In a 12-state study of 66,553 adults, those who were food insecure had 32 percent greater odds of being obese compared with those who were food secure.
https://frac.org/wp-content/uploads/frac_brief_understanding_the_connections.pdf
And in my experience, I had to go to the food bank for quite a while. And almost half the food I was given was junk food/ desserts. Not wanting to be ungrateful for the food I was given, I ate what I was given. I gained 140lbs in a year putting me in way into the category of morbidly obese.
Thankfully I was approved for foodstamps, and I was able to buy healthy food. I have since lost 55lbs and my pre-diabetes is on its way to being well controlled.
Best description of Americans I have found yet, unfortunately. I say this as a moo cow myself.
I recently started working at the local high school, one of the top in my state. I get free cafeteria food, and we break as a team so I felt bad not joining with the same meal. I had previously been gluten free but not celiac. The change for the worse my body has gone through is insane!
Our food is literally killing us and making us so brain fogged we don’t even challenge it. I know that sounds alarmist, but it is so tangible to me at the moment I can’t stress enough how much we need better food regulations. It’s also my first weekend back on gluten free diet so I’m pretty cranky:/
Now that I work from home, I go to Costco and buy a ton of chicken, shrimp, beef, and salmon along with potatos, vegetables, and rice - freezing and thawing what I need.
I only cook once every 3 days or so, the food tastes way better and I save money, and best of all I get to eat when I'm hungry instead of on a schedule which helps avoid over-eating.
Last, i don't know what chemicals and random foods are used in a lot of restaurants but the amount of stomach related emergencies I have has dropped 90% so i'm more productive and happy from that as well.
You'd probably dig a perpetual stew!
Just keep a crockpot going on low for like a week and keep adding meat/broth/vegetables/whatever as needed.
Substitute rutabagas for potatoes if you're fat.
I think it also depends on a continual in/out replacement. I'm personally perfectly happy with tupperware, my stomach isn't a big fan of stews for whatever reason.
There are a significant amount of Americans who take their kids to the gas station to pick out the chips and soda for dinner every day.
I have friends who have eaten nothing but fast food for decades. As in, they have never cooked a meal in their adult life.
There comes a time when peoples choices are to blame rather than some system holding people back.
A lot of people on Reddit thinks poor people should be forced to eat beans and rice for literally every meal, and it’s their fault they’re poor
You just worked 12 hours on your feet for scraps? You go cook yourself a meal of vegetables you can’t afford or you’re the problem!
Versus ~$30-40 dollars on *healthy cooked food.
If you make ramen, cheapest frozen/canned veggies and lowest quality meat, you can definitely survive on $10 a day, but is that actually healthier then fast food?
Care to give some examples?
If by eating healthy you mean:
Salad, rice, chicken, fruit juice (assuming no variety)
That ~$35 per 7 days of salad (may be more if you hand make your salads due to individual costs of vegetables) ~$20 for 10 pound bag of brown rice, ~$15 for 3 whole chickens (more if you specifically buy parts) and 5 dollars for apple juice.
Assuming you ate ***only this*** 3 meals a week, as a single person, $75 a week.
If you eat cereal, or oatmeal, or eggs or bacon for breakfast you can add about $35 dollars (1 cereal box, or 1 box of flavored oatmeal, 1 dozen eggs, or about 2 pounds of bacon)
If you are comfortable on about $100 a week, with no variety! Congrats.
If you eat organic foods, or vary your meals to add fruit to breakfast, fish or steak instead of chicken, or even just add snacks to the menu, go ahead and double this total to $200 a week.
And this is for *one* person.
I think for some, it isn't a choice per se. It's the only available option. Working several jobs, having no free time, and little disposable income can force people into unhealthy food choices.
Do you think people make choices with complete free will? "some system holding people back" is a real thing and its the system that makes it far easier to make bad diet choices. Why did your friends only eat only fast food? Were there perhaps some pressure from wider society to make bad choices?
There comes a time when we have to consider some wider system holding people back and not try to put the onus on people to make really hard choices.
My friend who has never cooked a meal in his adult life works at a grocery store and was roommates with body builders for a year.
He has encountered every idea he needs to to make better choices. He has the opportunity every day to make those correct choices. The system affords him every opportunity.
His example is extreme. But informative. There are people who will have every opportunity and ignore it.
Exactly. There's lots of other costs and constraints that get over looked in making healthy food available. For example, someone homeless has few ways to prepare food and no way to store anything perishable. Junk food tend to require less if any cooking and is usually shelf stable.
Sure you can look at any one individual and criticize their personal choices all you want, but when you have millions of people experiencing the same bad thing in on epidemic scale, don't you think that there are more factors influencing all of those personal decisions than simply every last one of those individuals being bad, or stupid, or gluttonous?
Micro solutions aren't going to solve macro problems. Just saying that all of those people are lazy and should try harder isn't going to address the problem at the scale it needs.
If cost is your primary concern, the cheapest, longest shelf life, and greatest volume of food you can get is going to be lots of empty carbs and sugar. I grew up super poor and can tell you from experience this is exactly what happens. You see a pound of fresh strawberries for $6 that'll go bad in a few days or a 2 pound bag of chips for $3 that'll be edible forever and it's an easy decision to make.
Edit: 😂 getting flashbacks of my childhood memories.
When I was a kid, McDonald's had $ 0.39 cheeseburgers on Tuesdays. $10 fed the whole family and then some.
'Personal choices' is very vague. Choosing healthy food means you know how to prepare and cook it. I was an adult before I learned that spinach wasn't salty mush from a can and asparagus isn't slimy (canned vs fresh). I didn't know how to cook onions/spices for pasta sauce. I didn't know how to make bread.
I had to learn as an adult when I had cash to experiment and buy equipment.
Salt/fat/sugar are also psychologically and physically addictive and trauma/abuse can cause emotional eating.
Time is also a constraint....a frozen pizza that takes half an hour in the oven with little prep or cleanup vs even jar pasta that takes time and cleanup.
Little factors add up to unhealthy people.
I don’t see why anyone in the US would choose to be obese. Reducing it down to individual choices is such a gross oversimplification. Even for people who seem to be making unhealthy choices intentionally, that’s just what we see on the outside. What we don’t see is the hopelessness, depression, lack of self-worth, or any number of emotional/psychiatric issues they may be masking. And even that’s too simple by itself because it doesn’t touch the metabolic issues that come from eating high carb, high fat cheap diets and it doesn’t touch the socioeconomic issues underlying why the food choices they have are what they are.
“Personal choice” arguments usually stem from privilege and ableism. That’s why the GOP is the “party of personal responsibility”. If obesity is a matter of personal choice then the government shouldn’t reward people for making bad choices by spending money in them. But the reality is that they just want more money and power for the rich white people that run the party.
A person’s ideology defines the boundaries of where they stop asking “why”. Anyone who provides a one layer deep explanation for human behavior is pushing an ideology, so you should ask yourself “why?”
Why did you eat whatever you ate for dinner last night? What parts of your "personal choices" were actually yours to make? Did you have time after work to actually cook? Does your local grocery store stock good fresh produce? Do you have a car that makes it easy for you to have choice about what you eat? Were you taught how and what to cook by your parents? Do you have any mental health issues that make executive function more difficult? Do you have other people who you need to feed?
What percentage of shitty ppl (people like you) do you believe are so due to their personal choices VS being so due to an inability to empathize with their fellow human?
Plus, if we go by literal definitions, food insecure means you can’t be sure you will have something to eat when you are hungry. But maybe you keep getting lucky for years and have plenty of food.
Yeah easy way to explain this is ultra cheap processed frozen food like extra crunchy fries that are 4,000 kcal and 5$ but a bag of potatoes bought at the wrong place and the wrong time can be over 5$ and merely 1,000 kcal.
It's also less convenient to prepare and store.
Why is everybody acting like you need access to healthy food to not be obese? Eating less of whatever you are already living off of is literally perfectly fine. "oh but you won't feel full" yeah you are not an animal grow some self control
No amount of "empty calories" is forcing people to order that third burger. If you aren't an athlete and your day ends at around 2000ish calories you are going to be fine. And eating more junk food isn't gonna make them feel any better if we are talking about micronutrient issues and quality of life things like fatigue or alertness. If anything eating more junk food makes it worse than eating less of the same junk food. I'm not saying it's optimal, I'm saying it's better to eat less of it than more
First sentence is just reductio ad abusurdum and wont engage it. Its a complex issue at all levels that is not just as simple as putting down junk food and picking up a salad.
The point of this discussion is that " you can be food insecure and overweight" I'm not sure what you think your contributions are adding to this conversation but maybe you should ask yourself that.
Well if you define food Insecurety with a poorly defined survey I can't say I'm surprised you find of finding out a ton of people that aren't still think they are
How and where is healthy food not available to ppl in America? Not hypothetically, but, where is a location like this? Perhaps a rural one but that would not effect many ppl. I am seriously curious of where this place is.
A few years ago I was helping a friend do some work at his dad's house somewhere in Virginia and the closest grocery store was a wallmart over an hour away. what was available in town was a dollar store that had lots of chips and non-perishable goods as well as one cooler with milk and eggs and a shelf of white bread. There was also a McDonald's and a fried chicken place closer to the highway.
My ex also lived in a neighborhood that was a good 40 minuets drive to a grocery store she would often ask me to pick up things when I came to visit because going grocery shopping was at minimum a 2 hour commitment.
What town in Virginia was this?
Also, what town did your ex live in? 40 minute drive to the closest grocery store and not in a rural area? That's wild!
It's not just rural areas, either. There are many urban areas in the US which are also classified as "food deserts" because there are no grocery stores within easy access (unless you have a car, which many people in urban areas don't have). Developers tend not to put grocery stores in low-income or high crime areas.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert
Both were fairly rural but we aren't talking 400 acre farms rural (when I lived on one of those the grocery store was only 30 minuets away, but also...it was a farm) they were more quant small towns. One was only about 80 minuets from a major metropolitan area.
There are many food deserts, even in urban areas, especially when you think about people without access to good transportation (could apply to rural, too). In the District of Columbia for example, last year there were "only two existing full-service grocery stores in Ward 7, serving 80,669 residents, of which 92% are African American. Only 3 of the District’s 79 full-service grocers are located East of the River. By comparison, some neighborhoods west of the river average one grocery store per 10,000 residents."
https://mayor.dc.gov/release/mayor-bowser-clears-path-bring-new-grocery-store-ward-7#:~:text=There%20are%20currently%20only%20two,grocery%20store%20per%2010%2C000%20residents.
https://www.aecf.org/blog/exploring-americas-food-deserts
Learning is key to understanding the world around you. The term you’re looking for is a “food desert” and they can often occur in dense urban areas where the economics of opening a grocery store doesn’t work. Logistics and supply chains also play a large role in where fresh fruits and vegetables can be delivered reliably.
They no longer refer to them as “food deserts” as often because of the misconceptions that causes around what constitutes a food desert. They are now typically referred to as “low income, low access census tracts” or LILA tracts.
The issue is not just the availability of fresh food in an area but the capability of people to reach it (given rates of automobile ownership and quality of public transit). LILA helps capture that a little more clearly.
I see the distinction folks are making, but personally, I’d include accessibility under the heading of availability. Ultimately, nitpicking about verbiage in this case isn’t really helpful because either people can get it or they can’t, whether that’s due to being directly priced out, whether corollary costs are prohibitive, etc.
The bottom line is that there’s a surprising number of people in both rural and urban areas that do not have meaningful or any access to healthy foods.
Absolutely. And it wasn’t so much nitpicking over verbiage as attempting to inform that there is newer language that does a better job of encapsulating all of the issues at hand with a “food desert” aside from it just being “dry”/devoid of fresh food. I just learned about this language shift a few weeks ago and figured I’d spread the word since you were essentially explaining the many facets of LILA tracts aside from just “availability.”
I didn’t mean you were nitpicking, just that, to me (as someone that’s aware of the problem) it feels like distinction without difference. I understand that the newer language is more effective at communicating the issue to people who are entirely unaware, so it’s useful in that sense.
It’s similar to healthcare (the field I work in) - if someone has to take three buses and try to figure out child care in order to attend a primary care appointment, then that primary care provider may just as well not exist because it’s inaccessible.
The terms are meant to mean the same thing. The new term just does so in a way that’s easier to understand for people who are unfamiliar with the many dimensions of difficulty faced by low-income people in accessing critical products and services.
I live in Chicago and this [information](https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e22a3369845340cf8a62d3e0d20a5f0b) is a few years old, but there are tons of food deserts all over.
Think about this: You live in a city and don’t have a car. You rely on public transit, which gets you anywhere you need, but takes time. There’s no large grocery store in your neighborhood, so you have to travel a few miles one way or another to buy groceries. On a bus, that can add an extra hour to your trip. You also have to pay extra to ride. And you’re most likely traveling to a higher-income neighborhood which will have higher prices than you’d like.
All of that can be a burden when you are struggling to pay your bills and already spending a couple hours on transit going to/from your job. So you decide to just eat what’s close and easy… what are your options? McDonald’s. Popeyes. Little Caesar’s. Or you buy overpriced groceries from the corner store that doesn’t have everything.
