Given how many Americans are fat, over half, it would seem that we not only have a fat problem, but a poor problem as well. Because fewer than 15% of Americans live in poverty so even if all of them were fat, where are the rest coming from? I mean, is Chris Christie poor? How about Trump?
They still had welfare and foodstamps.
Dude, if youāre trying to deny that poorness and obesity are related, then you just donāt really know anything about it. Have you been on welfare and simultaneously maintained a nice garden and had a farmer deliver your grassfed meat every week?
No, homeless people often arenāt fat. Because theyāre actually starving sometimes. What I think of, and I assume @mnben87 meant, is those who have just enough to not be out on the streets but little enough that theyāre on welfare with no hope of a better future. In those cases, McDonalds is sometimes a cheaper option. Or, as I mentioned earlier in the thread,
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Then if a wealthy person is obese we can say it must be because heās wealthy?
Because anyone who isnāt fat has a garden and orders grassfed meat?
How does the skinny person on welfare (they do exist) fit into this equation?
Hmmm, and they donāt have McDonalds in the suburbs?
America has a fat problem. It crosses SES.
Obesity varies considerably depending on gender, race, ethnicity and socioeconomic factors. In 2010, CDC researchers (using data from 2005-08) found that among black and Mexican-American men, obesity increased with income: 44.5% and 40.8% of those men are obese, respectively, at the highest income level, compared with 28.5% and 29.9% at the lowest level. Beyond that, though, the researchers found little correlation between obesity prevalence among men and either income or education
No. Not every poor person is fat, and not every fat person is poor. I donāt think itās completely unbelievable to think that there could be some correlation though. Some people are both. Is this crazy?
This was sarcasm. My point was, how easy is it to eat healthy when youāre poor?
Didnāt say this. Plently of people in the 'burbs eat there and are fat.
Absolutely. Donāt disagree.
Iām not going to read the study right now. I donāt care enough to win this argument. My point is, I feel like youāre coming at this with very little knowledge of what it looks like to actually be in the shoes of a very poor person. Itās great that a study proved something that you agree with - I can probably find studies that disprove it and line up with my thoughts. People seem to be able to do that about any topic they care about. My point is, fresh produce is expensive. Good meat is expensive. Protein powder is expensive. Etc. I live in small Midwest town, and most of my relatives live on reservations or in ghettos. When I go there, they have gas stations and convenience stores that sell Chuckwagons, pop, and chips. They donāt have fruit and veggies, fish, lean meat, etc.
Is this the case for all places? No. But itās the case for a lot of them. Foodstamps arenāt that much. Iām from a family of 7 making $40k-$60k a year, dependent on weather, and we were never feasting off of the government. Weād go to a grocery store and find cheaper deals on frozen pizzas then we would on chicken and beef. Is it possible to be skinny and poor or wealthy and fat? Absolutely yes. My whole point was that itās pretty easy to be fat and poor because youāre options are limited, in every aspect of life. I donāt think this is that complicated.
The images that people attempt to conjure up when debating government assistance. āIf we donāt give out taxpayer funded shit there will be starving people wandering around and dead bodies rotting in the streets and if you disagree youāre heartless.ā Itās horseshit. Like most problems the government solution is usually worse than the problem.
I lived in the ghetto. I worked in several ghettoes. People are fat for the same reason: poor dietary choices. If we say less educated/poor people make poor choices because they are less educated and/or poor, then what about all of the people who are not poor? Why are they making poor choices? They donāt know junk food is bad? They canāt afford healthy food?
I will say this based on my experience working in a supermarket, so it isnāt scientific, the people who bought high quality, healthy, unprocessed food, often organic (the outer ring of the supermarket), were not necessarily wealthy but they were well educated, there is a university in the town, or obviously into fitness. But that was a small minority.
Who has said that? Z made an off handed comment that itās hard to have skills if youāre starving.
Iām all about not having government programs for these things. But not at the expense of fucking over the people that benefit from them. It seems like these things are pretty small potatoes. I mean we have a system where wealth is overwhelmingly concentrated in the hands of the few and all we hear about from the right is how tax cuts concentrated at the top will trickle down.
To know those facts and focus our attention on what poor people are āgettingā seems insane. Is food stamps the number one thing that needs fixed in society? I feel like it would be really low on my list. And the vast majority of people who want to get rid of that shit have never had a single conversation with the people that benefit. They look down on them with contempt.
