fat poor people

A brief note about the previous entry. This is Amanda’s paper for her research methods class that I helped out a bit with. I wanted to post because I think it’s fascinating.

I’ve always operated on the assumption that the food prospects for those with lower-incomes were dire, but in the course of doing this research, I was truly amazed. The one Save-A-Lot we visited was astounding. It was very difficult to find anything even remotely good for you. The meat they did have looked like a real gamble for your life, and was considerably more expensive than the two entire rows of “Little Debbie” type snack foods. Visit one sometime and try to imagine shopping there. It’s a learning experience.

I think the paper is important for two reasons: 1) The review of the literature establishes firmly a correlation between lower incomes and obesity, something which itself is not as well-known or acknowledged as it should be. 2) It addresses the scientific misrepresentation of fat as the ultimate culprit in obesity, but also points out that the carbohydrate content for cheap food is not really any better.

The moral is: if you are poor, you are screwed either way.