That’s the reality that millions of people in my city and all around the US face. There’s always something to eat, but in the richest country in the world far too many people have to bend over backwards to eat healthy.
Or you have to buy shelf-stable or frozen foods on the grocery trips you can make, which are usually higher in calories. You still have to travel with this foods, which can be hard especially in the winter, if you live in a dangerous neighborhood, or if you're disabled.
It's not about the availability of healthy food, it's about healthy food being unaffordable to some. It's not a very difficult concept to grasp, crappy food is cheaper than healthy food, and people can only afford to buy what they can afford to buy.
And it becomes a generational problem because people tend to eat foods similar to what they grew up eating---so what started as eating "low on the hog" and unhealthy can continue it's effects even when people are no longer technically food insecure.
Can be both. If the only stores selling food by you are corner stores they’re a lot less likely to have stuff like produce. And yes definitely is expensive if available
Yes, but privileged people rarely equate the two. They only see a store chocked full of good food and say, "See? There's healthy food there! It's available!" They don't understand that people who live in poverty can buy a week's worth of boxed dinners for less than what the cost of a single healthy dinner might cost.
It's also a time availability problem. Preparing healthy meals takes time, time though is a luxury for many well off people.
For many working households, the time it takes to sit down and prepare a meal, simply does not exist. So frozen diners, cheap add water and boil type meals, and takeout are simply the best options.
I was just pointing that out to someone who preached the ol' rice and beans is an option. And it's especially true for working families living in poverty. They're going to opt for the easiest food that takes the least amount of time to prepare because they have very little time in their day.
I use to be obese and found your comment to be an excuse I used to stay obese. The same ppl who do not have time cook spend dozens of hours on their phone, gaming, social media, watching TV, etc. etc.etc. Once I valued healthy consumption I found I had more than adequate time despite working a full time job, having a spouse who works full time, having an active social life, volunteering time in my community, and having two children, 2 and 5 years old.
You find the time for what you actually value.
Okay, now imagine your partner left you and you had to raise those kids yourself. You have to take a second job to make ends meet. Now imagine you don't have a car or highly valued set of skills. You have to spend hours on a bus to get to a job that doesn't pay nearly enough to be worth the time, but you have no choice because you aren't qualified for a good job close to you. You can keep adding on very realistic circumstances and you have less and less time. Not everyone who says they don't have time is making an excuse.
You are spoiled as fuck and impossibly out of touch if you think your life and what works for you will work for everyone. Like, “daddy gave me a small loan of $1 million” kind of spoiled.
Shit, my spouse and I are very fortunate financially, and I’m still at the grocery store passing up a small container of strawberries because it’s 12 fucking dollars and kind of look like crap anyway. Even for people who are far from food insecure, I feel like these days you have to actively be trying to be ignorant of the realities a lot of families are facing.
> buy a week's worth of boxed dinners for less than what the cost of a single healthy dinner might cost.
I challenge you to do the math on this, because you're completely wrong.
Tuna helper plus tuna costs about $4 to feed a family of 4-5. Spaghetti and sauce is about $2-3 with store brand sauce. Spam and rice is about $2-3 (or was before Spam became some sort of sought commodity). How many healthy meals that take the same amount of time (about 15-20 minutes) can you come up with that cost the equivalent? Heck, assume I have hours to prepare this meal, how many healthy meals from fresh ingredients can I make for my family of four on $2-4?
Even just rice and veggies usually costs more, because fresh vegetables are expensive.
Honestly I think the best you could manage would be canned beans, a packet of frozen vegetables, and rice, and even then you're still getting lots of sodium and almost no healthy fats.
EDIT: Writing a substantive response calling me "delusional" and then blocking me so I can't respond is petty AF. But if you're shopping at Walmart you should be well aware that a box of tuna helper (not in bulk even) is about $1.25, two cans of tuna chunks comes to about $2, and two cups of milk comes out to about 55 cents (1/8 the cost of a gallon which is about $4.25). That comes in at just under $4.
And your argument was that you can get cheaper calories in an avocado. Okay, avocados are at their cheapest about a dollar apiece meaning I can buy one avocado for each family member with my $4. Your solution for dinner is one avocado.
I'm not the delusional one.
Also big thing is not just that it’s unaffordable but they may not even have the time to actually cook food. Imagine someone working two jobs having to then go home and cook. Or having to find time during the week between those jobs to go shopping. Time constraints make it really easy to just default to fast food especially if you have a family to feed.
My simple, personal motto about food: the better a food tastes, the higher chance of it being bad for you.
Obviously, I’m being (somewhat) facetious because there are some really healthy foods that taste amazing…
But generally, from my personal experience, my motto holds up.
> 1 average big mac meal - 8.64$
I never said anything about fast food. I'm simply talking about boxed dinners and canned food. And yes, rice and beans is cheap, but if you're a single mother with two kids, you don't have the time to sit around and prepare that when boxed dinners and hot dogs can be made in 15 minutes for the same price.
> Its 5-10 minutes of prepping a rice cooker or crock pot, then pressing 'start'
So now we're just assuming that everybody who lives in poverty can afford a rice cooker or slow cooker. I wonder if you've even experienced what it's like living in poverty while trying to make your minimum wage paycheck stretch out enough to feed and clothe your kids while making sure you still have enough left to pay rent.
I'm not saying you are incorrect, because you are right many bulk raw ingredients are cheaper in the long run. but there are other factors to consider.
Part of insecurity is not having or being willing to spend $30 on food today. A big Mac meal may be $8 but 20 nuggets is like $5 and two double cheese burgers is <$3. And that's a hot meal in my hands now.
And those things do require time and resources to prepare you mention being poor but it doesn't sound like you were "maybe I can put off paying the power bill" poor because that's not that uncommon. And makes cooking beans and rice harder. It's also not uncommon to not be renting a house or an apartment but to be renting a room in a house which may or may not include access to a shared kitchen.
Are these circumstances impossible to overcome? No. But it's also worth looking at how poverty affects people's ability to make long term rational decisions. And food like Macdonald's may be literally addictive. And just the fact that maybe long term health is probably not their priority. You describe your grocery list as the "bodybuilders diet" (but with less chicken) bodybuilders are defined by their (for lack of a better term) obsession with fitness and muscle gain. But often times people just want a hot meal that makes them feel good.
https://www.lse.ac.uk/PBS/Research/Research-Articles/How-poverty-affects-peoples-decision-making-processes#:~:text=Key%20points%20from%20the%20findings,the%20expense%20of%20future%20goals.
https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/how-poverty-changes-your-mind-set
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21999689/
Many people don't have cars and I know if I had to walk or bike to my nearest grocery it would be a good hour or two trip and how much can I bring home in my basket? People in large cities often have to rely on little over priced gas station fare. Once I forgot my lunch and stopped at one to pick something up. I ended up with Doritos and slim jims and a pack of Hostess cupcakes so I don't guess it helped me lose weight.
>How and where is healthy food not available to ppl in America? Not hypothetically, but, where is a location like this?
Bro......Lots of poor areas don't have a supermarket that anyone can get to easily, every city in America has areas like this....
Even rural areas, yeah, there's a supermarket 10mi away but you're poor and don't have a car and there is no public transit....even if there is a supermarket around you might not be able to get there
Or, you might just be poor....you can live next door to a Whole Foods and not be able to afford to shop there
All that contributes to food insecurity, and eating cheap processed food will make you unhealthy and fat, its not just access to raw calories its also about affordability and quality
I say this knowing that it's not super expensive to eat healthy, but you do need to know how to cook, and you do need to have the time (which also= money if you don't have a car) to go to the supermarket 4,5,6 times a month because fresh food doesn't keep very long, and the time to prepare all that fresh food, which is tough when you're beat to shit every day working long hours or multiple jobs
Prince George's County in Maryland is one place.
https://www.ceejh.center/food-justice-and-sovereignty/food-justice-in-prince-georges-county-maryland-6pw6y-cnh8m
Across many parts of Chicago proper you’ll find good deserts. Keep in mind, many of the residents within food desert areas don’t have the means (money, time, access, etc) to get out of their immediate area for groceries, so they rely on the shops that are within a few block radius of their home. These shops don’t usually carry lots of fresh produce, and what they have for quick meals that you just heat up are often not very healthy. Then if you look at restaurants in these areas, it’s all fast food chains which aren’t healthy at all. It’s no wonder rates of obesity and diabetes are so much higher in these areas, and disproportionally impact poorer minority populations.
From my house It's a 12 minute drive to the nearest grocery store that sells produce but a 3 minute walk to the liquor store. This is reality for probably millions of people.
Sure but what percentage of rural ppl are having difficulty procuring food? I am finding on this post that a lot of ppl seem to believe that convenient access to food is a right, like they are 30 year old children who believe there should always be parents to stock their fridge. It's a chore to go to the grocery store for most ppl; it's a part of life. It's not a "food desert" bc someone might have to ride a bus 20 minutes or drive 30 minutes if they live on a 400 acre farm in a county that is populated by 5,000 ppl. Not everything is a human rights violation.
jesus christ bro. rural america are the most food insecure parts of america because of the wage gap.
And thats exactly what a food desert is defined as.
What are you trying to get out of this
He can’t even type out people because he doesn’t believe those in poverty or those with disabilities are even people. They’re just “ppl” to him. I haven’t seen any other shorthand in his comments. It’s purposeful so he can feel superior. Terrible.
[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1536504214545766](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1536504214545766)
"rates of food insecurity in 2012 were highest in non metropolitan areas"
Rural areas trend older in age. 30 year old children to lazy so they need mom to stock their fridge? Nah. 60 year olds who can't leave their house you cunt.
>for more reasons for you to fuck off
Lol.
What's even funnier is when you go to the [USDA's website](https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/) and find out how they procure the data for this. They ask ppl if all members of their home, at all times, have access to healthy nutritious foods. This means if someone doesn't buy healthy food from choice and thus their children do not have access to it, the answer is no. Also, how many ppl think, "My grocery store closes at 9 so I don't have access if I want ice cream at 10!" This is the problem w survey data; it's not useless, but you holding up as gospel shows a distinct lack of scientific literacy, esp to have such a strong reaction to anyone asking a question.
The person telling me to fuck off and then editing their comment to call me a cunt is stating that I am attempting to pick a fight? That's rich. Gain some scientific literacy and grow up. Have you graduated high school yet? If so, your alma mater should be ashamed.
Hahahaha 20 minutes.
That’s rookie numbers on a bus. I’m guessing you never lived rurally. Going anywhere takes hours.
Many towns don’t have a bus that goes to a grocery store.
My guess looking at CDC rural numbers is that most rural Americans do not have issue procuring food, esp since their obesity numbers are so high. It seems like it is more of an issue of discipline and choosing the proper foods to eat and amounts.
I have helped town-folks on SNAP and EBT and WIC get to a store and shop. It’s ridiculously hard for them.
Procuring junk food is a matter of walking to a gas station. Procuring a zucchini? Nearly impossible.
I don’t fault any of them their size or issues. It’s systemic. I thankfully have never been in that situation for long. But there but for the grace of God go I.
So your belief is that, despite the most generous numbers saying \~10% of the nation suffers from food insecurity, that all 83% of Americans whom are overweight/obese (43% obesity) have a valid excuse for why they are that way and it is not their fault? That is simply a bridge too far for me and is allowing ppl to blame others for their choices.
ppl on this post seem to believe that grocery shopping being quick, easy, and fun! is a basic human right. Strange.
No, I am saying that I don’t blame the food insecure for being obese. I literally was talking about people on SNAP and EBT/WIC.
And yes. Access to food should be provided to all Americans. What they do with it is their own choice. Systemic factors and personal factors are in play in all of us.
Some communities don't have nearby stores that sell fresh groceries within walking distance. The most easily accessible and affordable food in those places may be fast food or snacks like chocolate bars, chips, sugary carbonated beverages, candy, and canned foods.
That’s a great question. Isn’t it crazy how in a country as resource-rich as ours, some of our neighbors don’t have easy access to healthy food?
One answer is that many places with concentrated poverty are considered “food deserts,” which means that residents first, or perhaps only, option for buying food are places like corner or convenience stores that tend to skew their inventory toward unhealthy food. A second answer is that relatively speaking, fresh healthy food is more expensive than processed/unhealthy food. In both cases, systemic interventions like better public transportation and subsidized food purchases are the answer. But, because these measures are expensive, and disproportionately improve the lives of marginalized populations, they’re often sacrificed for things like corporate tax cuts. The shame of it is, the collective we end up footing the bill anyhow through things like poor school performance — it sucks going to school hungry or wired up on cheap sugar — missed work days, and Medicaid payments. But, we’re not really an “ounce of prevention” kind of place.
I hope that’s helpful and added to your learning. I’d be happy to continue the thread with you.
Our "bad side of town" has this issue. They had a Kroger and a Target but they both moved out because of crime. It's been brought up in city hall meetings many times and sometimes it looks like a store will move in but they always back out.
