People are fat because they're poor

[ithaca]

It does if you have never tried to live on a minimum wage budget and you make statements that they are lazy. When someone is working 2 shifts just to make things meet, it's not laziness that they don't make a quality meal. It's being exhausted and not being able to afford healthy food that doesn't take a lot of time to prepare. Work two shifts to make things meet and I'll bet you no longer call the poor lazy.

Let's get back to the original argument. Fat people are lazy. It has nothing to do with being poor.

[InDebtInDC]

can someone explain what an oxymoron mean?

An oxymoron is when you combine things that don't usually go together.

[atomicrc11]

I can definitely say that one can buy health foods on a budget. I live near a Shaws grocery store and it is not a high end one. The population near to the store is either college students or lower income people. I can go there and buy $100 worth of food that will feed 2 people for an entire week, 3 meals a day. If I ate at McDonalds every day, I would need to spend over $250 for the same amount of meals. I might be able to get it down to $150 if I drank water and only ordered no more than 3 things from the dollar menu per meal. It all is in what you buy and how you prepare it. None of the meals I make during the week take more than 30mins to prepare, most less. If you want to eat health you will find a way.

[LuxLiving]

Actually ithaca, the original post was titled, "People are fat because they're poor", not lazy.

[sweeps]

An oxymoron is when you combine things that don't usually go together.

Not necessarily. "Purple cookie" doesn't usually go together but it's not an oxymoron.

[disneysteve]

One of the main reasons that people in the US are fat is because they're poor.

You do like to stir the pot, don't you?

As with your other threads, this one is just as ridiculous and overly broad. There are fat people who are wealthy. There are fat people who are middle class. There are fat people who are lower class and there are fat people who are quite poor. The same goes for thin people. They come in all income ranges.

I'm a physician. I work in one of the poorest cities in America. Obesity is very common, but I also have plenty of patients who are just as poor but maintain normal weight. How? They eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly. As much as people want to blame everything but personal responsibility, the answer to obesity is quite simple: diet and exercise.

I find fast food and junk food to be too expensive. We hardly ever eat it because we can make a much more enjoyable, filling and healthy meal for less money at home.

Now if you said people are fat because they are uneducated about proper diet and nutrition, I might agree with you. Or if you said people are fat because they don't take personal responsibility for their own well being, I'd also agree with you. But fat because they're poor simply isn't true.

[Scanner]

I've been both - fat and normal.

I'd have to say $ for $, the tradeoff is about the same.

When I am over-eating carbs. . .yes, I am stopping at Wawa everyday, getting chips and soda, getting a hoagie for lunch, it all adds up.

When I am maintaining the Atkins Lifestyle (which I am doing now), my grocery bills are definitely higher by buying protein, but I am not "convenience storing" it. Eating tuna salad, chicken salad, deviled eggs, etc.

So. . .it's about a wash, maybe a little more money to eat Atkins but not by much. (eggs and peanut butter are cheap sources of protein).

Yes, this poster is just trying to stir the pot. The obesity problem in America is more complex than money.

If it were that simple, we send everyone "economic stimulus" checks to eat healthier and the obesity problem would be solved.

[Pitman]

I find fast food and junk food to be too expensive. We hardly ever eat it because we can make a much more enjoyable, filling and healthy meal for less money at home.

I agree 100%.

Once I started buying groceries once a week, usually on Sundays, and completely cut out eating/buying Fast Food, I've saved around $300 a month.

Also, before I started saving, I was eating fast food twice, sometimes three times a day, and I didn't gain not one ounce.

[sweeps]

I don't agree with OP's premise either, but throwing fast food into the equation is misleading -- you're paying extra for service.

Someone who eats Ramen noodles and store-brand macaroni & cheese all day can eat for very cheap (albeit unhealthy).

[disneysteve]

I've been both - fat and normal.

I'd have to say $ for $, the tradeoff is about the same.

