People eating poorly causes poor health; this we know for a fact. We also know that health issues are a worse problem for the poor because they suffer more from losing work time and because they pay more for health care or suffer more because they can't afford health care. I don't think you can argue that this is not a significant factor in keeping poor people poor. This is one of the many reasons the poor can't just "take responsibility for themselves" and get themselves out of poverty.
I agree that everyone can sacrifice more and work harder and do better for themselves, but at best, being generous, they are only 50% responsible for their own situations. You cannot argue that poor people can just make themselves better off when so many things are outside their control, like the cost of food (or a hurricane that wipes their houses off the face of the Earth).
I'm tired of those who think that poor people are sitting around in their government-subsidized housing playing their Xboxes they traded food stamps for drinking beer and smoking weed. Poor people face a lot of problems; problems they can't fix on their own. Those of us who believe in the social contract belive they should have help from the government with those problems, like the one this article talks about, even if it does cost tax money.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050928/ap_on_he_me/fit_obesity___poverty
By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP, Associated Press Writer Tue Sep 27, 8:13 PM ET
SEATTLE - Laurieann Cossey has always struggled with her weight. Four years ago, she was diagnosed with diabetes. Now, six months pregnant and struggling to get by, the single mother tries to make sure her 1-year-old son gets the fruits and vegetables he needs.
"I worry a lot about my son being obese," said Cossey, whose mother and grandmother also had diabetes.
Cossey, a 43-year-old community college student, and her son, Andrew, survive on food stamps, trips to the food bank, and a state program for pregnant women and their children that provides essentials such as dairy products, fruit juice and cereal.
She knows they should both be eating more fruits and vegetables. But the foods on the government's new food pyramid are too expensive. Boxed macaroni and cheese costs less than a dollar to feed the whole family; a fresh chicken breast and steamed vegetables cost about $2.60.
"I'm sure we'd all like to feed our children a nice healthy chicken breast and asparagus," she said on a visit to a vegetable market. "If we are low on fruits and vegetables, my child gets his first."
But pasta, canned vegetables and hamburger are much more likely to be on Cossey's table.
Scientists, doctors and government officials are working on ways to get families like Cossey's to eat healthier food. Some innovative new programs are making progress, but the results are not coming fast enough as Americans get fatter and fatter.
The poor have more barriers to dealing with obesity, eating healthy and leading an active life, said Dr. Lydia Tinajero-Deck said.
Fast food restaurants are more common in their neighborhoods than fresh produce markets. Many parents, sometimes working two jobs, don't have the time to cook healthy meals. And fresh food is more costly.
"Energy-dense foods rich in starch, sugar or fat are the cheapest option for the consumer," said Adam Drewnowski, director of the Center for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Washington. "As long as the healthier lean meats, fish and fresh produce are more expensive, obesity will continue to be a problem for the working poor."
Dr. David L. Katz of Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center advocates vegetable subsidies. He favors the idea of a junk food tax that would use the money to lower the price of vegetables, as well as pay for anti-obesity programs.
Diana Crane, a spokeswoman for PCC Natural Markets in Seattle, argues that educated consumers can still find fresh food bargains. "Many types of produce remain very affordable, such as potatoes and many greens, many under $1 per pound," she said.
Crane said PCC would be happy to see more funding for government programs that get produce to low-income families.
Drewnowski is working with a number of local agencies across Washington state to promote healthy eating and exercise by offering grants for promising projects.
He also argues for research to map the geographical distribution of obesity rates and spoke about obesity by ZIP code at a conference over the summer. An "atlas of obesity" would help policymakers know where to focus their programs, he said.
Some areas are already battling obesity on a geographic basis.
In Moses Lake, a rural town in eastern Washington with a high incidence of poverty, community agencies are working with citizen volunteers to improve walking trails; a community garden is giving residents a place to grow their own fruits and vegetables.
Drewnowski says most diet trend and health suggestions are designed for the middle class. A study his group is conducting seeks ways to make healthy eating more affordable.
"We have enough information about which foods are healthy and which are not. But affordability and access — that's a different story," he said.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
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Here's my reply to Nathan's email on this topic:
"This is absolutely a major reason why the poor stay poor. They eat poorly because it's what they can afford, it's not good for them so their health suffers, then they rack up medical bills trying to pay for health care, or go without it at all until it's an emergency and end up in debt or with taxpayers paying for it. This is a crap-ass system that no country as wealthy as ours should tolerate. No one of us here could be said to suffer from a bleeding heart because we care about what the poor eat. In practical terms it is a detriment to our nation as a whole for the poor to be so unhealthy and so unable to afford health care. I have no problem with a junk food tax. We are more then willing to tax cigarettes, which are demonstrated to be unhealthy in the long term, and nobody really feels bad for white trash who continue to buy them; why can't we tax junk food for simlar reasons, to a similar effect, if it benefits people in the long run? And don't give me any crap about how this is what they choose to eat; this article below demonstrates clearly that people will eat what they can afford, as we all well know from personal experience, and the cheapest food is unhealthy food. What we need is proper health care insurance for everyone, which will allow them to visit doctors more regularly w/o racking up medical bill debt. This alone will help people get out of poverty. As for helping them eat better, that requires education and money, two things we have to demonstrate we are willing to give to the poor."
This is my reply to that:
"Damn straight. Another argument is that for economic reasons alone, America as a whole should take an interest in creating healthier, smarter employees. It would benefit us all.
Americans have this flawed belief that since we are responsible for ourselves (or should be), it means we should be able to do everything without any help. As a consequence, we turn a blind eye to those who need help, even when it's to our detriment. If we invested in our own populace as a purely business investment, we could turn this country around, and I don't see why there are people so dead-set against trying to do that. This country doesn't need richer rich people, it needs richer poor people, so naturally that's where the money should be going. "
This is not to say, of course, that I don't think moral reasons are good enough, but I'm trying to make the point that often times we are irrationally set against doing things that would help all of us in the long run by spending some of our tax money on other people.
The worst part is not that it's the rich versus the poor, it's the middle-class versus the poor. Whenever they hear people talking about government handouts for the poor, they start getting angry about the government helping lazy, uneducated poor people when they're working so hard just to keep what they have. As a logic problem, you see that the solution is simply to enlarge your pie by taking some from those who have more than enough, but Americans just don't think that way. Yet.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it's clear to me that somewhere in that playbook the Republican elite keep hidden away in some vault, there's a page on how to use Republican moral and social arguments to turn their middle-class supporters against the poor. Some members of the middle class promptly fall for this bit, partly because no one is more resentful of the poor then those who were recently poor or could become so again. The Republican elite know this of course, though they'll never say it, which is why, conveniently, their social arguments happent to target mostly poor populations (and decadent liberals of course) who they can turn the middle class against, so that neither the poor nor the middle classes can team up(in the form of the Democratic-or another-party) againt them and the intersts of their wealthiest benefactors. Actually, this strategy is so obvious and so convenient, and so underlies much of what they do, there doesn't need to be a playbook...if you're a Republican not following along already, you will be soon.
For all its flaws, David Brock's book "Blinded by the Right" does give some good insight into just that plan. It's not often that they don't couch it in different language to sell it to their mainstream followers, but once in a while that kind of mentality does show through (look up some recent Republican quotes on the aftermath of Katrina).
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