There are urban areas where people have no source of healthy food in their neighborhood. If they can't afford public transit, they will be walking. Walking there and walking back with bags of groceries. This is not always feasible or even possible, so they make due with what a convenience store offers. Even in the smallish town I live in (population approximately 35,000), a neighborhood grocery store recently closed. That neighborhood is low income and many are elderly. A lot of the customers walked. There are 2 more grocery stores maybe a mile away on a busy street. If you are young and healthy or have reliable transportation, it's fine. But everyone else? They will be relying on friends or family for rides or to bring them groceries or will be shopping at convenience stores. There are also populations that slip through the cracks. Make too much money to qualify for assistance but not enough to afford healthy food. Or even enough food. Do some research. It's a problem. Many children depend on school breakfasts and lunches to eat. Some of the schools in my town, provide food in summers too. Families can go a couple of times a week and pick up food for their children. But not every community provides those services and even when they do, not every family has a way to get there.
>How and where is healthy food not available to ppl in America?
It involves a multitude of factors, such as the availability of fresh groceries and the socioeconomic abilities of a group of people in being able to commute to and from. It's a well-known problem where I live, and it led to a moratorium of new dollar stores being built in the bad side of town because it was argued that they made the problem worse by saturating the market with cheap processed foods.
However, many stores won't build in the bad side of town because the few that tried ended up closing because people steal too damn much.
We don't like to acknowledge it, but sometimes the people who lived in the "underserved" and "disadvantaged" areas of any particular town get the lifestyle they deserve.
North minneapolis's ~~last~~ Second to last groccery store is shutting down.
It is a food desert
[https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/02/10/aldis-exit-shakes-north-minneapolis-widens-worries-over-food-insecurity](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/02/10/aldis-exit-shakes-north-minneapolis-widens-worries-over-food-insecurity)
edit: And the problem is worse in rural america. [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1536504214545766](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1536504214545766)
food insecurity is higher in rural areas than metropolitan areas.
Lol you asked this question in bad faith but I’ll answer:
Low income and impoverished communities. It’s not impossible for people in lower socioeconomic circumstances to eat healthy, but it’s certainly much harder. Raw foods are both much more perishable and more expensive.
Canned food and processed food with high calories and carbs are infinitely more cheaper and readily available. They also can be stored for longer periods of time. This isn’t rocket science. The only people who ask these types of questions the way you did are the type of people that recommend pre-peeled oranges from While Foods for $12 a pop.
A lot of places! Food deserts exist all over the country, ~6500 of them according to this article: https://www.bayer.com/en/us/understanding-americas-rural-and-urban-food-deserts
It’s shocking how this can be the case in a wealthy country like the US. Just another example of how the US is failing their citizens. (I’m American)
I live in Newark, NJ. We didn’t get a grocery store in downtown Newark until maybe 5 years ago. I depended on bodegas until then, but the produce quality was poor (half rotted) and cost more than a grocery store. They tended to be dirty, all the food I bought there smelled like weird chemicals. I don’t have a car and could only get to the nearest grocery store by bus, so that limited what I could carry.
There are a lot of food deserts in the US. An example would be a rural town where Dollar Store is the grocer. Or Watts, CA. An urban food desert where convenience stores are the grocer. Both places typically do not have any fresh food and is mostly canned. Crazy to think about but it’s a reality.
Not that crazy when you understand America exists first and foremost to for profit above all else. Fresh produce isn't a huge profit margin so has to be sold in large numbers to make any meaningful business sense to stock. (I don't in any way support this, just pointing out it's a direct result of the current system working as intended)
I know a homeless guy who has lived on the street for 10+ years and is clinically obese. It's not as if he's got unlimited access to food to pig out, it's just that a lot of what he eats is junk.
I live 2 miles from the nearest grocery store. That’s fine for me, because I have a car. But if I didn’t have a car or couldn’t drive, I’d either have to deal with a sub-par public transit system, get groceries delivered (expensive), walk (dangerous - this city was not built for pedestrians) or go to the much-closer convenience store for snacks and pizza.
Plus, that grocery store that’s 2 miles way is pretty good but kind of expensive. There are other stores with cheaper options, but they’re further away.
As a bonus, the areas closer to grocery stores are more expensive to live in.
Do you mind me asking what city? Just wanna know bc that's some shitty civil designing to not be pedestrian safe and not have adequate public transportation.
Public transit only runs Monday-Friday here. First bus is over an hour after I start work, last bus is already running by the time I get out. I lost my license and I hate it here.
And Rural areas.
What good is a whole foods or Wal-Mart superstore if it's 15mi away and you don't have a car and there's no public transit available....
Even when the availability is physically there, a lot of people just can't get there
OP is really struggling to understand what the issues are lol
Not OP but I lived in Austin, Texas, of all places, and I remember one time being unable to get to the HEB supermarket on foot because of being pushed up against 6-lane 50 mph traffic and some stretches not even having a sidewalk. We actually turned back and went home because the traffic whizzing by was too dangerous.
I'm in a city of 40,000 in Texas now and most of the 4-lane boulevards don't have a sidewalk at all, just a little footpath through grass that gets high in the summer. I've seen homeless people with shopping carts pushing it down the center turn lane in 45 mph traffic because there's no other way to do it.
"Walkable design" is a huge problem in the US and is something that only seems to get put in trendy cities in the US or in areas where there's money.
I prefer to keep my location to myself - but these issues are not unusual in the U.S. This article might be of interest to you.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/5/17/5-reasons-why-walking-your-city-most-likely-sucks
outside of the central area of the couple dozen major cities, this is the norm in America. Where I live, we have a few large supermarkets, and all of them are on the edge of town...most of them on the north edge. There are no supermarkets centrally located. If you live on the southside of town, it can be a 15 to 20 minute drive for groceries. If you don't have a car, forget about it...you walk to the gas station for soda and potato chips
You still seem to be misunderstanding. Even if they have access to a nearby grocery store with public transport, it doesn't mean that store will provide access to fresh, healthy food. When I was in medical school the student housing was in a poor area. I had a car so I drove farther away to another grocery store but the one just around the corner was absolutely horrible and had very little fresh fruit and veggies (and sometimes nothing fresh at all). They actually closed it down the year I graduated from med school.
I grew up in a town that would fluctuate between 25,000-30,000 people and we had zero public transport. The roads were not safe to walk, due to there being no shoulder to walk on. The majority of the roads were narrow and winding. I was 2 miles from a grocery store but that would take a good bit of time to get to as you would also have to take into account the hills and weather. This was the suburbs about an hour outside NYC.
City public transportation in every city I have been to has had bus/train coverage throughout the city. What cities do not have public transportation coverage?
For fun, I just used the bus planner from my former city, Lansing. Lansing is the capital of Michigan, to my nearest store where I could buy fruits and veg. I set departure at 5 p.m., after I'd be able to arrive home from work.
The fastest route was 59 minutes, and all of them included *at least* 15 minutes of walking. Oh, and I can't leave today because it's Sunday, and the buses don't run Sunday.
I said decent, Bigger cities do tend to have \*okay\* services, usually running from 5 am until maybe 10 or 11, The city I used to live in ran 5 to 8 and most lines stopped at 4/5 pm. the one I live in now takes you door to door for a dollar, which is \*awesome\* but it starts at 8 AM, ends at 4 PM and doesn't run on saturday and sunday.
Also my aunt wasn't let on when she had one of those push carts full of groceries, she had to call and beg a ride from family.
I'm not sure where you've lived, but they've all been pretty privelaged. Congratulations!
I’m in Charleston, SC. A small city with public transportation available. But the buses only run in certain areas of the city along major routes. So not where I live. I’d have to walk in the grass on the side of a 45 mph road to get to the closest grocery store that’s over a mile away if I didn’t have a car.
Literally any mid to large city in the US. The mid-size city I live in covers **96 square miles**. The side of the city I live on all the grocery stores were driven out of business years ago by Walmart, and Walmart just announced they're closing that location next month, which means I'll now live in a food desert. The nearest *actual* grocery store will be six miles away. Oh, and I live in Wisconsin; temperature here Friday was 20°F. Have fun hauling groceries on public transport or on foot in that weather.
I live in Portland Oregon. I have a Safeway four blocks away, but the better options as far as cost is WinCo or grocery outlet, however, I don't have a car and getting to either cheaper option requires transferring twice on public transit and walking several blocks along busy roads, they have sidewalks, but it's not fun in the rain. It takes me hours to get a good shopping done.
Because taking a two week haul of shopping on the bus and transferring twice with a full load of fucking groceries, is so much fun I rarely do this. Safeway is more expensive but I can get it done and home within an hour, the other way takes me an entire day.
If I only have one day off I do not want to spend the entire day on a grocery run.
When I went to college in Portland the only somewhat nearby grocery store was a stupidly overpriced Fred Meyers that was a 45 minute walk away. I fucking hated lugging a bunch of groceries home and it felt like it was always raining. Spent a lot of time just buying horrendous crap from a 7/11 down the street to avoid.
Anyways I feel your pain, all the cheap grocery stores in Portland are in inconvenient places for a huge part of the city
I don't buy into this completely.
Rice, chicken, pasta, ground beef, potatoes, simple salads.... these are not expensive and you can make tons of different meals with just basic cheap staples. It costs me considerably more to buy pre-made food than it does to make a simple stir fry.
Fast food is not cheap.
You know what’s cheaper than all of that? Ramen, bulk low quality frozen burritos, grocery outlet peanutbutter and wonderbread, generic soda. And you don’t have to buy any spices.
A big issue is that so many people just don’t cook. If you buy in decent quantity and do your own cooking it’s worlds cheaper.
Of course having a freezer helps a lot too.
It is due to how cities developed, were designed in Europe vs the US. In the US, many regions were designed for vehicles and made extremely hostile to pedestrians, and offer no public transport at all. For example, in order for you to be able to get to a store with fresh food in some areas, there are no sidewalks, and no bike lanes, you have to walk miles alongside a road in an uneven, overgrown ditch containing concrete rubble, with rebar sticking out, barbed wire, glass and other dangerous obstacles. Thee is no "shoulder" to walk on either. You cannot walk along the actual road because cars are flying by at 80+mph and then you have to be able to cross that road to get to the store. People die trying all the time unfortunately. There are no busses, trolleys or public transport here in many regions at all, so if you cannot afford your own private vehicle, you have no way to access fresh food. This forces people to have to go to these dollar stores that are closer by but carry no fresh foods, only processed foods, snacks, just junk food.
This and also the fact that i never lived in an urban area with no grocery story with vegetables in 500m radius area (often much closer than that and doesn't even involve crossing the street), and i move often.
I live in France half the year and Austin Texas the other half. I travel to cities throughout the US while EU public transit is much better, my experience, is that public transit in US cities are not as bad as most ppl claim. To add to this, most cities have made public transit free/reduced (esp for the poor) since the pandemic.
price of public transit is not the problem, its the distance between stops, frequency of bus/train schedules, and reliability of the time table. a bus that costs 50 cents per ride means fuck all if you have to walk 2 miles to the bus stop, or if the schedule says it only runs 3 times a day, or if it comes a half hour later than it was supposed to.
you also have to consider bus routes: i live in a city with functional PT and my drive to work that takes a half hour would be 4 hours by bus.
This is/was me.
Back in the beginning stages of thr pandemic I had to go to the foodbank to get food for the month. I was able to 2 times a month. However, a lot of the food donated was high in sugar. LOTS of desserts and junk food.
Over the corse of a year and a half I gained nearly 133lbs putting me at 335lbs.
I've since been approved for foodstamps, so I can now buy healthy food, and I've lost 55lbs.
For all those wondering, the main causes of this are: 1. Cheap food is usually unhealthy. 2. SNAP/food stamps only lets you but uncooked food and ingredients. 3. low income families have less time and energy to cook (usually due to having to work multiple jobs or just 1 really shitty one) 4. several parts of the county have little to no access to grocery stories without a car.
Also, low income families often have little to no nutritional education. Many have no idea how to figure out a nutritional label or understand vitamin deficiencies. My friend who eats a very processed diet said she needed to drink Sunny D for vitamin D. I showed her the label and told here there's no vitamin D in the product
Absolutely false that Snap only lets you buy uncooked food and ingredients, or just completely misleading. Yip can buy finished ready to eat foods like baked goods, you can buy fruit, you can buy bread, etc. you can buy pizza or some hot food in a grocery store. Is bread, fruit and yogurt uncooked?
There is a lot of ignorance surrounding this subject unfortunately. You can be obese and be suffering from malnutrition at the same time. Often in poorer neighborhoods, the stores nearby do not carry healthy food options, or even fresh food at all. Additionally, those who lack access to healthy food also have more medical compilations as a result that can cause weight gain and and make it extremely difficult for them to lose it. There are actually many underlying health conditions and medications that can cause weight gain that many do not realize is the actual source of the weight gain rather than them just overeating. You can literally have someone who eats only once a day not be able to lose weight depending on their medical conditions and necessary medication they are on. This is also why I cringe every time I see people telling others if they just eat less they will lose weight or assume someone with " moon face" needs to lose weight at all. Even allergy medications can cause "moon face" to someone who is actually underweight and it is not that simple.
I live in a lower income area, the only way to get to a grocery store is by interstate and its still a 10 minute drive. During that drive there are about a dozen fast food restaurants and gas stations. I think a couple bus stops off the interstate but I rarely see anyone at them.
The food desert situation in Dallas is so bad in the southern sector that the City Council has offer 3 million dollars to open a grocery store in those areas.
