6 ms·

> Access to healthcare might be an answer. (Probably not the only answer though, but likely other answers will be aligned similarly) I wonder how much of this

> Access to healthcare might be an answer. (Probably not the only answer though, but likely other answers will be aligned similarly) I wonder how much of this is explained by the obesity epidemic. And this isn't something that is solved by better access to healthcare - the best treatment that modern medicine has to offer (diet and exercise) is kind of obvious and accessible to everyone. One can argue that access to healthy and cheap nutrition options matters, but again, this is not something that one would classify as "healthcare".

ako 5y ago
Not sure if healthy food is accessible to everyone: if you're juggling 2 or 3 low-paying jobs you neither have the money nor time to buy and prepare healthy food. In the US fastfood is often cheaper than healthy food.
- supportlocal4h 5y ago
  You're first sentence points out there are multiple budgets at play (time, money) so it's hard to dispute the ambiguous conclusion. I would guess that your conclusion is true by definition everywhere including the US in terms of time budget. I'm skeptical of its truth for any other budget.
- rayiner 5y ago
  This is a feel-good trope that doesn’t remotely reflect the typical situation facing lower income people. Fast food is cultural, not economic. If you go to poor Asian and Latino neighborhoods in urban areas, you’ll see ethnic grocery stores underpinning a food culture that is independent of fast food. My poor Bangladeshi immigrant relatives don’t eat fast food; they buy food from the halal grocer and cook. What’s been destroyed among native born American poor people is that food culture.
  - yardie 5y ago
    Fast food is both cultural and economic. Many immigrant households are very traditional and the woman take on the duty of buying and preparing foods. If you are single American, or single parent, working multiple jobs economically it's more convenient to eat fast food. I have rarely seen immigrant men from non-western countries in any type of grocery store shopping for fresh produce.
    - rayiner 5y ago
      Being single for an extended time in adulthood, or being a single parent, are cultural as well. And I think the jury is out on “fresh produce” being the key differentiator. It’s hard to find real science that backs that theory up.
    - pvg 5y ago
      I have rarely seen immigrant men from non-western countries in any type of grocery store shopping for fresh produce. https://i.redd.it/h4plv5xwq4861.jpg https://i.redd.it/h4plv5xwq4861.jpg
  - tptacek 5y ago
    There's something to this, but one has to ask: were your poor Bangladeshi immigrant relatives redlined out of home ownership? I live on a redline boundary street in Chicago and there is a reason that the grocery stores that serve the Black community across that street are on my side of the line.
    - rayiner 5y ago
      No, during the era of redlining they were living in a third world country, where even an upper middle class family’s apartment looked something like this: https://www.bproperty.com/en/property/details-1890101.html https://www.bproperty.com/en/property/details-1890101.html. The low income NYC and Toronto housing they moved to when they got here wasn’t much of a downgrade. (And of course whatever equity they had wasn’t worth much converted to USD when they came here.)
      - tptacek 5y ago
        Rayiner, there is no "era of redlining". De jure redlining is over, but de facto redlining obviously lives on, as you can immediately discern from a 10 minute walk in the west side of Chicago. The point, of course, is that there's a commercial infrastructure in many ethnic neighborhoods that doesn't exist in the redlined neighborhoods due to decades of overt systematic disinvestment. It's why you'll see Mexican groceries every couple blocks in Belmont-Cragin, but only Food and Liquors in Austin. Economic path dependence is a hell of a drug! I don't know if redlining is the only reason for this gap, or even one of the most important, but it's obviously a part of the story. If you're going to make generalizations about entire cultures this way, I think the onus is on you to engage with the history, even if only to say why you think it's not playing a part here.
        rayiner 5y ago
        The path dependence argument runs in the other direction. Houses in redlined Black neighborhoods might be worth less than in equivalent white neighborhoods. But they’re worth a lot more than houses in Guatemala or Bangladesh. Likewise, inner city American schools may be worse than schools in affluent suburban neighborhoods in America. But the school in my dad’s village literally had no walls.
- TimedToasts 5y ago
  You don't need extra time to eat less. Regardless of how much time someone has, you can only _gain_ time in your day by spending less time eating.

ako 5y ago

Not sure if healthy food is accessible to everyone: if you're juggling 2 or 3 low-paying jobs you neither have the money nor time to buy and prepare healthy food. In the US fastfood is often cheaper than healthy food.

supportlocal4h 5y ago
You're first sentence points out there are multiple budgets at play (time, money) so it's hard to dispute the ambiguous conclusion. I would guess that your conclusion is true by definition everywhere including the US in terms of time budget. I'm skeptical of its truth for any other budget.
rayiner 5y ago
This is a feel-good trope that doesn’t remotely reflect the typical situation facing lower income people. Fast food is cultural, not economic. If you go to poor Asian and Latino neighborhoods in urban areas, you’ll see ethnic grocery stores underpinning a food culture that is independent of fast food. My poor Bangladeshi immigrant relatives don’t eat fast food; they buy food from the halal grocer and cook. What’s been destroyed among native born American poor people is that food culture.
- yardie 5y ago
  Fast food is both cultural and economic. Many immigrant households are very traditional and the woman take on the duty of buying and preparing foods. If you are single American, or single parent, working multiple jobs economically it's more convenient to eat fast food. I have rarely seen immigrant men from non-western countries in any type of grocery store shopping for fresh produce.
  - rayiner 5y ago
    Being single for an extended time in adulthood, or being a single parent, are cultural as well. And I think the jury is out on “fresh produce” being the key differentiator. It’s hard to find real science that backs that theory up.
  - pvg 5y ago
    I have rarely seen immigrant men from non-western countries in any type of grocery store shopping for fresh produce. https://i.redd.it/h4plv5xwq4861.jpg https://i.redd.it/h4plv5xwq4861.jpg
- tptacek 5y ago
  There's something to this, but one has to ask: were your poor Bangladeshi immigrant relatives redlined out of home ownership? I live on a redline boundary street in Chicago and there is a reason that the grocery stores that serve the Black community across that street are on my side of the line.
  - rayiner 5y ago
    No, during the era of redlining they were living in a third world country, where even an upper middle class family’s apartment looked something like this: https://www.bproperty.com/en/property/details-1890101.html https://www.bproperty.com/en/property/details-1890101.html. The low income NYC and Toronto housing they moved to when they got here wasn’t much of a downgrade. (And of course whatever equity they had wasn’t worth much converted to USD when they came here.)
    - tptacek 5y ago
      Rayiner, there is no "era of redlining". De jure redlining is over, but de facto redlining obviously lives on, as you can immediately discern from a 10 minute walk in the west side of Chicago. The point, of course, is that there's a commercial infrastructure in many ethnic neighborhoods that doesn't exist in the redlined neighborhoods due to decades of overt systematic disinvestment. It's why you'll see Mexican groceries every couple blocks in Belmont-Cragin, but only Food and Liquors in Austin. Economic path dependence is a hell of a drug! I don't know if redlining is the only reason for this gap, or even one of the most important, but it's obviously a part of the story. If you're going to make generalizations about entire cultures this way, I think the onus is on you to engage with the history, even if only to say why you think it's not playing a part here.
      - rayiner 5y ago
        The path dependence argument runs in the other direction. Houses in redlined Black neighborhoods might be worth less than in equivalent white neighborhoods. But they’re worth a lot more than houses in Guatemala or Bangladesh. Likewise, inner city American schools may be worse than schools in affluent suburban neighborhoods in America. But the school in my dad’s village literally had no walls.
TimedToasts 5y ago
You don't need extra time to eat less. Regardless of how much time someone has, you can only _gain_ time in your day by spending less time eating.