McD's Contribution to a Heathier You

[rob]

It's just a choice. Of course the fact that bad food is cheap (thanks farm subsidies!), more abundant, and heavily advertised has absolutely nothing to do with influencing anyone's choices.

 

[rob]

sure, eating beans and rice every day with frozen vegetables would be really cheap. I wonder why the poor aren't doing that? It's all their choice.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

sure, eating beans and rice every day with frozen vegetables would be really cheap. I wonder why the poor aren't doing that? It's all their choice.

 

Beans, rice, potatos. They are called *staples* - you know the base food. You add other ingredients for flavor and variety. Duh.

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Yup. It is.

[prole]

Well, I don't know what 'the poor's' problems are...

 

That's been apparent for quite some time. Hasn't prevented you from playing the comic book store clerk from the Simpson's on any of the issues though, has it?

[j_b]

Sure, a family of 4 living of $66 per week in food stamps is really going to hit up the organic section at the local Safeway when they can buy an entire meal-in-a-box for $4.99?

 

$66 isn't going to be enough at the fast food outlet

 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/a-high-price-for-healthy-food/

 

the study likely compared averages but people on a very tight budget don't shop at average supermarkets.

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Sure, a family of 4 living of $66 per week in food stamps is really going to hit up the organic section at the local Safeway when they can buy an entire meal-in-a-box for $4.99?

 

$66 isn't going to be enough at the fast food outlet

 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/a-high-price-for-healthy-food/

 

Where do the poor shop, j_b? WHERE????

 

the study likely compared averages but people on a very tight budget don't shop at average supermarkets.

 

[rob]

So it sounds like there is no problem, then! We'll just keep making and marketing really crappy food and sell it quite cheaply, and all the suckers who buy it and get sick -- serves them right.

 

The brilliant part is it's yet another way to make sure the poor stay down beneath our boot, where they belong. We know the impoverished make bad choices (that's why they're poor, after all), so let's make sure they have plenty of opportunity to make lots of bad choices. It filters out all the bad genes.

 

I like it. Ship it.

[tvashtarkatena]

Information's cheap at all economic levels nowadays, and the whole country is fat, not just the poor.

 

It's a choice.

[rob]

Information's cheap at all economic levels nowadays, and the whole country is fat, not just the poor.

 

It's a choice.

 

The poor are disproportionately fat when compared to those that are more well-off. And according to most people who actually study this issue (i.e. not you and me) they're less educated about how to make smart choices regarding nutrition. Surrounding these people with more opportunities to make bad choices than good ones is a recipe for disaster.

 

Edited May 23, 2011 by rob

[j_b]

I guarantee that whatever meal in a box you can come up with (assuming it actually exists in the real world), I can beat healthwise and pricewise with a home cooked version.

 

Go....

 

With $5 I'll cook you a $20-30 restaurant meal but you keep missing that it requires time, knowledge and some degree of economic security to put it all together on a regular basis.

[j_b]

Information's cheap at all economic levels nowadays, and the whole country is fat, not just the poor.

 

It's a choice.

 

false. Acculturation isn't a choice. It results from the reality created by commercial TV.

[tvashtarkatena]

So it sounds like there is no problem, then! We'll just keep making and marketing really crappy food and sell it quite cheaply, and all the suckers who buy it and get sick -- serves them right.

 

The brilliant part is it's yet another way to make sure the poor stay down beneath our boot, where they belong. We know the impoverished make bad choices (that's why they're poor, after all), so let's make sure they have plenty of opportunity to make lots of bad choices. It filters out all the bad genes.

 

I like it. Ship it.

 

It's precisely this kind of hipster analysis (I know what The Poor Need )! that keeps the blame myths going. That 'the poor don't have time to cook' (bullshit), that KFC is cheaper than whole foods (bullshit).

 

At some point, namely, what you put into your body, personal responsibility has to come into play. Fat folks are mostly fat cuz they just don't give enough of a shit to have it any other way. If they did, they'd do something about it. Eating less comes to mind....

Edited May 23, 2011 by tvashtarkatena

[rob]

our society does a good job ensuring that many of us will be economically disenfranchised and uneducated. Do you dispute this?

 

Sure, it's all personal responsibility in the end, but that doesn't mean we can't do a lot as a functioning society to help end some of these vicious circles that accompany poverty.

 

Just saying, "oh well, they're just making bad choices" isn't really a workable solution to the problem.