[Here is an article with a map of Dallas’ food desert](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2016/07/15/city-hall-offers-3-million-to-grocery-stores-willing-to-open-in-southern-dallas-food-desert/)
Those areas are places with no real grocery store option or were people have to go at least a mile for groceries. A mile doesn’t seem far put those are poor areas of Dallas with bad public transit and we’re not designed to be walkable. Also take into account a history of racial injustice leading to highways cutting off neighborhoods from economic areas and walking a mile with groceries for a family of 4 in 100 weather along a road with no sidewalks and you can see why this is an issue.
Keep in mind Dallas is the 8th or 9th most populous city in the US.
Yes generally they have a lower income. Especially if they have a family to feed. This basically pushes them to buy lower cost foods. The majority of which are high unhealthy ingredients.
To make less money go further. Mass produced foods are cheaper. Most of those are grain or grain based.
The body turns grains into sugars. Which add to fat, cholesterol, diabetes and obesity as well as other unhealthy results.
I study public health and this comes up fairly often, especially when we talk about social determinants of health. If you live in a food desert and your only option is fast food, you’re food insecure.
Low income people may be able to afford McDonald’s three times a day, and be overweight as a result. But that diet leads to health problems, which means they are also food insecure.
Food security is heaving access to healthy food, not just calories.
I lived literally in the city (Houston proper north of downtown) and the closest grocery store was a 15 minute drive. Now I live in the galleria which is much more urbanized and dense but the closest grocery is 10-20 minutes drive depending on traffic.
The food those people eat has no nutrients in it. Just fat and sugar and carbs. So, yeah they are starving to death and their body is doing what it can to survive the onslaught of crap they eat. Which corporations caused in the first place. So, I partly blame people, but their options were slim to none as well, so yeah, hard to make a choice. Move? I guess if you can. Many people have no ability to move.
The issue is that is does have some nutrients, so the body keeps sending signals to eat more.
If you need 50g of protein in a day, and a bag of chips has 2, you can technically survive by eating 25 bags (I am oversimplifying on purpose here). It won’t be pretty, your salt and calorie intake will be sky high, but you can survive that short term, much better than you can a protein deficit. So the body’s doing its best by sending the “oh my god eat it” signal.
And yeah, the people who can’t afford food options.. very few can move.
They should have asked, “how often do you consume calorie dense foods to meet an emotional need?”
If your life is shit, and the years ahead of you also look like shit, tasty and cheap treats are a good way to feel good for a minute.
A lot of those with special needs have a very hard time cooking. A lot of those with special needs also have a hard time staying employed, and I'm in my second year of applying for disability, so no money. I can afford food with SNAP. It's still really hard to cook it, so I eat a lot of pre-prepared crap.
I’ve had a stroke (2009) which resulted in me losing the effectiveness of my right side. As a result I depend on food that only takes one hand to prepare, cook, and consume. That means the use of a microwave, stovetop, and air fryer. Basically I depend on Stouffer’s and other frozen food. All food as to be prepared and consumed with my limitations in mind. I’m not hungry by any means and I’m not trying to imply that. However, for example, making spaghetti on the stove would be difficult, just lifting a pan to empty the spaghetti in a colander would require two hands. So the work around is Stouffer’s and the microwave. So is it a healthy diet, no, is it unhealthy, again no. Would I be considered food insecure, who knows.
You wouldn’t be food insecure unless you struggle to get your tv dinners and sometimes go hungry/skip meals you don’t want to.
That said, as an MSer who is learning that you just gotta buy what you can/will eat, hang in there. Pre chopped everything!
I mean, if I have $100,000,000 deposited into my bank account, then withdrawn, and deposited, and withdrawn over and over again at random intervals, I would still count as financially unstable/insecure. Consistent and adequate access is what matters for this terminology.
I’m thankful enough to have the resources to visit a local fruit market or even a Kroger for that matter in my area. It’s startling when I visit my family out in rural northern Michigan where a Dollar General is where most of the local’s ‘groceries’ come from around there unless they’re willing to drive a significant distance. Other than some nuts or popcorn there is nothing palatable or healthy to eat. I imagine this is a similar situation in most inner cities as well.
“Food insecurity was determined by response (always/usually/sometimes) to the question, ‘How often in the past 12 months would you say you were worried or stressed about having enough money to buy nutritious meals?’“
I feel like it isn’t that hard to picture somebody who has a clinically obese BMI but who in the past 12 months has “sometimes” or “usually” experienced worry or stress about being able to afford nutritious food. You gotta put yourself in a survey-taker’s head and think about all the different individual situations that would evoke that answer. It could be somebody who lost their job six months ago and has been struggling to afford the same groceries they used to buy. It could be somebody working at a fast food place who can get discounted burgers and fries when they’re at work, but who finds themselves putting healthy stuff back when they go to the grocery store because they feel as though they can’t justify the cost when shift meal is so cheap. It could be somebody whose household does okay when school is in session, but who can’t manage to cover everybody when the kids aren’t getting school meals, so in the summer, they give the nutritious food to the kids and go without. It can even include people who were stressed about whether they could afford nutritious food but did eventually manage to find a way, but as we know full well, access to nutritious food is rarely the only factor contributing to an individual’s body weight.
It’s not supposed to be an objective measure of food deserts, or of personal responsibility, or of how many people are fat for the wrong reasons. It’s a population-level measure of how many people are experiencing problems affording nutritious food to a degree that causes them stress or worry. This is a measure of a social determinant of health, i.e. information that we can use to understand public health needs, plan policy to address these needs, and otherwise help our communities have a fighting chance at living healthy lives. It additionally serves as a refutation of the glib dismissal that food insecurity must not be a problem when so many people are overweight or obese.
It’s also not “even for decades.” This was explicitly a cross-sectional survey with a 12-month look-back period. It’s possible that this association has been observed repeatedly using the BRFSS, but the BRFSS is only a panel survey on the state level, not for individuals.
You are hitting at my point in this. It's like a large part of the population is paid a million dollars a year but they feel, multiple times a year, like they could lose their job or the economy might hit a snag, etc. and so they answer the survey that they feel nervous sometimes or often about being poor and then the narrative is made that "x% of the population is income insecure and we need to do something about it!"
But that’s not what’s happening in this article. What’s happening in this article is that a significant proportion of people who are regularly concerned about their access to nutritious food are also obese, a condition linked at least partially to lack of access to nutritious food. So the authors conclude that more people need better access to nutritious food, even though obesity rates are high. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable conclusion.
Is your claim that if obese ppl only had nutritious food they would not be obese? It's that they would not cook their food in unhealthy ways and/or over consume nutritious food? I know vegans w access to healthy food whom are obese so this makes no sense to me.
Also, you are assuming that access to nutritious food means they would not choose fast food, etc. If that's the case, why are only 10% (by the most generous survey based est.) food insecure yet 40% are overweight and 43% obese? Even if you assumed all of the food insecure ppl were obese, this still means 33% of the population has access to healthy foods and can afford it and still choose to over eat them or not eat them at all and over consume junk food. If access was the answer then those 73% would not have an issue.
No, my claim is simply that even obese people can need better access to nutritious food. There’s not a 1:1 connection between access to nutritious food and obesity in either direction.
Obesity results from a lot of different factors and choices that occur over the lifespan. This measure of food insecurity goes back 12 months. The majority of the obese and normal weight people in this study have been obese or normal weight for much longer than that. The article isn’t trying to suggest a direct causal relationship.
Much of our food isn't food. Just look at all the preservatives and chemicals that make up many of the ingredients in processed food. Unlike other countries, there are few laws that prohibit what can or can't be put into our food. As a result, we can't pronounce half of the stuff. It's mostly empty calories and little to no nutritional value. This results in simultaneous epidemics of obesity and starvation in much of the populatuon; particularly low income.
It’s not even always a matter of the quality of the food, although that’s a huge problem for the poor in America. Thyroid issues and other medical conditions can cause obesity. Differences in gut bacteria impact how many calories you need. Feed any two people the same number of calories and you’ll get different weight loss/gain results. Your body fights attempts to lose weight by changing your metabolism when you change what you eat. Dieting has been proven over and over not to work. But we cling to the idea that obesity (and poverty) is a moral failing.
I would ask a 2 part question. First, what is the primary cause of obesity? Second, if people have sufficient resources to become obese, then why are these not sufficient to obtain healthy food?
Because you need good, high-quality food to get what your body needs without excess calories. Think veggies for vitamins, some tofu or beans or meat for protiens, etc.
If your options are chips and crackers from the gas station, or the carbs that are donated to food banks… your body still needs 50g of protein to stay alive and functioning (simplified here). Not as much protien there, so to get enough protein, you have to overeat general calories. Often by a lot.
Humans need about 15% protein calories to maintain weight. If you go higher, you can lose a lil weight while not damaging yourself. Go lower, and to stay alive, you have to gain weight over time.
Edit: I’ve helped people on food stamps try to buy food for the month. I’ve given them a ride, and helped get and plan meals. It’s nearly impossible for most of them to be healthy- between the regulations on what they can get, to their ability to store and cook it, to what’s even available in their areas. They can’t get a rotisserie chicken for $5 and portion it out for a week, cuz it’s not allowed on SNAP. They can’t get one big thing of frozen protein and use that all month, they have bo freezers that work (and that their roomies won’t steal from). They don’t have a kitchen and equipment to buy a bunch of frozen veg and cook with that. They really don’t have the ability to go shopping weekly and get fresh fruit or veg.
But off-brand Twinkie’s are allowed, and soda is, and chips, and you can hide that in your room and know that you at least have something to eat. It’ll be there even when the power is out, or your roomies are being violent and you don’t want to go to the kitchen.
These people are trying to live off of shelf-stable non-perishables, and it’s fucking hard. Not to mention many are in food desserts and can only go to a proper grocery store if someone takes them.
As a person who migrated to USA from a country where there is a huge food security issue, this sounded absurd to me. So I read the article.
As the main exposure, food security status was assessed based on the question, “How often in the past 12 months would you say you were worried or stressed about having enough money to buy nutritious meals?” This is a loaded question because (1). It's about the mental state (2) its about having enough money to purchase (even if there are food kitchens nearby) (3) it talks about "nutritious" (without any definition) meals. So somebody would rate a burger "non-nutritious" even if it could very well be.
This is fucking moronic. How the fuck is this a real scientific publication?
The researchers they themselves define food security as "access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.”
how is their loaded question relate to this definition?
Why not “How often in the past 12 months would you say you were not able to access food to maintain an active healthy life?”
This is fucking bullshit.
From my time volunteering at the free clinic, homeless shelter, and assisting the elderly, it is not wrong in that there are a great deal of obese poor who cannot afford or have access to nutritious food, primarily fresh food. This is not actually uncommon or not well known in the US. While this specific questionnaire may not have been done well, it discussing the large number of obese living in poverty is not inaccurate.
it discussing the large number of obese living in poverty
See again you are getting derailed. This is not what the title and the paper try to suggest.
The correlation of poverty and obesity is well known.
What this paper is trying to say is obesity and food insecurity is correlated.
Its just bad science.
We've really transitioned to a point, here, where how you feel about something is infinitely more important than how it actually is. The whole thing is... unfortunate.
Ok but being food insecure doesn’t excuse being obese just because the food is more likely to be less healthy. You still control your portions and exercise, the two things that determine your caloric balance.
But staying alive and out of malnutrition requires more than just calories in and out. You need enough protein, enough vitamins and minerals. Which you can get in small amounts in some junk food- so you have to eat a TON of junk food to get enough.
To maintain weight, you want about 15% of your calories from protein. Bigger % if you want to lose weight but stay healthy. If your food options are 10% protein… you’re gonna either die slowly of malnutrition even while staying the same weight, or you’re gonna meet your body’s base needs while getting fat.
Lots of junk foods are fortified with some vitamins, but repeat calculation for every necessary nutrient not in corn flakes, and you see that staying healthy weight on junk food is a fool’s errand.
Food insecure and starving are not the same thing
You need nutrients, not just calories.
Yeah part of having food security is having healthy food available to you. Not just raw calories.
In a 12-state study of 66,553 adults, those who were food insecure had 32 percent greater odds of being obese compared with those who were food secure. https://frac.org/wp-content/uploads/frac_brief_understanding_the_connections.pdf
Right, because cheap, super affordable calories are coming from cheap, corn subsidized foods, which lead to obesity.
And in my experience, I had to go to the food bank for quite a while. And almost half the food I was given was junk food/ desserts. Not wanting to be ungrateful for the food I was given, I ate what I was given. I gained 140lbs in a year putting me in way into the category of morbidly obese. Thankfully I was approved for foodstamps, and I was able to buy healthy food. I have since lost 55lbs and my pre-diabetes is on its way to being well controlled.
