Newsweek, on yet the next justification for wealth “sharing” and economic “fairness”: weight disparity:
While obesity is a complex problem—genetics, environment, and activity level all play a role—a 2008 study by the USDA found that children and women on food stamps were likelier to be overweight than those who were not. According to studies led by British epidemiologist Kate Pickett, obesity rates are highest in developed countries with the greatest income disparities. America is among the most obese of nations; Japan, with its relatively low income inequality, is the thinnest.
Are we allowed to point out a possible correlation between those on food stamps and some forms of laziness / substance abuse, etc? And that THOSE things cause BOTH the income disparity and the fatty fatty fatness?
Or is does that just gum up the works and mark me as a crass racist?
It might be interesting to look back and weight trends in America during, say, around the end of the 19th century, or the Dust Bowl years, when income disparity was also quite pronounced. And add that data to the equation. Because at times in this country’s history, the obese wore their obesity much the same way, say, many on both the left (and right) wear their Ivy League degrees: as badges of social status. Conversely, the poor, having less to eat and having to be more physically active to work, tended to be thinner (and often quite tan, as well). And of course, even charity cases adhered to the same work ethic that sociologists and leftists, through secularization and scapegoating, have for decades tried to excise from the US populace.
But then, I guess it’s easier still to simply pretend no one recognizes the giant inconsistencies in the argument and go all in with it. Which reminds me, the prospect of rapid global cooling and the coming Ice Age? That’s really due for a comeback.
And it’s going to require of us much sacrifice. And arugula…
(h/t Carin; also, thanks to Abe)
Who wants to eat a skinny rich person when you can eat a poor fat one?
Besides which, the poor are a renewable resource. Eating the rich? That’s eating the seed corn, that is.
Nums, tasty looking baby.
Obviously the solution is to make food more expensive.
So becoming disgustingly fat is not a good incentive to get off the food stamps I guess is the takeaway. I guess we need to find another carrot.
Hah! Get it?
Wait.. you mean people who aren’t working and leeching off the state are more likely to be couch potatoes?
That gives me an idea. I’m going to start a talk show where the lower class can come on and get paternity tests, accuse their baby-daddies of cheating, and generally misbehave! Ratings Gold! Now all I need is a liberal Midwestern ex-mayor to host it…
Obviously the solution is to make food more expensive.
Ahh. Currency devaluation/inflation is about helping us to eat better. I knew there was a reason!
People mired in income disparity didn’t much sit around eating free food back then. You might be on to something.
I lived — and grocery-shopped — in West Philly for three years. I grew accustomed to watching extremely overweight women (toting very skinny, young, ill-behaved children) “pay” for armloads of steak and bon-bons with food stamps. Also, they were unfailingly rude.
Out in the country, I’ve noticed that many of the men (who have jobs that involve some form of physical activity) are in pretty good shape.
Women? Not so much. I wonder if anyone’s looked into the sexism involved in this obesity crises?
If the solution to global warming was small electric cars and squiggly light bulbs, will the solution to global cooling be gigantic, SUV V-8’s and halogen spotlights all round?
What’s that?
Global cooling is because of human carbon emissions?
Oh. I see…
– If you include all the people doing “decadent Western lifestyles” studies, “junk science global weather” studies. and pinheaded “social justice/identity politics” classes, the national unemployment rate soars to 40%.
I used to live in a shitty neighborhood and I can assure everyone that the litter these pigs threw all over the place wasn’t apple cores and granola bar wrappers.
Would it be acceptable if the candidate was known to have hired prostitutes? With a personal check?
Jesus Tap Dancing Christ – our POOR PEOPLE ARE FAT. Shouldn’t we win an award or something?
I blame Norman Borlaug. The bastard.
Just wait for “the evening”, where they cut some flesh offa fatties and tape it onto the skinnies, so that we all weigh the same.
FOR THE CHILDREN!
I used to live in a shitty neighborhood and I can assure everyone that the litter these pigs threw all over the place wasn’t apple cores and granola bar wrappers.
When we lived in Detroit (I still own the house, empty now for three years), it was a daily job to pick the junk-food trash out of my gardens. The “poor” kids sure had money to load up on $5 or more worth of junk food before dinner.
And, another truth about urban dwellers; the street is their garbage can.
Nope. Because they’re poor.
And it’s everyone fault but theirs. They’re poor because you’re not.
That’s a common feature with poverty, not an urban thing.
“Ahh. Currency devaluation/inflation is about helping us to eat better. I knew there was a reason!”
Beck was just saying FDR, worried about deflation, had 6 million pigs slaughtered and burned to keep prices up.
You know, just before soup lines became common.
There are answers out there people!
Wickard v Filburn was the result of policy to keep grain prices high. Nice trade, eh?
And, another truth about urban dwellers; the street is their garbage can.
