored unrefrigerated for long periods, they're going to end up with health problems, even some of the same ones caused by processed foods.
- chimprich 7y ago
  > It's actually terribly expensive compared to a bag of rice and potatoes What about the time cost? To make food from fresh, you need significantly more time to prepare and cook the ingredients. You also need more frequent shopping trips to ensure fresh food is ready for cooking. If you're working long hours or working shifts, or are living on your own, this becomes significant. Also of course rice and potatoes on their own are not very nutritious. Brown rice is better than white rice, but that takes longer to prepare again. Preparing a meal from fresh also takes more willpower and energy than selecting more immediately available calories. I'm pretty sure that's a lot easier after coming home from an office job rather than a 12-hour factory shift.
jandrewrogers 7y ago
The term "food desert" is defined in such a way as to exclude most forms of inexpensive vegetables that poor people actually eat, such as frozen or canned, and many other foods which are approximately just as healthy. These people don't lack access to healthy food, they simply don't have the money to buy expensive boutique fresh foods that only the odd cultural elitist thinks is necessary for healthy eating (and absent any scientific evidence). We've defined "food desert" to mean "nobody buys expensive, unnecessary food", which sounds suspiciously like poor people are demonstrating good judgment. True food deserts are very rare. I've been poor in many parts of the US. All food deserts per the conventional definition, while never lacking in plenty of healthy food options in reality. Asserting that the vegetables that poor people eat are not hipster enough to count as "vegetables" is a bizarre way to demonstrate that one cares about the welfare of poor people.

i_haz_rabies 7y ago

It's not really "their choice." Try eating well when you live 2km away from a grocery store, work 2 jobs and have to consider a bus ticket's impact on your budget. Unless you're very determined, you're going to have fast food.

whiddershins 7y ago
Is this comment based on personal experience?
- i_haz_rabies 7y ago
  Not my own experience, but close 2nd hand.
barry-cotter 7y ago
If you have access to cooking facilities and a fridge you can absolutely do that. I used to have to watch my budget carefully and I ate a lot of frozen vegetables fried in butter among other cheap and nutritious things like porridge. If a bus ticket will meaningfully move your budget beans and rice are cheap as hell and nutritionally complete, as are potatoes and milk. If you’re not determined that’s a choice.
- i_haz_rabies 7y ago
  This isn't something the average urban poor family is going to think about or attempt for many, many reasons, and I don't consider that to be their fault. I think we have a fundamental disagreement about responsibility that won't be resolved on an internet forum.
- DanBC 7y ago
  > If you have access to cooking facilities and a fridge A lot of people have inconsistent access to both of these. They may not have a fridge at all; they may only have a microwave. Or they may have a fridge and a cooker, but not have the money to pay for electricity to run them. Most poor people would benefit not from fridges, but from freezers. These allow you to buy frozen veg and keep it for a few months, and they allow you to batch cook and freeze. > beans and rice are cheap as hell and nutritionally complete, Absolutely not nutritionally complete - you're missing vitamins A & D and some minerals (eg, calcium).

jbotz 7y ago

"starving fat" is not an oxymoron. You can absolutely get fat from excess calories while literally starving from malnutrition, i.e. lack of essential nutrients.

barry-cotter 7y ago
Starvation != malnourishment. You need a very monotonous diet to get a deficiency disease on any first world country and most developing ones, in part because so many foods, and salt, are fortified. Eating nothing but pizza or nothing but McDonald’s will not leave you in great health unless you’re very active but you’ll get enough minerals and vitamins unless you eat nothing but fries.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]