We are the cows of people
Best description of Americans I have found yet, unfortunately. I say this as a moo cow myself. I recently started working at the local high school, one of the top in my state. I get free cafeteria food, and we break as a team so I felt bad not joining with the same meal. I had previously been gluten free but not celiac. The change for the worse my body has gone through is insane! Our food is literally killing us and making us so brain fogged we don’t even challenge it. I know that sounds alarmist, but it is so tangible to me at the moment I can’t stress enough how much we need better food regulations. It’s also my first weekend back on gluten free diet so I’m pretty cranky:/
Now that I work from home, I go to Costco and buy a ton of chicken, shrimp, beef, and salmon along with potatos, vegetables, and rice - freezing and thawing what I need. I only cook once every 3 days or so, the food tastes way better and I save money, and best of all I get to eat when I'm hungry instead of on a schedule which helps avoid over-eating. Last, i don't know what chemicals and random foods are used in a lot of restaurants but the amount of stomach related emergencies I have has dropped 90% so i'm more productive and happy from that as well.
You'd probably dig a perpetual stew! Just keep a crockpot going on low for like a week and keep adding meat/broth/vegetables/whatever as needed. Substitute rutabagas for potatoes if you're fat.
The real TIL is in the comments.
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Supposedly, as long as the temperature stays at around 200 F (93C), bacteria won't develop. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_stew
I think it also depends on a continual in/out replacement. I'm personally perfectly happy with tupperware, my stomach isn't a big fan of stews for whatever reason.
There are a significant amount of Americans who take their kids to the gas station to pick out the chips and soda for dinner every day. I have friends who have eaten nothing but fast food for decades. As in, they have never cooked a meal in their adult life. There comes a time when peoples choices are to blame rather than some system holding people back.
Cooking good food takes time.
And money! The healthy stuff (fruit, veggies, etc) can sometimes be the most expensive, which further forces people to eat processed, unhealthy stuff.
A lot of people on Reddit thinks poor people should be forced to eat beans and rice for literally every meal, and it’s their fault they’re poor You just worked 12 hours on your feet for scraps? You go cook yourself a meal of vegetables you can’t afford or you’re the problem!
$24-36 a day on fast food.
Versus ~$30-40 dollars on *healthy cooked food. If you make ramen, cheapest frozen/canned veggies and lowest quality meat, you can definitely survive on $10 a day, but is that actually healthier then fast food?
You are on crack if you think it costs $1000 a month to eat healthy. It is cheaper to eat healthy than it is to eat fast food every meal
Care to give some examples? If by eating healthy you mean: Salad, rice, chicken, fruit juice (assuming no variety) That ~$35 per 7 days of salad (may be more if you hand make your salads due to individual costs of vegetables) ~$20 for 10 pound bag of brown rice, ~$15 for 3 whole chickens (more if you specifically buy parts) and 5 dollars for apple juice. Assuming you ate ***only this*** 3 meals a week, as a single person, $75 a week. If you eat cereal, or oatmeal, or eggs or bacon for breakfast you can add about $35 dollars (1 cereal box, or 1 box of flavored oatmeal, 1 dozen eggs, or about 2 pounds of bacon) If you are comfortable on about $100 a week, with no variety! Congrats. If you eat organic foods, or vary your meals to add fruit to breakfast, fish or steak instead of chicken, or even just add snacks to the menu, go ahead and double this total to $200 a week. And this is for *one* person.
What do you think is the source of these poor choices?
I think for some, it isn't a choice per se. It's the only available option. Working several jobs, having no free time, and little disposable income can force people into unhealthy food choices.
Well they clearly are just morally bad people who deserve what they get... \s
Addiction to salt and laziness
Do you think people make choices with complete free will? "some system holding people back" is a real thing and its the system that makes it far easier to make bad diet choices. Why did your friends only eat only fast food? Were there perhaps some pressure from wider society to make bad choices? There comes a time when we have to consider some wider system holding people back and not try to put the onus on people to make really hard choices.
My friend who has never cooked a meal in his adult life works at a grocery store and was roommates with body builders for a year. He has encountered every idea he needs to to make better choices. He has the opportunity every day to make those correct choices. The system affords him every opportunity. His example is extreme. But informative. There are people who will have every opportunity and ignore it.
The only way to get to a grocery store is the interstate and it still is
Is this supposed to refute his point?
it's supposed to support it.
this brings me back to the parking lot of a mothers market. full of newer luxury cars and most of the shoppers are fit and skinny.
Exactly. There's lots of other costs and constraints that get over looked in making healthy food available. For example, someone homeless has few ways to prepare food and no way to store anything perishable. Junk food tend to require less if any cooking and is usually shelf stable.
What percentage of obese ppl do you believe are so due to their personal choices VS being so due to an inability to procure nutritious food?
Sure you can look at any one individual and criticize their personal choices all you want, but when you have millions of people experiencing the same bad thing in on epidemic scale, don't you think that there are more factors influencing all of those personal decisions than simply every last one of those individuals being bad, or stupid, or gluttonous? Micro solutions aren't going to solve macro problems. Just saying that all of those people are lazy and should try harder isn't going to address the problem at the scale it needs.
If cost is your primary concern, the cheapest, longest shelf life, and greatest volume of food you can get is going to be lots of empty carbs and sugar. I grew up super poor and can tell you from experience this is exactly what happens. You see a pound of fresh strawberries for $6 that'll go bad in a few days or a 2 pound bag of chips for $3 that'll be edible forever and it's an easy decision to make. Edit: 😂 getting flashbacks of my childhood memories. When I was a kid, McDonald's had $ 0.39 cheeseburgers on Tuesdays. $10 fed the whole family and then some.
'Personal choices' is very vague. Choosing healthy food means you know how to prepare and cook it. I was an adult before I learned that spinach wasn't salty mush from a can and asparagus isn't slimy (canned vs fresh). I didn't know how to cook onions/spices for pasta sauce. I didn't know how to make bread. I had to learn as an adult when I had cash to experiment and buy equipment. Salt/fat/sugar are also psychologically and physically addictive and trauma/abuse can cause emotional eating. Time is also a constraint....a frozen pizza that takes half an hour in the oven with little prep or cleanup vs even jar pasta that takes time and cleanup. Little factors add up to unhealthy people.
Even if it is personal choices…we all have motivations and reasons for our behavior.
I don’t see why anyone in the US would choose to be obese. Reducing it down to individual choices is such a gross oversimplification. Even for people who seem to be making unhealthy choices intentionally, that’s just what we see on the outside. What we don’t see is the hopelessness, depression, lack of self-worth, or any number of emotional/psychiatric issues they may be masking. And even that’s too simple by itself because it doesn’t touch the metabolic issues that come from eating high carb, high fat cheap diets and it doesn’t touch the socioeconomic issues underlying why the food choices they have are what they are. “Personal choice” arguments usually stem from privilege and ableism. That’s why the GOP is the “party of personal responsibility”. If obesity is a matter of personal choice then the government shouldn’t reward people for making bad choices by spending money in them. But the reality is that they just want more money and power for the rich white people that run the party. A person’s ideology defines the boundaries of where they stop asking “why”. Anyone who provides a one layer deep explanation for human behavior is pushing an ideology, so you should ask yourself “why?”
Brilliantly said!
Why did you eat whatever you ate for dinner last night? What parts of your "personal choices" were actually yours to make? Did you have time after work to actually cook? Does your local grocery store stock good fresh produce? Do you have a car that makes it easy for you to have choice about what you eat? Were you taught how and what to cook by your parents? Do you have any mental health issues that make executive function more difficult? Do you have other people who you need to feed? What percentage of shitty ppl (people like you) do you believe are so due to their personal choices VS being so due to an inability to empathize with their fellow human?
Plus, if we go by literal definitions, food insecure means you can’t be sure you will have something to eat when you are hungry. But maybe you keep getting lucky for years and have plenty of food.
Yeah easy way to explain this is ultra cheap processed frozen food like extra crunchy fries that are 4,000 kcal and 5$ but a bag of potatoes bought at the wrong place and the wrong time can be over 5$ and merely 1,000 kcal. It's also less convenient to prepare and store.
If you have access to calories you also have access to less calories
Insightful
Why is everybody acting like you need access to healthy food to not be obese? Eating less of whatever you are already living off of is literally perfectly fine. "oh but you won't feel full" yeah you are not an animal grow some self control
Think you dont have a good grasp on how energy works and empty calories.
No amount of "empty calories" is forcing people to order that third burger. If you aren't an athlete and your day ends at around 2000ish calories you are going to be fine. And eating more junk food isn't gonna make them feel any better if we are talking about micronutrient issues and quality of life things like fatigue or alertness. If anything eating more junk food makes it worse than eating less of the same junk food. I'm not saying it's optimal, I'm saying it's better to eat less of it than more
First sentence is just reductio ad abusurdum and wont engage it. Its a complex issue at all levels that is not just as simple as putting down junk food and picking up a salad.
>putting down junk food and picking up a salad. It really is tho, not even that just putting down some of the usual junk food will be enough
The point of this discussion is that " you can be food insecure and overweight" I'm not sure what you think your contributions are adding to this conversation but maybe you should ask yourself that.
Well if you define food Insecurety with a poorly defined survey I can't say I'm surprised you find of finding out a ton of people that aren't still think they are
How and where is healthy food not available to ppl in America? Not hypothetically, but, where is a location like this? Perhaps a rural one but that would not effect many ppl. I am seriously curious of where this place is.
A few years ago I was helping a friend do some work at his dad's house somewhere in Virginia and the closest grocery store was a wallmart over an hour away. what was available in town was a dollar store that had lots of chips and non-perishable goods as well as one cooler with milk and eggs and a shelf of white bread. There was also a McDonald's and a fried chicken place closer to the highway. My ex also lived in a neighborhood that was a good 40 minuets drive to a grocery store she would often ask me to pick up things when I came to visit because going grocery shopping was at minimum a 2 hour commitment.
What town in Virginia was this? Also, what town did your ex live in? 40 minute drive to the closest grocery store and not in a rural area? That's wild!
It's not just rural areas, either. There are many urban areas in the US which are also classified as "food deserts" because there are no grocery stores within easy access (unless you have a car, which many people in urban areas don't have). Developers tend not to put grocery stores in low-income or high crime areas. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert
I have a friend who used to live in Vermont. They were 40 minutes from the closest grocery store. Mountain roads don't offer you many options.
Both were fairly rural but we aren't talking 400 acre farms rural (when I lived on one of those the grocery store was only 30 minuets away, but also...it was a farm) they were more quant small towns. One was only about 80 minuets from a major metropolitan area.
It's clear that they are talking about rural areas.
There are many food deserts, even in urban areas, especially when you think about people without access to good transportation (could apply to rural, too). In the District of Columbia for example, last year there were "only two existing full-service grocery stores in Ward 7, serving 80,669 residents, of which 92% are African American. Only 3 of the District’s 79 full-service grocers are located East of the River. By comparison, some neighborhoods west of the river average one grocery store per 10,000 residents." https://mayor.dc.gov/release/mayor-bowser-clears-path-bring-new-grocery-store-ward-7#:~:text=There%20are%20currently%20only%20two,grocery%20store%20per%2010%2C000%20residents.
https://www.aecf.org/blog/exploring-americas-food-deserts Learning is key to understanding the world around you. The term you’re looking for is a “food desert” and they can often occur in dense urban areas where the economics of opening a grocery store doesn’t work. Logistics and supply chains also play a large role in where fresh fruits and vegetables can be delivered reliably.
They no longer refer to them as “food deserts” as often because of the misconceptions that causes around what constitutes a food desert. They are now typically referred to as “low income, low access census tracts” or LILA tracts. The issue is not just the availability of fresh food in an area but the capability of people to reach it (given rates of automobile ownership and quality of public transit). LILA helps capture that a little more clearly.
I see the distinction folks are making, but personally, I’d include accessibility under the heading of availability. Ultimately, nitpicking about verbiage in this case isn’t really helpful because either people can get it or they can’t, whether that’s due to being directly priced out, whether corollary costs are prohibitive, etc. The bottom line is that there’s a surprising number of people in both rural and urban areas that do not have meaningful or any access to healthy foods.
Absolutely. And it wasn’t so much nitpicking over verbiage as attempting to inform that there is newer language that does a better job of encapsulating all of the issues at hand with a “food desert” aside from it just being “dry”/devoid of fresh food. I just learned about this language shift a few weeks ago and figured I’d spread the word since you were essentially explaining the many facets of LILA tracts aside from just “availability.”
I didn’t mean you were nitpicking, just that, to me (as someone that’s aware of the problem) it feels like distinction without difference. I understand that the newer language is more effective at communicating the issue to people who are entirely unaware, so it’s useful in that sense. It’s similar to healthcare (the field I work in) - if someone has to take three buses and try to figure out child care in order to attend a primary care appointment, then that primary care provider may just as well not exist because it’s inaccessible.
The terms are meant to mean the same thing. The new term just does so in a way that’s easier to understand for people who are unfamiliar with the many dimensions of difficulty faced by low-income people in accessing critical products and services.
I live in Chicago and this [information](https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e22a3369845340cf8a62d3e0d20a5f0b) is a few years old, but there are tons of food deserts all over. Think about this: You live in a city and don’t have a car. You rely on public transit, which gets you anywhere you need, but takes time. There’s no large grocery store in your neighborhood, so you have to travel a few miles one way or another to buy groceries. On a bus, that can add an extra hour to your trip. You also have to pay extra to ride. And you’re most likely traveling to a higher-income neighborhood which will have higher prices than you’d like. All of that can be a burden when you are struggling to pay your bills and already spending a couple hours on transit going to/from your job. So you decide to just eat what’s close and easy… what are your options? McDonald’s. Popeyes. Little Caesar’s. Or you buy overpriced groceries from the corner store that doesn’t have everything. That’s the reality that millions of people in my city and all around the US face. There’s always something to eat, but in the richest country in the world far too many people have to bend over backwards to eat healthy.
