I know it is said a lot that healthy food is more expensive than unhealthy food, but this is simply not true. Buying a thing of baby spinach in a plastic container and a bag of lunch meat and eating a self made vegetable wrap for lunch for the week is cheaper than eating out and is much healthier. The real issue isn't cost, it's laziness. People like to hide behind the cost associated with cooking for themselves, but what they really don't want is to wake up a few minutes early so they can make themselves lunch for the day, or stop playing a video game to make themselves dinner, or come home from work and make food for their family instead of sitting on the couch and watching reality tv.
Its not just laziness but depending on where you can shop. There are many neighborhoods where grocery stores that sell fresh food, aren't nearby and the small neighborhood stores and gas station stores generally don't stock fresh food and if they do its pricy. If you have access to a supermarket, or even better a Farmers' market, you can get fresh food relatively inexpensively.
Man, even Fiesta has spinach in a plastic container for a few dollars. if the only place you can shop is a gas station, sure, you have a problem. I guess I'll leave the constituency that only has gas stations and fast food restraunts close enough to them to purchase anything out of the conversation. Question though, where do these store deprived people get their clothes? Video games?
Very true, but you don't have daily physical education in schools either. Everyone is frantically trying to score high on tests.
Do you lay any blame at the feet of parents Glynch? Or does your "big gov" view of the world limit you to only seeing fault with the government for personal behavior?
The term is called "Food Desert" http://www.cdc.gov/Features/FoodDeserts/ You also have to figure that many poor don't have cars and might not be able to just drive to Fiesta while even if they can walk or take a bus consider how difficult it is to carry full sacks of groceries through a big parking lot. Now imagine doing that for a mile or more.
Sometimes the onus is on the parents - especially if they feed their kids Cheetos and chocolate shakes for breakfast. Maybe the rise of cable TV and video games has something to do with all this.
That is interesting but I think the percentage of obese kids that actually don't have feasible access to supermarkets is very low.
Have yall thought about how much time it goes into preparing a meal for a family? How many mothers/fathers out there work 10 to 12 hours a day. A lot of parents don't have time to cook healthy meals, let alone spend time with their kids for school, extra cirucular activities, and leisure. They're out there in the rat race working their ass off to ensure that shareholders stock price goes up a friggin nickel. The small middle class we do have left can be blamed for being lazy but the majority of Americans just don't have the resources (money and time) to do anything about eating healthy. Fast food only started to catch on as fast as stay at home mothers (or fathers) started to disappear.
I don't know if that is so or not but there is definitely a problem in many parts of America with convenient access to affordable fresh food. As far as childhood obesity I believe that is only part of the problem and that lack of exercise is another big part.
LOL, ya everyone is getting fatter now because back in the day, everyone ate spinach and celery sticks all day. Friggin must be kidding me..
QBall, Buy a package of lunch meat, turkey or chicken, from a market. Buy a big plastic container of baby spinach. Wrap the spinach in the lunch meat. Takes less than 5 minutes and is much healthier than fast food. Is it ideal? No, but it's better than sentencing children to a life of diabetes, heart disease, social awkwardness, depression and ultimately early death all because you couldn't find the time/money/motivation to have a PERFECT meal at home so you constantly went the fast food route. Here's a news flash as well, life as a fat person is more expensive than life at a normal weight. Clothes are more expensive and harder to find. You go through shoes faster. Your clothes get worn out faster. You'll spend more on food in the long run to maintain that heavy weight. Etc, etc. It's one thing if an adult decides to put this on themselves, but to do it to your children who know no better than to eat what their parents let them eat, is an American tragedy.
That's not what I said. Of course people didn't eat that all the time "back in the day." Back in the "day", children exercised more, watched tv less, played video games less, read more, etc. We can't unring the bell of television, video games, etc. Apparently all obese people live in these communities where they have no access to markets that sell food, no parents who work less than 10-12 hours a day and have no money to afford anything beyond the bare minimums of life. All fat people are on low incomes with no cable, no car, no telephone, no nice shoes, no expensive clothes, no sunglasses, no trips, no bbqs, no nothing. All they got is their candy bar and Big Mac.
If your trying to save money than you want the best calorie to dollar ratio. The best ratio is mostly in unhealthy foods (at least that's what i gather from an eye ball test at the supermarket). Logically a person should try and eat as few of those calories a day as they can, but not many have the discipline to have tasty food in the house and not eat it. Also from a psychological stand point it makes sense that the poor are fat. Poor people are more likely to be unhappy especially with themselves. People stuff themselves in those environments.
Yes. I cook pretty regularly. Ain't much but it's something. I have 2 kids and it's not as tough as you make it out. Sandwiches are always easy to make and peeling an orange takes around 30 seconds. I take it that you have kids too and just can't carve out 20 minutes a day to make a (albeit admittedly pedestrian) meal ? Not everything is class warfare. I did not call the middle-class lazy. In fact, most of my friends and I are middle class. Since I do have kids and am middle-class I think that puts me in a somewhat better position to evaluate the costs and time involved in cooking a simple meal for kids.
It seems that those without kids like to blame society or capitalism or whatever. Maybe their idea of a healthy meal is seared tuna with rice and white asparagus spears. It seems that those that do have kids are more critical of the parents. btw - I like your spinach sandwich idea and will try it out. It is funny how "unrefined" kids tastes are - and it many times is easier to cook for them than for grownups - especially those that eat out a lot.
it is a LOT easier to get junk food these days, and conversely more difficult to maintain a healthy diet. I'd be cool with a junk food tax - especially in these days of defaults and deficits. Unfortunately - that would be a "regressive" tax in the sense that it would disproportianately affect the poor and obese. But if we are trying to change their habits through social engineering, then it should hit them more.