That’s a common feature with poverty, not an urban thing.
Well, I wasn’t really talking about urban hipster douchebags. I didn’t live on the trendy side of town.
If we raise taxes on the “rich,” then the fat, poor people will not be fat anymore. Or poor. Or something.
Several nights a week, they get takeout: Chinese, or Domino’s, or McDonald’s. Davis doesn’t buy fruits and vegetables mostly because they’re too expensive, and in the markets where she usually shops, they’re not fresh.
That’s pulled directly out of the article; no Dowdification here. The poor family eats fast food because produce it is less expensive and higher quality than produce. And yet, in the same article, we find a diabetic community organizer who buys “good” food on $75 a week. The former can’t be arsed to make the effort for her children, whereas the latter understands that his choices directly impact the health of himself and his mother.
Seems to me as though the healthy options are there if you’re motivated enough. One might almost posit that the poor get fat because they don’t make food choices as though their lives depended on it.
Making poverty comfortable seems to have had a few unintended consequences.
No, squid. It’s not the fault of a government that redistributes wealth to those who refuse to be productive. Nor is it the fault of individuals who make unhealthy choices. It is the fault of evil corporations that efficiently produce tasty snacks and then advertise them.
Squid, I like the part where she explains that they grab “bodega” (muffins and soda) food because they have to get up so early and rush rush rush.
And the saviors will, of course, be the corporations that produce “organic” food.
It is the fault of evil corporations that efficiently produce tasty snacks and then advertise them.
But this is not to be interpreted to mean that they’re too stupid to make good choices, or plan their life (or even a weekly menu) better.
No. They’re victims of corporate America.
Honestly, the only difference between the poor who are fat and the middle class who are the same, is that the one has a built in advocacy group. Everyone makes excuses for why they eat like shit. The behavior is exactly the same.
I refuse to buy organic food cause it’s a rip-off – I kick myself even if I buy just regular produce at Ralph’s cause it’s so much cheaper over in the ghetto north of NoHo plus you can get parking lot chicken there but you have to have cash cause parking lot chicken you can’t order in english and they don’t take American Express.
Also I stopped buying soy products cause I don’t wanna grow titties.
We already talked about the tasty punkin pudding.
Bodegas do have disgustingly unhealthy food options, but providing people with what they’ll pay for is kind of the whole fucking point of running a business.
And I don’t know if this is as true elsewhere, but many Koreans tried opening markets with quality produce in the shitholes of New York, but it turns out that the customers there don’t like it when an owner doesn’t like being stolen from.
With writing like that, it’s no surprise that Newsweek sold for a whole dollar. My neighbors would have to be tasty, tasty pigs or nicely marbled cattle to reflect my food values.
Yeah, supposedly junk food is the root of all evil in fattdom.
Yet, a nutrition professor managed to lose weight on a junk food diet.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html
2/3 of total calories came from so called “junk food.”
Heh.
I could easily live on three meals a day of fresh produce (and other healthy staples) from Kroger for less money per week than I’d spend on 21 Extra Value Meals.
Perhaps quantity might just be more important than quality?
I denounce myself as a fattist.
Bodegas do have disgustingly unhealthy food options, but providing people with what they’ll pay for is kind of the whole fucking point of running a business.
I don’t take issue with the Boegas. I take issue with an idiot who claims victim hood regarding the link between obesity and income and brings up this as an example of why the poor are fat.
It just sounds to me like the chick noted in the article was stupid and lazy. Too stupid to figure out the basic math involved in computing food cost at a fast food joint (or Bodega) versus the grocery store, and too lazy to get her kids up a few minutes earlier to make them something healthy for breakfast.
Hell, Carin, it doesn’t get much cheaper, easier and nutritious than Quaker Oats in the morning.
Although, that ten minutes of boiling and simmering can be tiring.
And cleaning up after…horrors!!!
As a mom of five, it isn’t a big mystery as to which is the more expensive food options. To take the entire family to McDonalds cost upwards of $35. Prolly closer to $40.
Scale demonstrates the reality.
For that same amount, we’d be eating a HELL of a lot better with stuff from the grocery store.
Wait, so your fatty fat fatness has to do with the number of calories you’re jamming into your pie hole?
Really?
I’m shocked.
Personally, I jam as many as I want into my pie hole, then work out enough that I work off those calories that go beyond what is required for me to maintain my weight.
Sometimes, I even look to put on weight, provided it’s muscle.
CRAZY!
Honestly. I’ve had enough of this crap.
I like bodegas. My point is that blaming the store for the preferences of the population is moronic. Especially considering the fact that the less money one has, the more stupid it is to shop at convenience-oriented stores on a daily basis as opposed to lugging your fat ass to a supermarket once a week with coupons in hand.