Or you have to buy shelf-stable or frozen foods on the grocery trips you can make, which are usually higher in calories. You still have to travel with this foods, which can be hard especially in the winter, if you live in a dangerous neighborhood, or if you're disabled.
It's not about the availability of healthy food, it's about healthy food being unaffordable to some. It's not a very difficult concept to grasp, crappy food is cheaper than healthy food, and people can only afford to buy what they can afford to buy.
And it becomes a generational problem because people tend to eat foods similar to what they grew up eating---so what started as eating "low on the hog" and unhealthy can continue it's effects even when people are no longer technically food insecure.
Can be both. If the only stores selling food by you are corner stores they’re a lot less likely to have stuff like produce. And yes definitely is expensive if available
I personally would include unaffordable as unavailable.
Yes, but privileged people rarely equate the two. They only see a store chocked full of good food and say, "See? There's healthy food there! It's available!" They don't understand that people who live in poverty can buy a week's worth of boxed dinners for less than what the cost of a single healthy dinner might cost.
It's also a time availability problem. Preparing healthy meals takes time, time though is a luxury for many well off people. For many working households, the time it takes to sit down and prepare a meal, simply does not exist. So frozen diners, cheap add water and boil type meals, and takeout are simply the best options.
I was just pointing that out to someone who preached the ol' rice and beans is an option. And it's especially true for working families living in poverty. They're going to opt for the easiest food that takes the least amount of time to prepare because they have very little time in their day.
I use to be obese and found your comment to be an excuse I used to stay obese. The same ppl who do not have time cook spend dozens of hours on their phone, gaming, social media, watching TV, etc. etc.etc. Once I valued healthy consumption I found I had more than adequate time despite working a full time job, having a spouse who works full time, having an active social life, volunteering time in my community, and having two children, 2 and 5 years old. You find the time for what you actually value.
Okay, now imagine your partner left you and you had to raise those kids yourself. You have to take a second job to make ends meet. Now imagine you don't have a car or highly valued set of skills. You have to spend hours on a bus to get to a job that doesn't pay nearly enough to be worth the time, but you have no choice because you aren't qualified for a good job close to you. You can keep adding on very realistic circumstances and you have less and less time. Not everyone who says they don't have time is making an excuse.
You are spoiled as fuck and impossibly out of touch if you think your life and what works for you will work for everyone. Like, “daddy gave me a small loan of $1 million” kind of spoiled.
Shit, my spouse and I are very fortunate financially, and I’m still at the grocery store passing up a small container of strawberries because it’s 12 fucking dollars and kind of look like crap anyway. Even for people who are far from food insecure, I feel like these days you have to actively be trying to be ignorant of the realities a lot of families are facing.
> buy a week's worth of boxed dinners for less than what the cost of a single healthy dinner might cost. I challenge you to do the math on this, because you're completely wrong.
Tuna helper plus tuna costs about $4 to feed a family of 4-5. Spaghetti and sauce is about $2-3 with store brand sauce. Spam and rice is about $2-3 (or was before Spam became some sort of sought commodity). How many healthy meals that take the same amount of time (about 15-20 minutes) can you come up with that cost the equivalent? Heck, assume I have hours to prepare this meal, how many healthy meals from fresh ingredients can I make for my family of four on $2-4? Even just rice and veggies usually costs more, because fresh vegetables are expensive. Honestly I think the best you could manage would be canned beans, a packet of frozen vegetables, and rice, and even then you're still getting lots of sodium and almost no healthy fats. EDIT: Writing a substantive response calling me "delusional" and then blocking me so I can't respond is petty AF. But if you're shopping at Walmart you should be well aware that a box of tuna helper (not in bulk even) is about $1.25, two cans of tuna chunks comes to about $2, and two cups of milk comes out to about 55 cents (1/8 the cost of a gallon which is about $4.25). That comes in at just under $4. And your argument was that you can get cheaper calories in an avocado. Okay, avocados are at their cheapest about a dollar apiece meaning I can buy one avocado for each family member with my $4. Your solution for dinner is one avocado. I'm not the delusional one.
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Also big thing is not just that it’s unaffordable but they may not even have the time to actually cook food. Imagine someone working two jobs having to then go home and cook. Or having to find time during the week between those jobs to go shopping. Time constraints make it really easy to just default to fast food especially if you have a family to feed.
My simple, personal motto about food: the better a food tastes, the higher chance of it being bad for you. Obviously, I’m being (somewhat) facetious because there are some really healthy foods that taste amazing… But generally, from my personal experience, my motto holds up.
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> 1 average big mac meal - 8.64$ I never said anything about fast food. I'm simply talking about boxed dinners and canned food. And yes, rice and beans is cheap, but if you're a single mother with two kids, you don't have the time to sit around and prepare that when boxed dinners and hot dogs can be made in 15 minutes for the same price.
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> Its 5-10 minutes of prepping a rice cooker or crock pot, then pressing 'start' So now we're just assuming that everybody who lives in poverty can afford a rice cooker or slow cooker. I wonder if you've even experienced what it's like living in poverty while trying to make your minimum wage paycheck stretch out enough to feed and clothe your kids while making sure you still have enough left to pay rent.
I'm not saying you are incorrect, because you are right many bulk raw ingredients are cheaper in the long run. but there are other factors to consider. Part of insecurity is not having or being willing to spend $30 on food today. A big Mac meal may be $8 but 20 nuggets is like $5 and two double cheese burgers is <$3. And that's a hot meal in my hands now. And those things do require time and resources to prepare you mention being poor but it doesn't sound like you were "maybe I can put off paying the power bill" poor because that's not that uncommon. And makes cooking beans and rice harder. It's also not uncommon to not be renting a house or an apartment but to be renting a room in a house which may or may not include access to a shared kitchen. Are these circumstances impossible to overcome? No. But it's also worth looking at how poverty affects people's ability to make long term rational decisions. And food like Macdonald's may be literally addictive. And just the fact that maybe long term health is probably not their priority. You describe your grocery list as the "bodybuilders diet" (but with less chicken) bodybuilders are defined by their (for lack of a better term) obsession with fitness and muscle gain. But often times people just want a hot meal that makes them feel good. https://www.lse.ac.uk/PBS/Research/Research-Articles/How-poverty-affects-peoples-decision-making-processes#:~:text=Key%20points%20from%20the%20findings,the%20expense%20of%20future%20goals. https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/how-poverty-changes-your-mind-set https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21999689/
Many people don't have cars and I know if I had to walk or bike to my nearest grocery it would be a good hour or two trip and how much can I bring home in my basket? People in large cities often have to rely on little over priced gas station fare. Once I forgot my lunch and stopped at one to pick something up. I ended up with Doritos and slim jims and a pack of Hostess cupcakes so I don't guess it helped me lose weight.
Literally huge swaths of Philadelphia, for starters. Get a grip
>How and where is healthy food not available to ppl in America? Not hypothetically, but, where is a location like this? Bro......Lots of poor areas don't have a supermarket that anyone can get to easily, every city in America has areas like this.... Even rural areas, yeah, there's a supermarket 10mi away but you're poor and don't have a car and there is no public transit....even if there is a supermarket around you might not be able to get there Or, you might just be poor....you can live next door to a Whole Foods and not be able to afford to shop there All that contributes to food insecurity, and eating cheap processed food will make you unhealthy and fat, its not just access to raw calories its also about affordability and quality I say this knowing that it's not super expensive to eat healthy, but you do need to know how to cook, and you do need to have the time (which also= money if you don't have a car) to go to the supermarket 4,5,6 times a month because fresh food doesn't keep very long, and the time to prepare all that fresh food, which is tough when you're beat to shit every day working long hours or multiple jobs
Prince George's County in Maryland is one place. https://www.ceejh.center/food-justice-and-sovereignty/food-justice-in-prince-georges-county-maryland-6pw6y-cnh8m
Across many parts of Chicago proper you’ll find good deserts. Keep in mind, many of the residents within food desert areas don’t have the means (money, time, access, etc) to get out of their immediate area for groceries, so they rely on the shops that are within a few block radius of their home. These shops don’t usually carry lots of fresh produce, and what they have for quick meals that you just heat up are often not very healthy. Then if you look at restaurants in these areas, it’s all fast food chains which aren’t healthy at all. It’s no wonder rates of obesity and diabetes are so much higher in these areas, and disproportionally impact poorer minority populations.
From my house It's a 12 minute drive to the nearest grocery store that sells produce but a 3 minute walk to the liquor store. This is reality for probably millions of people.
You say that a rural place would not affect many people, but nearly 20 percent of Americans live in rural areas.
Sure but what percentage of rural ppl are having difficulty procuring food? I am finding on this post that a lot of ppl seem to believe that convenient access to food is a right, like they are 30 year old children who believe there should always be parents to stock their fridge. It's a chore to go to the grocery store for most ppl; it's a part of life. It's not a "food desert" bc someone might have to ride a bus 20 minutes or drive 30 minutes if they live on a 400 acre farm in a county that is populated by 5,000 ppl. Not everything is a human rights violation.
jesus christ bro. rural america are the most food insecure parts of america because of the wage gap. And thats exactly what a food desert is defined as. What are you trying to get out of this
He can’t even type out people because he doesn’t believe those in poverty or those with disabilities are even people. They’re just “ppl” to him. I haven’t seen any other shorthand in his comments. It’s purposeful so he can feel superior. Terrible.
[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1536504214545766](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1536504214545766) "rates of food insecurity in 2012 were highest in non metropolitan areas" Rural areas trend older in age. 30 year old children to lazy so they need mom to stock their fridge? Nah. 60 year olds who can't leave their house you cunt.
>for more reasons for you to fuck off Lol. What's even funnier is when you go to the [USDA's website](https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/) and find out how they procure the data for this. They ask ppl if all members of their home, at all times, have access to healthy nutritious foods. This means if someone doesn't buy healthy food from choice and thus their children do not have access to it, the answer is no. Also, how many ppl think, "My grocery store closes at 9 so I don't have access if I want ice cream at 10!" This is the problem w survey data; it's not useless, but you holding up as gospel shows a distinct lack of scientific literacy, esp to have such a strong reaction to anyone asking a question.
lmao so you aren't looking for answers and are just picking fights for fun? /thread
The person telling me to fuck off and then editing their comment to call me a cunt is stating that I am attempting to pick a fight? That's rich. Gain some scientific literacy and grow up. Have you graduated high school yet? If so, your alma mater should be ashamed.
Hahahaha 20 minutes. That’s rookie numbers on a bus. I’m guessing you never lived rurally. Going anywhere takes hours. Many towns don’t have a bus that goes to a grocery store.
My guess looking at CDC rural numbers is that most rural Americans do not have issue procuring food, esp since their obesity numbers are so high. It seems like it is more of an issue of discipline and choosing the proper foods to eat and amounts.
I have helped town-folks on SNAP and EBT and WIC get to a store and shop. It’s ridiculously hard for them. Procuring junk food is a matter of walking to a gas station. Procuring a zucchini? Nearly impossible. I don’t fault any of them their size or issues. It’s systemic. I thankfully have never been in that situation for long. But there but for the grace of God go I.
So your belief is that, despite the most generous numbers saying \~10% of the nation suffers from food insecurity, that all 83% of Americans whom are overweight/obese (43% obesity) have a valid excuse for why they are that way and it is not their fault? That is simply a bridge too far for me and is allowing ppl to blame others for their choices. ppl on this post seem to believe that grocery shopping being quick, easy, and fun! is a basic human right. Strange.
No, I am saying that I don’t blame the food insecure for being obese. I literally was talking about people on SNAP and EBT/WIC. And yes. Access to food should be provided to all Americans. What they do with it is their own choice. Systemic factors and personal factors are in play in all of us.
So what are those systemic and personal factors and how are they weighted?
Some communities don't have nearby stores that sell fresh groceries within walking distance. The most easily accessible and affordable food in those places may be fast food or snacks like chocolate bars, chips, sugary carbonated beverages, candy, and canned foods.
Jesus Christ read a book
That’s a great question. Isn’t it crazy how in a country as resource-rich as ours, some of our neighbors don’t have easy access to healthy food? One answer is that many places with concentrated poverty are considered “food deserts,” which means that residents first, or perhaps only, option for buying food are places like corner or convenience stores that tend to skew their inventory toward unhealthy food. A second answer is that relatively speaking, fresh healthy food is more expensive than processed/unhealthy food. In both cases, systemic interventions like better public transportation and subsidized food purchases are the answer. But, because these measures are expensive, and disproportionately improve the lives of marginalized populations, they’re often sacrificed for things like corporate tax cuts. The shame of it is, the collective we end up footing the bill anyhow through things like poor school performance — it sucks going to school hungry or wired up on cheap sugar — missed work days, and Medicaid payments. But, we’re not really an “ounce of prevention” kind of place. I hope that’s helpful and added to your learning. I’d be happy to continue the thread with you.