[prole]

Recent research has also shown that food insecurity is related to obesity.8,9 This association is not intuitive as overweight is often attributed to overeating, and not to hunger and not eating enough (See Sidebar: Food Insecurity and Weight Gain, p.4). LACHS results indicate that a higher percentage of respondents living in lower income, food insecure households were obese (27%) as compared to those living in lower income, food secure households (20%) (Table 3). Additionally, a higher percentage of respondents living in lower income, food insecure households reported physical inactivity (49%), being disabled (30%), and living in a perceived unsafe neighborhood (40%) as compared to respondents living in lower income, food secure neighborhoods (Table 3). Thus, factors such as physical inactivity and living in neighborhoods perceived to be unsafe might put those living in food insecure households at further risk for obesity.

--from here.

[j_b]

It's precisely this kind of hipster analysis (I know what The Poor Need )!

 

lame. Either you acknowledge there is an obesity and food secruty crisis or you don't

 

that keeps the blame myths going. That 'the poor don't have time to cook' (bullshit),

 

working and keeping house and kids are at least 2 jobs. Do you have 2 jobs?

 

 

that KFC is cheaper than whole foods (bullshit).

 

people on a budget don't shop at whole foods

 

At some point, namely, what you put into your body, personal responsibility has to come into play. Fat folks are mostly fat cuz they just don't give enough of a shit to have it any other way. If they did, they'd do something about it. Eating less comes to mind....

 

So? perhaps it is time to address what makes them behave that way.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

So it sounds like there is no problem, then! We'll just keep making and marketing really crappy food and sell it quite cheaply, and all the suckers who buy it and get sick -- serves them right.

 

The brilliant part is it's yet another way to make sure the poor stay down beneath our boot, where they belong. We know the impoverished make bad choices (that's why they're poor, after all), so let's make sure they have plenty of opportunity to make lots of bad choices. It filters out all the bad genes.

 

I like it. Ship it.

 

bring back home ec. For all.

[j_b]

Recent research has also shown that food insecurity is related to obesity.8,9 This association is not intuitive as overweight is often attributed to overeating, and not to hunger and not eating enough (See Sidebar: Food Insecurity and Weight Gain, p.4). LACHS results indicate that a higher percentage of respondents living in lower income, food insecure households were obese (27%) as compared to those living in lower income, food secure households (20%) (Table 3). Additionally, a higher percentage of respondents living in lower income, food insecure households reported physical inactivity (49%), being disabled (30%), and living in a perceived unsafe neighborhood (40%) as compared to respondents living in lower income, food secure neighborhoods (Table 3). Thus, factors such as physical inactivity and living in neighborhoods perceived to be unsafe might put those living in food insecure households at further risk for obesity.

 

so obese people who go hungry are obese because they binge when food is available? or are the obese ones the fraction of the pop that doesn't go hungry?

[ivan]

 

So? perhaps it is time to address what makes them behave that way.

'cuz history's so full of successful examples of changing human behavior?

 

not giving a shit enough to change a thing is a theme that seems to play across damn near every problem out there

[j_b]

 

So? perhaps it is time to address what makes them behave that way.

'cuz history's so full of successful examples of changing human behavior?

 

because commercial advertising (propaganda) doesn't change human behavior?

[prole]

Yeah, everything we know and do here in 'Merica is just a natural outcome of the free expression of our deepest human natures. No explanation necessary, nothing has ever changed or will change. No history, no future, no politics, no power. Just consumer choice, ad infinitum...

[j_b]

Right, the soccer mom jumping the curb with a SUV that looked like a tank charging into Iraq looking for WMDs was a literal interpretation of human nature.

[ivan]

 

So? perhaps it is time to address what makes them behave that way.

'cuz history's so full of successful examples of changing human behavior?

 

because commercial advertising (propaganda) doesn't change human behavior?

commercials just help the rock get rolling down the mtn - doritoes pretty much sell themselves - do you deny that humans, bugs and everything else alive tend to find the path of least resistance, that cheap and easy, however suspect the content might be, is awful damn tempting to a big old chunk of the population?

[tvashtarkatena]

The missing GMO disclosure is what's afflicting the weightier poor, those great and stoic beasts, noble in their suffering. I've seen at least one great, fat pie wagon searching in vain for precisely this information, then, not finding it, tossing the pork rinds in her cart next to the already opened ballpark franks in resultant and entirely avoidable ignorance. She should count as at least 100 data points I should think.

[tvashtarkatena]

Fatitude is only weakly related to economic status. It's strongly related to rural living (limited types of food availability play a part - but they could grow their own like they used to, of course), and region. The South is fat as fuck, for example. Spend a languid, dripping summer there dodging BBQs and the reason becomes clear. The midwest is fat, but who really gives a shit. Californians still look better than the rest of you mutts.