What?!? You not only expect her to figure out what proper food is, and buy it, but then you want her to prepare it too!?! Racist!
Pablo — in most neighborhoods, the guy raising chickens would be considered a nuisance.
Well, their prices are good.
(Not “great”, but “good”.)
Jeff G.,
The Newsweak article just pisses me off.
The writer is sanctimonious handwringing root causes progressive.
Nothing like flaunting the upper middle class lifestyle she enjoys while justifying the flaunting of her lifestyle through “caring” about nutrition and income inequality.
/rant
It takes a certain audaciousness in one’s suspension of disbelief to actually see the poorest people in America, observe that they’re also the fattest and most idle, and then conclude that the problem is an acute arugula deficit.
I like bodegas. My point is that blaming the store for the preferences of the population is moronic. Es
I don’t blame them at all.
I blame folks who choose gross food that makes it profitable to stock chips and soda, and a loss to stock bananas and green drinks.
And you can do better (25% or more) cost-wise if your neighborhood features a Super Wal-Mart.
Of course, there’s the downside (to a leftoid) of watching bits of your soul vanish as you walk in the door, but hey, everything’s a trade-off….
My husband and I are rather savy shoppers, and no one store is the magic bullet to saving money.
We’ve got two freezers, and when stuff goes on sale we LOAD up. Never pay full price on meat.
Ever.
Wow – that’s also the slogan for my gigolo business.
Mountain Dew?
Of course not. It’s one of the most competitive sectors in the economy, with margins of a fraction of a penny on the dollar. Some items (milk, in particular) are loss leaders for EVERYONE in the industry.
green drinks
Mountain Dew?
You’re hopeless. It’s a drink that has green leafy veggies, algie and other nasty stuff you wouldn’t normally consume.
they’re yummy.
Pond water?
I guess that may technically qualify.
I haven’t really tried that, though.
Carin,
Minnesota lake water qualifies too.
It isn’t very tasty.
After a couple of cases of “swimmers itch” and climbing out of a lake covered in green leafy crap, I gave up swimming in MN lakes.
Take Blake’s advice, everyone — stay away from my lakes. They’re evil and dangerous, and not at all pleasant. While you’re at it, don’t drive on my freeway (I-94 between the downtowns, in particular), either. Evil and dangerous.
I was in Minneapolis when the bridge collapsed. It’s a horrifying place full of walleye-breathed Lutherans with silly accents.
Exactly. Minneapolis is a hell-hole. Stay away if you know what’s good for you.
Yeah, and the city lakes, like Calhoun..bodies tend to show up once in a while.
Or the odd bandshell roof near Lake Harriet is torn off during a tornado and tossed into the lake.
Tornadoes, lutefisk and swimmers itch, oh my!
You know who I blame for my surplus of avoirdupois? Those greedy gold merchants who kept the Troy scale to themselves. If we measured people’s weight in pounds that only have 12 ounces, I’d be 25% lighter just like that.
[…]
What?
Oh. Shit.
Never mind.
I buy our beef right at the packing house that processes the cattle. If you ask for the cow that died in the trailer on the way to the packing house it’s LOTS cheaper!
Note to self: If Mueller offers dinner invitation, check menu before accepting.
“I blame folks who choose gross food that makes it profitable to stock chips and soda, and a loss to stock bananas and green drinks.”
Ummm, stock bananas and green drinks? ooooo kay.
I like a wide variety of food, and rarely can’t find what I want. Plus I have a juicer.
GET YOU PAWS OFF MY GROSS FOOD!!
Serious question though. How come if I want venison, I gotta shoot it myself?
Most people don’t want venison, Lee, or at least not enough to make it profitable to market it. Or those who do want it get their own.
When in doubt on anything, look to money as the deciding factor.
“And, another truth about urban dwellers; the street is their garbage can.”
So you HAVE been in Kabul and Baghdad then!
cranky-d, your comment led me to do a quick search, and found this discussion from this year. Key points:
and:
It’s always easier for the State to direct the activities of a handful of large companies than attempt to keep an eye on hundreds of smaller actors.
To say the Obama administration is not “socialist” is to deny the nose on your face. Toss in Hillary’s evocation of “progressivism” and THAT malignant strain of American politics’ connection to, well…
I have the solution for this troublesome situation: free flatscreen TVs that work by peddling a stationary bicycle, refrigerator doors that open by row machine, food stamp dispenser that ejects food stamps by treadmill action.
that’s practically a recipe for the reinstitutionalization of slavery
For the first time in human history we have more than enough to eat. People should be celebrating. My own father tells stories of filling your belly with the garden hose to make the “Hunger Pains” go away. Ah, those were the good times. FDR was in charge – food was being destroyed to up its value, there was a WPA job around every corner – the good life.
We will get past this phase in life. I hope.