Posted on 05/06/2008 12:11:49 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Food costs likely to boost obesity in poor Healthier choices will be even more out of reach, experts say.
By Alfred Lubrano
Inquirer Staff Writer Some of the fattest people in America are among the poorest.
And with food prices rising, the problem is likely to get worse.
Tianna Gaines, who describes herself as impoverished and obese, knows this. At 5-foot-3 and 242 pounds, she lives on public assistance in Frankford and eats junk food because it's cheap and more readily available in her neighborhood than carrots and apples.
Besides, said Gaines, 28, and a mother of three, "I don't have the money for Bally's fitness clubs. And I can't run here. They shoot you."
More poor people may suffer Gaines' fate, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicting food prices will be up 4.5 percent throughout the year, due to high fuel costs, weather problems, and the growing diversion of corn crops to make ethanol. Globally, prices will rise nearly 50 percent, according to the president's Council of Economic Advisers.
"The food crisis will make obesity and attendant diabetes even more rampant," said University of Washington epidemiologist Adam Drewnowski. "Fruits, vegetables and fish are becoming luxury goods completely out of reach of many people. Consumption of cheap food will only grow.
"Obesity is the toxic consequence of a failing economy."
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
“Obesity is the toxic consequence of a failing economy.”
OK, Einstein, how do you explain away all the tubbies in the US during the past ten years? Are they the consequence of a strong economy?
What a puddin’head(with apologies to Moe Howard).
So buy the “good” food.
There will be less of the good stuff for the same money.
Less food, lose weight.
Problem solved.
To be fair, the journalist didn’t say it...he was reporting what a University professor said.
“OK, Einstein, how do you explain away all the tubbies in the US during the past ten years?”
They make poor dietary choices and don’t exercise?
Since when is junk food cheaper than nutritious food?
Maybe they are obese because:
1. They, like many in other social classes, like to eat junk food instead of carrots.
2. Manual labor used to be the poor’s lot in life. Kind of hard to be obese when you’re working your butt off all day. Food stamps and welfare have reduced the need for the poor to do physical labor in order to survive.
3. The obese poor are too lazy to prepare a nutritious meal.
4. The obese poor are too lazy to exercise.
Don’t ask me for documentation. These are only my opinions.
If food becomes cheaper, people eat more and become obese;. if food becomes more expensive, people become obese.
Huh? What? Huh??
Gotta do something during the commercials...
It’s true!
At one point I heard, (like it was Walter Williams) say that if you took all the “poor” people on welfare and made one country, they would compare to the 6th riches country in Africa.
My niece works at McDonalds and get 2000.00 a year to fix her car from the Gov’t. Nice.
Husband? It takes more optimism than I have left in me to even assume that brood of tax recipients is the work of a single baby daddy!
Sounds like ya both need to move.
I have never seen anything fresh at our Aldi’s.
Frozen veggies, we live on them!!!!
I don't know if you're in an area that has CC permits, but if you can get one and purchase a sidearm, that will make your walk a whole lot safer...along with your whole neighborhood.
HAve you seen the price of arugula lately?.....
Looks to me like she had them spread twice....twins it seems in the picture.
She don't need no arugula......
Once the entitlement starts, it is Never Enough:
If you teach a man to fish, he will eat for the rest of his life. If you give a man a fish, he will complain that it is the wrong kind, it "tastes fishy", it is hard to cook, and that yours is bigger.
In the end, the kindest response sometimes is telling the man to get off his backside and go get his own fish.
Bingo, Slapshot! How about a “Ho-Ho”?
“Frozen veggies, we live on them!!!”
I’m so sick of hearing that the only cheap food is junk food...that’s lazy shopping. I shop at the local SuperWalmart and I’m always incredulous when the welfare mom in front of me is buying frozen dinners and captain crunch, etc when Walmart sells all kinds of healthier, inexpensive options.
Only in America.
Where “the poor” are obese, have cars, $200 sneakers, the latest cell phone, dvd players, televisions, manicured nails and perfect hair,
and complain all the way to the welfare office.
WTF.
Just plain ignorance. That stuff in moderation used to be snacks or a treat. Canned or frozen vegetables are far cheaper.
Someone is trying to sell a really big bridge.
“Concentrating on filling their stomachs, poor, hungry people go for high-fat, high-sugar foods. “They’re not thinking about health - just getting through the day,” said Mariana Chilton, a hunger expert at the Drexel University School of Public Health, and principal investigator for the Philadelphia GROW Project, which deals with nutrition and physical development among poor children.”
So the academics gave up teaching good nutrition because they could not compete with fast food and snacks.
There is truth to Savage’s mantra that liberalism is a mental disorder. This is insane.
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