I was raised dirt poor, in Mississippi of all places, and I wasnt fat as a kid..........................
neither did we in fact we ate dirt. lol
The only ‘Public Assistance’ that was available when I was a kid, before Johnson’s Great Society programs were installed, was commodity programs where people would get a big cardboard box full of basic foodstuffs from government price support programs, like flour, cornmeal, butter in cans, peanut butter in cans, sugar and the like..................