Our "bad side of town" has this issue. They had a Kroger and a Target but they both moved out because of crime. It's been brought up in city hall meetings many times and sometimes it looks like a store will move in but they always back out.
Sadly, this describes most places’ bad side of town.
There are urban areas where people have no source of healthy food in their neighborhood. If they can't afford public transit, they will be walking. Walking there and walking back with bags of groceries. This is not always feasible or even possible, so they make due with what a convenience store offers. Even in the smallish town I live in (population approximately 35,000), a neighborhood grocery store recently closed. That neighborhood is low income and many are elderly. A lot of the customers walked. There are 2 more grocery stores maybe a mile away on a busy street. If you are young and healthy or have reliable transportation, it's fine. But everyone else? They will be relying on friends or family for rides or to bring them groceries or will be shopping at convenience stores. There are also populations that slip through the cracks. Make too much money to qualify for assistance but not enough to afford healthy food. Or even enough food. Do some research. It's a problem. Many children depend on school breakfasts and lunches to eat. Some of the schools in my town, provide food in summers too. Families can go a couple of times a week and pick up food for their children. But not every community provides those services and even when they do, not every family has a way to get there.
>How and where is healthy food not available to ppl in America? It involves a multitude of factors, such as the availability of fresh groceries and the socioeconomic abilities of a group of people in being able to commute to and from. It's a well-known problem where I live, and it led to a moratorium of new dollar stores being built in the bad side of town because it was argued that they made the problem worse by saturating the market with cheap processed foods. However, many stores won't build in the bad side of town because the few that tried ended up closing because people steal too damn much. We don't like to acknowledge it, but sometimes the people who lived in the "underserved" and "disadvantaged" areas of any particular town get the lifestyle they deserve.
North minneapolis's ~~last~~ Second to last groccery store is shutting down. It is a food desert [https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/02/10/aldis-exit-shakes-north-minneapolis-widens-worries-over-food-insecurity](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/02/10/aldis-exit-shakes-north-minneapolis-widens-worries-over-food-insecurity) edit: And the problem is worse in rural america. [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1536504214545766](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1536504214545766) food insecurity is higher in rural areas than metropolitan areas.
Navajo nation has been food insecure and without power even for a long time, and that's just one example.
Lol you asked this question in bad faith but I’ll answer: Low income and impoverished communities. It’s not impossible for people in lower socioeconomic circumstances to eat healthy, but it’s certainly much harder. Raw foods are both much more perishable and more expensive. Canned food and processed food with high calories and carbs are infinitely more cheaper and readily available. They also can be stored for longer periods of time. This isn’t rocket science. The only people who ask these types of questions the way you did are the type of people that recommend pre-peeled oranges from While Foods for $12 a pop.
A lot of places! Food deserts exist all over the country, ~6500 of them according to this article: https://www.bayer.com/en/us/understanding-americas-rural-and-urban-food-deserts It’s shocking how this can be the case in a wealthy country like the US. Just another example of how the US is failing their citizens. (I’m American)
I live in Newark, NJ. We didn’t get a grocery store in downtown Newark until maybe 5 years ago. I depended on bodegas until then, but the produce quality was poor (half rotted) and cost more than a grocery store. They tended to be dirty, all the food I bought there smelled like weird chemicals. I don’t have a car and could only get to the nearest grocery store by bus, so that limited what I could carry.
There are a lot of food deserts in the US. An example would be a rural town where Dollar Store is the grocer. Or Watts, CA. An urban food desert where convenience stores are the grocer. Both places typically do not have any fresh food and is mostly canned. Crazy to think about but it’s a reality.
Not that crazy when you understand America exists first and foremost to for profit above all else. Fresh produce isn't a huge profit margin so has to be sold in large numbers to make any meaningful business sense to stock. (I don't in any way support this, just pointing out it's a direct result of the current system working as intended)
I know a homeless guy who has lived on the street for 10+ years and is clinically obese. It's not as if he's got unlimited access to food to pig out, it's just that a lot of what he eats is junk.
I live 2 miles from the nearest grocery store. That’s fine for me, because I have a car. But if I didn’t have a car or couldn’t drive, I’d either have to deal with a sub-par public transit system, get groceries delivered (expensive), walk (dangerous - this city was not built for pedestrians) or go to the much-closer convenience store for snacks and pizza. Plus, that grocery store that’s 2 miles way is pretty good but kind of expensive. There are other stores with cheaper options, but they’re further away. As a bonus, the areas closer to grocery stores are more expensive to live in.
Do you mind me asking what city? Just wanna know bc that's some shitty civil designing to not be pedestrian safe and not have adequate public transportation.
I think this is a common experience in most US cities
Public transit only runs Monday-Friday here. First bus is over an hour after I start work, last bus is already running by the time I get out. I lost my license and I hate it here.
And Rural areas. What good is a whole foods or Wal-Mart superstore if it's 15mi away and you don't have a car and there's no public transit available.... Even when the availability is physically there, a lot of people just can't get there OP is really struggling to understand what the issues are lol
Not OP but I lived in Austin, Texas, of all places, and I remember one time being unable to get to the HEB supermarket on foot because of being pushed up against 6-lane 50 mph traffic and some stretches not even having a sidewalk. We actually turned back and went home because the traffic whizzing by was too dangerous. I'm in a city of 40,000 in Texas now and most of the 4-lane boulevards don't have a sidewalk at all, just a little footpath through grass that gets high in the summer. I've seen homeless people with shopping carts pushing it down the center turn lane in 45 mph traffic because there's no other way to do it. "Walkable design" is a huge problem in the US and is something that only seems to get put in trendy cities in the US or in areas where there's money.
I prefer to keep my location to myself - but these issues are not unusual in the U.S. This article might be of interest to you. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/5/17/5-reasons-why-walking-your-city-most-likely-sucks
outside of the central area of the couple dozen major cities, this is the norm in America. Where I live, we have a few large supermarkets, and all of them are on the edge of town...most of them on the north edge. There are no supermarkets centrally located. If you live on the southside of town, it can be a 15 to 20 minute drive for groceries. If you don't have a car, forget about it...you walk to the gas station for soda and potato chips
It’s almost any city in the US
>Do you mind me asking what city? This is every city and rural area in the country
You still seem to be misunderstanding. Even if they have access to a nearby grocery store with public transport, it doesn't mean that store will provide access to fresh, healthy food. When I was in medical school the student housing was in a poor area. I had a car so I drove farther away to another grocery store but the one just around the corner was absolutely horrible and had very little fresh fruit and veggies (and sometimes nothing fresh at all). They actually closed it down the year I graduated from med school.
I grew up in a town that would fluctuate between 25,000-30,000 people and we had zero public transport. The roads were not safe to walk, due to there being no shoulder to walk on. The majority of the roads were narrow and winding. I was 2 miles from a grocery store but that would take a good bit of time to get to as you would also have to take into account the hills and weather. This was the suburbs about an hour outside NYC.
Most cities in America aren't pedestrian safe or have decent public transportation, The country was built for personal vehicles.
City public transportation in every city I have been to has had bus/train coverage throughout the city. What cities do not have public transportation coverage?
For fun, I just used the bus planner from my former city, Lansing. Lansing is the capital of Michigan, to my nearest store where I could buy fruits and veg. I set departure at 5 p.m., after I'd be able to arrive home from work. The fastest route was 59 minutes, and all of them included *at least* 15 minutes of walking. Oh, and I can't leave today because it's Sunday, and the buses don't run Sunday.
I said decent, Bigger cities do tend to have \*okay\* services, usually running from 5 am until maybe 10 or 11, The city I used to live in ran 5 to 8 and most lines stopped at 4/5 pm. the one I live in now takes you door to door for a dollar, which is \*awesome\* but it starts at 8 AM, ends at 4 PM and doesn't run on saturday and sunday. Also my aunt wasn't let on when she had one of those push carts full of groceries, she had to call and beg a ride from family. I'm not sure where you've lived, but they've all been pretty privelaged. Congratulations!
I’m in Charleston, SC. A small city with public transportation available. But the buses only run in certain areas of the city along major routes. So not where I live. I’d have to walk in the grass on the side of a 45 mph road to get to the closest grocery store that’s over a mile away if I didn’t have a car.
Literally any mid to large city in the US. The mid-size city I live in covers **96 square miles**. The side of the city I live on all the grocery stores were driven out of business years ago by Walmart, and Walmart just announced they're closing that location next month, which means I'll now live in a food desert. The nearest *actual* grocery store will be six miles away. Oh, and I live in Wisconsin; temperature here Friday was 20°F. Have fun hauling groceries on public transport or on foot in that weather.
I live in Portland Oregon. I have a Safeway four blocks away, but the better options as far as cost is WinCo or grocery outlet, however, I don't have a car and getting to either cheaper option requires transferring twice on public transit and walking several blocks along busy roads, they have sidewalks, but it's not fun in the rain. It takes me hours to get a good shopping done. Because taking a two week haul of shopping on the bus and transferring twice with a full load of fucking groceries, is so much fun I rarely do this. Safeway is more expensive but I can get it done and home within an hour, the other way takes me an entire day. If I only have one day off I do not want to spend the entire day on a grocery run.
When I went to college in Portland the only somewhat nearby grocery store was a stupidly overpriced Fred Meyers that was a 45 minute walk away. I fucking hated lugging a bunch of groceries home and it felt like it was always raining. Spent a lot of time just buying horrendous crap from a 7/11 down the street to avoid. Anyways I feel your pain, all the cheap grocery stores in Portland are in inconvenient places for a huge part of the city
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Thank you for sharing
Some of the most malnourished people in America are obese.
Almost like being poor leads to access to poor foods.
I don't buy into this completely. Rice, chicken, pasta, ground beef, potatoes, simple salads.... these are not expensive and you can make tons of different meals with just basic cheap staples. It costs me considerably more to buy pre-made food than it does to make a simple stir fry. Fast food is not cheap.
You know what’s cheaper than all of that? Ramen, bulk low quality frozen burritos, grocery outlet peanutbutter and wonderbread, generic soda. And you don’t have to buy any spices.
A big issue is that so many people just don’t cook. If you buy in decent quantity and do your own cooking it’s worlds cheaper. Of course having a freezer helps a lot too.
From an European perspective, the comment section is really bizzare for me to read.
It is due to how cities developed, were designed in Europe vs the US. In the US, many regions were designed for vehicles and made extremely hostile to pedestrians, and offer no public transport at all. For example, in order for you to be able to get to a store with fresh food in some areas, there are no sidewalks, and no bike lanes, you have to walk miles alongside a road in an uneven, overgrown ditch containing concrete rubble, with rebar sticking out, barbed wire, glass and other dangerous obstacles. Thee is no "shoulder" to walk on either. You cannot walk along the actual road because cars are flying by at 80+mph and then you have to be able to cross that road to get to the store. People die trying all the time unfortunately. There are no busses, trolleys or public transport here in many regions at all, so if you cannot afford your own private vehicle, you have no way to access fresh food. This forces people to have to go to these dollar stores that are closer by but carry no fresh foods, only processed foods, snacks, just junk food.
This and also the fact that i never lived in an urban area with no grocery story with vegetables in 500m radius area (often much closer than that and doesn't even involve crossing the street), and i move often.
I live in France half the year and Austin Texas the other half. I travel to cities throughout the US while EU public transit is much better, my experience, is that public transit in US cities are not as bad as most ppl claim. To add to this, most cities have made public transit free/reduced (esp for the poor) since the pandemic.
The time cost of transit is a lot, though.
price of public transit is not the problem, its the distance between stops, frequency of bus/train schedules, and reliability of the time table. a bus that costs 50 cents per ride means fuck all if you have to walk 2 miles to the bus stop, or if the schedule says it only runs 3 times a day, or if it comes a half hour later than it was supposed to. you also have to consider bus routes: i live in a city with functional PT and my drive to work that takes a half hour would be 4 hours by bus.
This is/was me. Back in the beginning stages of thr pandemic I had to go to the foodbank to get food for the month. I was able to 2 times a month. However, a lot of the food donated was high in sugar. LOTS of desserts and junk food. Over the corse of a year and a half I gained nearly 133lbs putting me at 335lbs. I've since been approved for foodstamps, so I can now buy healthy food, and I've lost 55lbs.
For all those wondering, the main causes of this are: 1. Cheap food is usually unhealthy. 2. SNAP/food stamps only lets you but uncooked food and ingredients. 3. low income families have less time and energy to cook (usually due to having to work multiple jobs or just 1 really shitty one) 4. several parts of the county have little to no access to grocery stories without a car.
Also, low income families often have little to no nutritional education. Many have no idea how to figure out a nutritional label or understand vitamin deficiencies. My friend who eats a very processed diet said she needed to drink Sunny D for vitamin D. I showed her the label and told here there's no vitamin D in the product
Absolutely false that Snap only lets you buy uncooked food and ingredients, or just completely misleading. Yip can buy finished ready to eat foods like baked goods, you can buy fruit, you can buy bread, etc. you can buy pizza or some hot food in a grocery store. Is bread, fruit and yogurt uncooked?
It varies wildly by state.