Iām not for government doing everything and Iām not for government doing nothing. And yes itās heartless to want to stop all these programs with no idea how to make up for them with the goodness of man.
Friedman was full of shit. Governments donāt have responsibilities? Iām sure politicians are ok with that idea. He compares a government to a building? Governments are made up of people, not bricks.
Well, if we get rid of welfare and food stamps tomorrow, we can see what will happen.
I didnāt mention anything about education.
Basically, my only point that I care to make is that healthy food is literally not always available. Nor is it always very cheap. It doesnāt surprise me that many poor (not homeless) people are fat. They lack resources. Thatās about it.
Roughly 60% of the federal budget is entitlement spending. States have more on top of that. Not small potatoes.
How about just tax cuts in general? I personally got a tax cut and the company I work for gave across the board raises when the corporate rate was cut. Yeah, it trickled down.
Case closed I guess.
And that is why you donāt understand your own responsibility as a human. Youād rather force someone else to do what you should do.
Iāll volunteer to be president and that way I will take on that responsibility I elected someone else to take. I have responsibilities as a human, responsibilities as a father, a husband, an employee, a friend, a neighbor, a citizen, etc. The government, or rather the people who are the government, has its responsibilities. We can argue about what those responsibilities are but they still have responsibilities. And some we canāt argue, like the ones listed in the Constitution.
There are supermarkets in the ghetto. They sell produce. If poor kids can have iPhones and their mothers can afford to get their nails done, they can afford a salad.
Dude, Iām not talking in absolutes. I said both sides are possible, and I just wanted to say emphasize that BOTH are, not just your experiences. I donāt think youāre getting this.
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What Iām saying is, itās all about choices. Maybe poor people make poor choices for different reasons than people who arenāt poor. But itās not just the poor who are making these bad food choices.
Yeahā¦I donāt care if middle class or rich people get fat due to poor choices. I wasnāt talking about that, and I do agree with you - thatās a choice to those people.
Itās also a hard spot to get out of - I guess itās probably better to be addicted to food instead of meth (I donāt know, is it?) but once youāre coping with food you find yourself in a bad spot pretty quickly. Tough to make that change, and I donāt think it necessarily reflects poorly on the person. Iāll probably judge the pothead in his momās basement if heās fat but the hardworking and emotionally present husband/father gets more of a āpassā in my opinion.
Entitlement spending is a dumbass phrase. 80 years old having health care isnāt an entitlement. Itās something a society as wealthy and powerful as ours SHOULD do. Whatās not an entitlement? Road improvements are entitlements for all? Fixing power lines? Maintaining schools and hospitals? Fire department?
Oh sure Iām not saying none of it trickles down. This idea that companies are always going to give it straight to employees so a tax cutās coming towards everyone when businesses or rich people get a cut is demonstrably untrue. But it is a nice thing for people in charge of those places to say. Tax rates are lower than they used to be almost across the board. And itās been largely based on that thinking. The increase in income for a few people jumps way up, the peasants get enough scraps to fool them and the train keeps running. Letās not pretend for a second that the vast majority of that goes directly to the middle and lower classes. Trickle down economics has increased income inequality and not lessened it.
How profitable is your company and why did they have to wait for a tax cut to give raises? Big places give small raises because the net is better for them to continue saying if only we had more tax cuts we would do more for the average joes!
If you have realistic alternatives Iām all ears. Cutting āentitlementā spending tomorrow for everything do you think would be a negative or positive for the vast majority of the country? Taking away WIC and food stamps tomorrow do you think thatās benefitting poor people? Think crime may rise when people canāt eat or keep the power on?
Explain to me how cutting these programs to the bone tomorrow isnāt heartless?
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How is it not?
Services are not entitlements. āBut muh roads!ā
That would be the power company.
Social security, Medicaid, Medicare, welfare, etc are entitlements. Not including the interest on the money borrowed to pay for those things. They make up 2/3 of the federal budget.
No. Companies dont give money to employees when they get a tax break, market forces dictate they have to! It simple supply and demand. Think of labor as a raw material or commodity. You have to pay more than your competitor to keep a steady supply and attract higher quality candidates.
Explain to me how stealing to pay for them isnāt immoral.
For the big one, social security, pay out what everyone is owed, then scrap it. Completely.
The others, a slow phasing out over perhaps a decade. Decrease payments and circumstances that can be had every couple of years until gone.
All these programs will eventually run out of money anyway. But not until weāve had hyper inflation from all the borrowing and printing.