When I am over-eating carbs. . .yes, I am stopping at Wawa everyday, getting chips and soda, getting a hoagie for lunch, it all adds up.

That doesn't even cover it, though. You can go to Wawa and pay the exact same price for a salami and cheese hoagie with mayo and oil, fried chips and regular soda that you pay for a turkey hoagie with mustard, no cheese, baked chips and bottle of water. There is a big difference between the calorie count of those two options even though there isn't a penny difference in price.

[Scanner]

DisneySteve,

THe problem is, to me, both of those menu items you presented, although $ equal, are unhealthy to me - baked chips or Herr's Sour Cream and Onion chips are essentially empty calories. Both breads are empty calories. The salami and cheese or turkey has some protein and fat to sustain you (they are nutrient dense) but that's it.

The only thing I may go into Wawa for now. . .is a cup of chicken salad and a plastic fork on the run.

Other than that, there's nothing there of dietary interest to me now.

[noppenbd]

I think buying fast unhealthy food is a symptom of our immediate gratification culture, rather than a class issue. I don't think it is necessarily laziness per se, but the idea of "why take the time?"

As in,

Why take the time to be thin by dieting for months and months when I can eat tasty fattening food and enjoy it right now?

Why take the time to plan a menu, write a list, go to the grocery store, make the meal, box it up, and bring it to work, when I can just go to the FF restaurant next to my office?

This is not to say that every or even most people that are overweight are because of eating more fast food. But on the average, there is definitely a trend that is bringing the averages up.

[disneysteve]

DisneySteve,

THe problem is, to me, both of those menu items you presented, although $ equal, are unhealthy to me - baked chips or Herr's Sour Cream and Onion chips are essentially empty calories. Both breads are empty calories. The salami and cheese or turkey has some protein and fat to sustain you (they are nutrient dense) but that's it.

That's a whole different discussion. I'm speaking strictly about calories vs. price. My point being that for the same price, you can get a meal with fewer calories or a meal with more calories. A 300 calorie Coke is a lot worse than a zero calorie bottle of water.

[DebbieL]

I'm going to have to agree (somewhat) with the original poster. I find eating healthy FAR more expensive than eating crap. I'm talking about at least 30-40% more on my grocery bill. I do eat healthy for the most part, but they charge you through the nose for it. Maybe it's different where some live, but here it is definitely much cheaper to load up on crap.

If you drive through any of the poor neighborhoods in the cities around here they are absolutely littered with fast food joints. I can drive by several KFC, McDonald's, Wendy's, you name it in the stretch of just a kilometer or two. Once you get into the richer neighborhoods you don't see them.

When my parents used to go up north hunting each fall (Northern BC native communities) they said you couldn't find so much as a piece of fruit or vegetables. The stores were full of crap like chips and hot dogs. This is a serious problem. These communities are full of diabetes and all sorts of other health problems related to obesity (not to mention alcoholism and drug use, but that's another issue).

I think that while poverty is obviously not the SOLE cause of obesity, it is a contributing factor in our society where the cheapest foods are crap, and we have communities of people who are being raised on it and don't really know any different. Lack of education also goes along with poverty (frequently).

[Scanner]

I don't think that it's not they don't know any better but that bag of chips or Value Meal might be their only joy in a doldrum type of day.

I mean, really, who in America doesn't get it?

I"ll concede there's a big dispute on what's more the culprit - animal fat or sugar and flour (you know where I stand) but for the most part, people know what good nutrition is and isn't.

I don't know. . .I still maintain it's a wash. Let's say you do $4.50 for McDonalds for breakfast and $6.50 for McDonalds lunch.

That's $11.00 for two meals. . .you are saying that's going to top a month's grocery bill?

You could eat 2 hard boiled eggs for $.30 for breakfast w/some salt and pepper and tuna salad on wheat with an apple and peanut butter for $3.00 at the most.

I don't get it.

How can eating fast and convenient food top shopping at the supermarket?