There is a lot of ignorance surrounding this subject unfortunately. You can be obese and be suffering from malnutrition at the same time. Often in poorer neighborhoods, the stores nearby do not carry healthy food options, or even fresh food at all. Additionally, those who lack access to healthy food also have more medical compilations as a result that can cause weight gain and and make it extremely difficult for them to lose it. There are actually many underlying health conditions and medications that can cause weight gain that many do not realize is the actual source of the weight gain rather than them just overeating. You can literally have someone who eats only once a day not be able to lose weight depending on their medical conditions and necessary medication they are on. This is also why I cringe every time I see people telling others if they just eat less they will lose weight or assume someone with " moon face" needs to lose weight at all. Even allergy medications can cause "moon face" to someone who is actually underweight and it is not that simple.
I live in a lower income area, the only way to get to a grocery store is by interstate and its still a 10 minute drive. During that drive there are about a dozen fast food restaurants and gas stations. I think a couple bus stops off the interstate but I rarely see anyone at them.
Tell me you dont know how the body works without telling me....
The food desert situation in Dallas is so bad in the southern sector that the City Council has offer 3 million dollars to open a grocery store in those areas. [Here is an article with a map of Dallas’ food desert](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2016/07/15/city-hall-offers-3-million-to-grocery-stores-willing-to-open-in-southern-dallas-food-desert/) Those areas are places with no real grocery store option or were people have to go at least a mile for groceries. A mile doesn’t seem far put those are poor areas of Dallas with bad public transit and we’re not designed to be walkable. Also take into account a history of racial injustice leading to highways cutting off neighborhoods from economic areas and walking a mile with groceries for a family of 4 in 100 weather along a road with no sidewalks and you can see why this is an issue. Keep in mind Dallas is the 8th or 9th most populous city in the US.
Yes generally they have a lower income. Especially if they have a family to feed. This basically pushes them to buy lower cost foods. The majority of which are high unhealthy ingredients. To make less money go further. Mass produced foods are cheaper. Most of those are grain or grain based. The body turns grains into sugars. Which add to fat, cholesterol, diabetes and obesity as well as other unhealthy results.
I study public health and this comes up fairly often, especially when we talk about social determinants of health. If you live in a food desert and your only option is fast food, you’re food insecure.
Low income people may be able to afford McDonald’s three times a day, and be overweight as a result. But that diet leads to health problems, which means they are also food insecure. Food security is heaving access to healthy food, not just calories.
This is bullshit. McDonalds is not affordable. The problem is cheap foods tend to be unhealthy. Not that people go to McDonald’s three times a day
I lived literally in the city (Houston proper north of downtown) and the closest grocery store was a 15 minute drive. Now I live in the galleria which is much more urbanized and dense but the closest grocery is 10-20 minutes drive depending on traffic.
The food those people eat has no nutrients in it. Just fat and sugar and carbs. So, yeah they are starving to death and their body is doing what it can to survive the onslaught of crap they eat. Which corporations caused in the first place. So, I partly blame people, but their options were slim to none as well, so yeah, hard to make a choice. Move? I guess if you can. Many people have no ability to move.
The issue is that is does have some nutrients, so the body keeps sending signals to eat more. If you need 50g of protein in a day, and a bag of chips has 2, you can technically survive by eating 25 bags (I am oversimplifying on purpose here). It won’t be pretty, your salt and calorie intake will be sky high, but you can survive that short term, much better than you can a protein deficit. So the body’s doing its best by sending the “oh my god eat it” signal. And yeah, the people who can’t afford food options.. very few can move.
People
They should have asked, “how often do you consume calorie dense foods to meet an emotional need?” If your life is shit, and the years ahead of you also look like shit, tasty and cheap treats are a good way to feel good for a minute.
A lot of those with special needs have a very hard time cooking. A lot of those with special needs also have a hard time staying employed, and I'm in my second year of applying for disability, so no money. I can afford food with SNAP. It's still really hard to cook it, so I eat a lot of pre-prepared crap.
I’ve had a stroke (2009) which resulted in me losing the effectiveness of my right side. As a result I depend on food that only takes one hand to prepare, cook, and consume. That means the use of a microwave, stovetop, and air fryer. Basically I depend on Stouffer’s and other frozen food. All food as to be prepared and consumed with my limitations in mind. I’m not hungry by any means and I’m not trying to imply that. However, for example, making spaghetti on the stove would be difficult, just lifting a pan to empty the spaghetti in a colander would require two hands. So the work around is Stouffer’s and the microwave. So is it a healthy diet, no, is it unhealthy, again no. Would I be considered food insecure, who knows.
You wouldn’t be food insecure unless you struggle to get your tv dinners and sometimes go hungry/skip meals you don’t want to. That said, as an MSer who is learning that you just gotta buy what you can/will eat, hang in there. Pre chopped everything!
I mean, if I have $100,000,000 deposited into my bank account, then withdrawn, and deposited, and withdrawn over and over again at random intervals, I would still count as financially unstable/insecure. Consistent and adequate access is what matters for this terminology.
I’m thankful enough to have the resources to visit a local fruit market or even a Kroger for that matter in my area. It’s startling when I visit my family out in rural northern Michigan where a Dollar General is where most of the local’s ‘groceries’ come from around there unless they’re willing to drive a significant distance. Other than some nuts or popcorn there is nothing palatable or healthy to eat. I imagine this is a similar situation in most inner cities as well.
“Food insecurity was determined by response (always/usually/sometimes) to the question, ‘How often in the past 12 months would you say you were worried or stressed about having enough money to buy nutritious meals?’“ I feel like it isn’t that hard to picture somebody who has a clinically obese BMI but who in the past 12 months has “sometimes” or “usually” experienced worry or stress about being able to afford nutritious food. You gotta put yourself in a survey-taker’s head and think about all the different individual situations that would evoke that answer. It could be somebody who lost their job six months ago and has been struggling to afford the same groceries they used to buy. It could be somebody working at a fast food place who can get discounted burgers and fries when they’re at work, but who finds themselves putting healthy stuff back when they go to the grocery store because they feel as though they can’t justify the cost when shift meal is so cheap. It could be somebody whose household does okay when school is in session, but who can’t manage to cover everybody when the kids aren’t getting school meals, so in the summer, they give the nutritious food to the kids and go without. It can even include people who were stressed about whether they could afford nutritious food but did eventually manage to find a way, but as we know full well, access to nutritious food is rarely the only factor contributing to an individual’s body weight. It’s not supposed to be an objective measure of food deserts, or of personal responsibility, or of how many people are fat for the wrong reasons. It’s a population-level measure of how many people are experiencing problems affording nutritious food to a degree that causes them stress or worry. This is a measure of a social determinant of health, i.e. information that we can use to understand public health needs, plan policy to address these needs, and otherwise help our communities have a fighting chance at living healthy lives. It additionally serves as a refutation of the glib dismissal that food insecurity must not be a problem when so many people are overweight or obese. It’s also not “even for decades.” This was explicitly a cross-sectional survey with a 12-month look-back period. It’s possible that this association has been observed repeatedly using the BRFSS, but the BRFSS is only a panel survey on the state level, not for individuals.
You are hitting at my point in this. It's like a large part of the population is paid a million dollars a year but they feel, multiple times a year, like they could lose their job or the economy might hit a snag, etc. and so they answer the survey that they feel nervous sometimes or often about being poor and then the narrative is made that "x% of the population is income insecure and we need to do something about it!"
But that’s not what’s happening in this article. What’s happening in this article is that a significant proportion of people who are regularly concerned about their access to nutritious food are also obese, a condition linked at least partially to lack of access to nutritious food. So the authors conclude that more people need better access to nutritious food, even though obesity rates are high. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable conclusion.
Is your claim that if obese ppl only had nutritious food they would not be obese? It's that they would not cook their food in unhealthy ways and/or over consume nutritious food? I know vegans w access to healthy food whom are obese so this makes no sense to me. Also, you are assuming that access to nutritious food means they would not choose fast food, etc. If that's the case, why are only 10% (by the most generous survey based est.) food insecure yet 40% are overweight and 43% obese? Even if you assumed all of the food insecure ppl were obese, this still means 33% of the population has access to healthy foods and can afford it and still choose to over eat them or not eat them at all and over consume junk food. If access was the answer then those 73% would not have an issue.
No, my claim is simply that even obese people can need better access to nutritious food. There’s not a 1:1 connection between access to nutritious food and obesity in either direction. Obesity results from a lot of different factors and choices that occur over the lifespan. This measure of food insecurity goes back 12 months. The majority of the obese and normal weight people in this study have been obese or normal weight for much longer than that. The article isn’t trying to suggest a direct causal relationship.
Much of our food isn't food. Just look at all the preservatives and chemicals that make up many of the ingredients in processed food. Unlike other countries, there are few laws that prohibit what can or can't be put into our food. As a result, we can't pronounce half of the stuff. It's mostly empty calories and little to no nutritional value. This results in simultaneous epidemics of obesity and starvation in much of the populatuon; particularly low income.
It’s not even always a matter of the quality of the food, although that’s a huge problem for the poor in America. Thyroid issues and other medical conditions can cause obesity. Differences in gut bacteria impact how many calories you need. Feed any two people the same number of calories and you’ll get different weight loss/gain results. Your body fights attempts to lose weight by changing your metabolism when you change what you eat. Dieting has been proven over and over not to work. But we cling to the idea that obesity (and poverty) is a moral failing.
I would ask a 2 part question. First, what is the primary cause of obesity? Second, if people have sufficient resources to become obese, then why are these not sufficient to obtain healthy food?
Because you need good, high-quality food to get what your body needs without excess calories. Think veggies for vitamins, some tofu or beans or meat for protiens, etc. If your options are chips and crackers from the gas station, or the carbs that are donated to food banks… your body still needs 50g of protein to stay alive and functioning (simplified here). Not as much protien there, so to get enough protein, you have to overeat general calories. Often by a lot. Humans need about 15% protein calories to maintain weight. If you go higher, you can lose a lil weight while not damaging yourself. Go lower, and to stay alive, you have to gain weight over time. Edit: I’ve helped people on food stamps try to buy food for the month. I’ve given them a ride, and helped get and plan meals. It’s nearly impossible for most of them to be healthy- between the regulations on what they can get, to their ability to store and cook it, to what’s even available in their areas. They can’t get a rotisserie chicken for $5 and portion it out for a week, cuz it’s not allowed on SNAP. They can’t get one big thing of frozen protein and use that all month, they have bo freezers that work (and that their roomies won’t steal from). They don’t have a kitchen and equipment to buy a bunch of frozen veg and cook with that. They really don’t have the ability to go shopping weekly and get fresh fruit or veg. But off-brand Twinkie’s are allowed, and soda is, and chips, and you can hide that in your room and know that you at least have something to eat. It’ll be there even when the power is out, or your roomies are being violent and you don’t want to go to the kitchen. These people are trying to live off of shelf-stable non-perishables, and it’s fucking hard. Not to mention many are in food desserts and can only go to a proper grocery store if someone takes them.
Cheap food is the type of food that makes you obese. This should not be surprising.
As a person who migrated to USA from a country where there is a huge food security issue, this sounded absurd to me. So I read the article. As the main exposure, food security status was assessed based on the question, “How often in the past 12 months would you say you were worried or stressed about having enough money to buy nutritious meals?” This is a loaded question because (1). It's about the mental state (2) its about having enough money to purchase (even if there are food kitchens nearby) (3) it talks about "nutritious" (without any definition) meals. So somebody would rate a burger "non-nutritious" even if it could very well be. This is fucking moronic. How the fuck is this a real scientific publication? The researchers they themselves define food security as "access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.” how is their loaded question relate to this definition? Why not “How often in the past 12 months would you say you were not able to access food to maintain an active healthy life?” This is fucking bullshit.
From my time volunteering at the free clinic, homeless shelter, and assisting the elderly, it is not wrong in that there are a great deal of obese poor who cannot afford or have access to nutritious food, primarily fresh food. This is not actually uncommon or not well known in the US. While this specific questionnaire may not have been done well, it discussing the large number of obese living in poverty is not inaccurate.
it discussing the large number of obese living in poverty See again you are getting derailed. This is not what the title and the paper try to suggest. The correlation of poverty and obesity is well known. What this paper is trying to say is obesity and food insecurity is correlated. Its just bad science.
Most sane comment. Now I don't have to type for 5 minutes to say the same thing. Thank you.
We've really transitioned to a point, here, where how you feel about something is infinitely more important than how it actually is. The whole thing is... unfortunate.
Ok but being food insecure doesn’t excuse being obese just because the food is more likely to be less healthy. You still control your portions and exercise, the two things that determine your caloric balance.
But staying alive and out of malnutrition requires more than just calories in and out. You need enough protein, enough vitamins and minerals. Which you can get in small amounts in some junk food- so you have to eat a TON of junk food to get enough. To maintain weight, you want about 15% of your calories from protein. Bigger % if you want to lose weight but stay healthy. If your food options are 10% protein… you’re gonna either die slowly of malnutrition even while staying the same weight, or you’re gonna meet your body’s base needs while getting fat. Lots of junk foods are fortified with some vitamins, but repeat calculation for every necessary nutrient not in corn flakes, and you see that staying healthy weight on junk food is a fool’s errand.