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Decent food. There are two main effects at work: If all you can afford is ramen/bread/fast food, your body makes you overeat to get enough other nutrients (eg.

Decent food. There are two main effects at work: If all you can afford is ramen/bread/fast food, your body makes you overeat to get enough other nutrients (eg. vitamin C, B). The second is that your insulin goes crazy with all those simple carbs and sugars (carbs are cheap, unlike protein, fish and vegetables, and get metabolised to glucose) so you get massive blood sugar swings. The low side of those makes you eat more and get fatter. Lottery tickets are a strawman. Or, to quote a science fiction novel that I can't quite remember: "a tax on hope."

Daniel_Newby 14y ago
Complex carbohydrates are cheap. Fat is cheap. Eating simple carbohydrates is not an economic choice. Vitamins pills and vegetables are reasonably cheap. And anyway if deficiencies caused obesity, the rate would drop off dramatically over some threshold income. Lotteries matter because that's where poor Americans spend about 10% of their income. Taxing the rich to destruction will not fix that.
- anthonyb 14y ago
  They're not as cheap though, are they? Here are a couple of articles on poverty, obesity and cheap calories that you might find interesting: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/14/obesity-diabetes-cheap-food-poverty http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/14/obesity-... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/not-having-enough-food-ca_b_721344.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/not-having-enoug... 10% of a poor person's income turns out to be about $25/week according to this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123448/Poorest-people-U-S-spend-cent-income-lottery--average-lose-half-it.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123448/Poorest-peop.... Hardly earth shattering or likely to lift them out of poverty if they somehow manage to save it.
  - Daniel_Newby 14y ago
    Yes, in fact good food can be extremely cheap. Beans, eggs, and butter are dirt cheap. Canned vegetables are affordable if you buy for nutrition (i.e., not empty food like green beans). Re. lottery spending, they are losing $12 a week! That is $600 a year! That could buy premium multivitamins, an extra several eggs a day, rather a lot of cheese, with money left over for the occassional meal out. The problem of most poor Americans is not resources, it is the deployment of them.
gadders 14y ago
It's just as cheap to eat properly as it is to eat unhealthily. The difference is you need to actually put some effort in, rather than order a large Big Mac Meal.

Daniel_Newby 14y ago

Complex carbohydrates are cheap. Fat is cheap. Eating simple carbohydrates is not an economic choice. Vitamins pills and vegetables are reasonably cheap. And anyway if deficiencies caused obesity, the rate would drop off dramatically over some threshold income. Lotteries matter because that's where poor Americans spend about 10% of their income. Taxing the rich to destruction will not fix that.

anthonyb 14y ago
They're not as cheap though, are they? Here are a couple of articles on poverty, obesity and cheap calories that you might find interesting: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/14/obesity-diabetes-cheap-food-poverty http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/14/obesity-... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/not-having-enough-food-ca_b_721344.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/not-having-enoug... 10% of a poor person's income turns out to be about $25/week according to this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123448/Poorest-people-U-S-spend-cent-income-lottery--average-lose-half-it.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123448/Poorest-peop.... Hardly earth shattering or likely to lift them out of poverty if they somehow manage to save it.
- Daniel_Newby 14y ago
  Yes, in fact good food can be extremely cheap. Beans, eggs, and butter are dirt cheap. Canned vegetables are affordable if you buy for nutrition (i.e., not empty food like green beans). Re. lottery spending, they are losing $12 a week! That is $600 a year! That could buy premium multivitamins, an extra several eggs a day, rather a lot of cheese, with money left over for the occassional meal out. The problem of most poor Americans is not resources, it is the deployment of them.

gadders 14y ago

It's just as cheap to eat properly as it is to eat unhealthily. The difference is you need to actually put some effort in, rather than order a large Big Mac Meal.