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Spoken like a person of privilege - a widespread epidemic clearly must be hordes of poor people too lazy to exercise self-control. Having lived in both incredi

Spoken like a person of privilege - a widespread epidemic clearly must be hordes of poor people too lazy to exercise self-control. Having lived in both incredibly poor neighborhoods and incredibly wealthy ones, I'll say this: It's possible to eat healthily in poor neighborhoods, it takes a lot of work - a lot more work than it does for a wealthy person living in a wealthy place. I've observed this in myself: I gained enormous amounts of weight while living in a poor, working-class neighborhood, and promptly shed it once I moved to a wealthy upper middle-class neighborhood. I've bounced back and forth between poor areas and rich areas since then, and the pattern has so far held up. But, anecdotes not equivalent to data, etc etc. In a upper-middle class neighborhood healthy diets practically come after you with a baseball bat. It's steeped in the general consciousness of the area, support by people who possess the freedom of finance, time, and effort to think about such things, and it's supported by the merchants in the area. The same is not true in poor neighborhoods, where fast is king to a population of overworked and tired people. When you're holding down multiple jobs and raising kids at the same time, the CSA subscription may be cheaper and healthier, but it also requires time you don't have. Merchant offerings in the area reflect this reality, and so even someone with the intent to eat healthily will find that availability of healthy food is substantially lower. We are fortunate in that we have the resources with which to abstract many annoying details away from our lives so we can concentrate on the important things: good bodily health, mental well-being, and the such. Most of the population isn't so lucky.

Tycho 14y ago
Is obesity/overweightness worse in the poorer demographics than it is in the middle and upper classes? (rather than just more counter-intuitive)
- potatolicious 14y ago
  Yes: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080207163807.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080207163807.ht... Though the relationship appears to have weakened in recent years: http://frac.org/initiatives/hunger-and-obesity/are-low-income-people-at-greater-risk-for-overweight-or-obesity/ http://frac.org/initiatives/hunger-and-obesity/are-low-incom... http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20050502/rich-poor-gap-narrowing-in-obesity http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20050502/rich-poor-gap-narrow...
mhartl 14y ago
Did poor people 100 years ago have the same problem? I doubt it. But today, poor people in America are fatter than rich people. Fat poor people? There's something strange going on here...
- potatolicious 14y ago
  > "Fat poor people?" This seems only incredible because you don't understand the mechanics of being poor. Contrary to popular belief, the main bottleneck of being poor is not access to food - the market has solved that part remarkably well, and farming improvements throughout the last century (Borlaug is perhaps rolling in his grave) means that food in general is so cheap that everyone in a developed country has access to it. The main bottleneck of being poor is time. A poor person spends considerably more time just to ensure survival than a wealthy person, and has remarkably little "disposable" time remaining in a day. Long, irregular hours, possibility of multiple jobs, lack of access to speedy/on-demand transportation, lack of access to time-creating conveniences (laundromat far way instead of laundry in the house, for example), all serve to make time the rarest resource for the poor. That's not an exhaustive list by the way, and I don't pretend to know the full exhaustive list. All of this means that the poor gravitates towards fast, low-effort food, and the rest makes sense.
  - mhartl 14y ago
    If poor people can be fat, we need a different word for what people 100 years ago would have called "poor". Maybe "destitute" could serve this purpose? In any case, if you're poor, your time is cheap. This doesn't jibe with the claim that the poor lack enough time to, say, cook healthy meals for themselves. Poor people 100 years ago were poorer than most poor people today, and yet they largely cooked for themselves—and they were much thinner. What accounts for this change? My suspicion is that it's dependence without responsibility. A hundred years ago, private charities (which are accountable to their donors) were in a position to hold recipients of their largesse responsible for their actions. But such charities have now largely been displaced by government agencies. These agencies have been captured by special interest groups,† and charity has mutated into entitlements. As a result of receiving benefits without accountability, the poor have lost much of the knowledge needed to be self-sufficient, which motivates further intervention. It's the law of unintended consequences followed by iatrogenic escalation. †These interest groups are not the poor themselves, but rather those who speak for the poor. I think it's no coincidence that the former tend to vote for the latter. Political patronage is one of the oldest plays in the book. I'd guess you'll find the above narrative unconvincing, but I like how you think, so I thought it was worth a shot.

Tycho 14y ago

Is obesity/overweightness worse in the poorer demographics than it is in the middle and upper classes? (rather than just more counter-intuitive)

potatolicious 14y ago
Yes: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080207163807.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080207163807.ht... Though the relationship appears to have weakened in recent years: http://frac.org/initiatives/hunger-and-obesity/are-low-income-people-at-greater-risk-for-overweight-or-obesity/ http://frac.org/initiatives/hunger-and-obesity/are-low-incom... http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20050502/rich-poor-gap-narrowing-in-obesity http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20050502/rich-poor-gap-narrow...

mhartl 14y ago

Did poor people 100 years ago have the same problem? I doubt it. But today, poor people in America are fatter than rich people. Fat poor people? There's something strange going on here...

potatolicious 14y ago
> "Fat poor people?" This seems only incredible because you don't understand the mechanics of being poor. Contrary to popular belief, the main bottleneck of being poor is not access to food - the market has solved that part remarkably well, and farming improvements throughout the last century (Borlaug is perhaps rolling in his grave) means that food in general is so cheap that everyone in a developed country has access to it. The main bottleneck of being poor is time. A poor person spends considerably more time just to ensure survival than a wealthy person, and has remarkably little "disposable" time remaining in a day. Long, irregular hours, possibility of multiple jobs, lack of access to speedy/on-demand transportation, lack of access to time-creating conveniences (laundromat far way instead of laundry in the house, for example), all serve to make time the rarest resource for the poor. That's not an exhaustive list by the way, and I don't pretend to know the full exhaustive list. All of this means that the poor gravitates towards fast, low-effort food, and the rest makes sense.
- mhartl 14y ago
  If poor people can be fat, we need a different word for what people 100 years ago would have called "poor". Maybe "destitute" could serve this purpose? In any case, if you're poor, your time is cheap. This doesn't jibe with the claim that the poor lack enough time to, say, cook healthy meals for themselves. Poor people 100 years ago were poorer than most poor people today, and yet they largely cooked for themselves—and they were much thinner. What accounts for this change? My suspicion is that it's dependence without responsibility. A hundred years ago, private charities (which are accountable to their donors) were in a position to hold recipients of their largesse responsible for their actions. But such charities have now largely been displaced by government agencies. These agencies have been captured by special interest groups,† and charity has mutated into entitlements. As a result of receiving benefits without accountability, the poor have lost much of the knowledge needed to be self-sufficient, which motivates further intervention. It's the law of unintended consequences followed by iatrogenic escalation. †These interest groups are not the poor themselves, but rather those who speak for the poor. I think it's no coincidence that the former tend to vote for the latter. Political patronage is one of the oldest plays in the book. I'd guess you'll find the above narrative unconvincing, but I like how you think, so I thought it was worth a shot.