Obesity and poverty ?

[modeller]

Whenever poverty in the US is in the news most of those interviewed and those filmed at free food centres are overweight and many are obese . There is a similar situation in the UK and western Europe. Can anyone explain this apparent contradiction. ?

[boxtops]

Poverty is relative to income levels. Poverty in the third world is life threatening, not knowing where your next meal is coming from, having nowhere to live.

[naomi24]

//Poverty is rife across India but you don't see much obesity there.//

NM has a point. The UK's definition is poverty is quite different to that in other areas of the world where poverty really means poverty.

These people eat cheap, fatty, and easy to prepare foods - hence they're fat and unhealthy. That's all.

[Mick-Talbot]

Obesity is down to laziness rather than poverty in the UK.
Vegetables are not expensive,....... cheaper than a pot noodle that's for sure.

[pastafreak]

Poverty here,and in other capitalist economies will be based on income-both earned and benefits. Those safety nets do not exist in third world countries-so poverty is based on conditions such as lack of any food and water...and needless to say-income will be non-existant.

[naomi24]

^^ That's poverty!

[humbersloop]

A mate of mine is just back from the US. Driving about, she encountered a couple of families who, three years ago, had jobs, healthcare and houses. Both families are now respectively bringing up two and three kids living in their cars. Could happen here too

http://www.guardian.c...fare-cuts?INTCMP=SRCH

So op, a couple of generations of relatve poverty yields poor parenting skills and kids eating crap food.

[Zeuhl]

We also have rising levels of malnutrition in this country and in the US.

Again, that has less to do with a lack of food - more to do with the wrong kinds of food.

[Zeuhl]

Apparently, the elderly are a high risk group

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7879201.stm

[emmie]

fresh produce can be bought from markets for a fraction of the cost of the supermarkets to all that say well it's expensive. If you don't stuff your face with prepacked ready meals, most of which have little or no nutritional value, then surely the pounds are going to pour on. If a doctor says you are obese do something about it, otherwise your life expectancy is going to be short, or shorter, wouldn't you do it. I have been known to be overweight, entirely down to me, unhappy, unwell, binge eat, makes everything so much worse in the long term. Because you just become fat and unhappy.

[emmie]

walking children back and forward to school is free, mum or dad will take them in the car, so what do you expect. If they are little then surely they will be going to a local school, and can walk with you, and if they are older they don't need you to take them. There are a mountain of excuses for being severely overweight, i have said a few and heard many. One excessively overweight friend always seemed the life and soul of any party, but deep down she knew as she admitted she was a miserable as sin. couldn't walk far without getting out of breath, and was in line for a major heart attack. Poverty in Britain does not exist in the same way as it did at the turn of the century, not by a long way. And thank heavens for that.

[sandyRoe]

Poverty eventually grinds people down. If they were full of energy they might buy vegetables at local markets and make nourishing soups that cost almost nothing, bake their own bread, even make their own clothes.
But the prospect of continually worrying about bills, that all your tomorrows are going to be as bad as today, takes its toll. Eventually, it must seem easier to buy sugar-filled Coke for the children, and feed them fat-filled chips and hamburgers from places like Iceland.

[emmie]

then they shouldn't complain about being overweight. There is as much info out there now and doctors have been banging on about the problem for years, tv programmes, newspapers you name it.
Sqad advice is what i have heard all along, eat less, exercise more.
Stop the cream buns, sticky toffee puddings, nice i know, but they play hell with cholesterol and weight.

[sandyRoe]

Haven't the big food producers just recently scuppered a plan to label processed food with a 'traffic light' code? Green for low in fat and sugars, amber for middling, and red for high. There's some information that they don't want the general public to know.

[ojread2]

Poverty means one thing to another and something else to someone else
I wonder at people saying they have no money with a fag hanging from their mouth
This poll done on MSE in 2010 makes incredulous reading
http://forums.moneysa...wthread.php?t=2880776
The poll results are no longer visible but from the first post you can see that some see "No laptop or internet access" as poverty - incredible

Is obesity linked to poverty? Well with recent news stories telling us parents go without meals to feed their kids, I can't see how it can be

[Old_Geezer]

Poverty is relative to those around you. If your neighbours all have two king sized swimming pools in their grounds, and you have just the normal sized one, then you suffer from poverty. But there needs to be an absoute measure too, but even then that will tend to drift over time. I think the original question relates to western style poverty.

I've not ever checked but often read that cheaper food tends to be fat & sugar loaded. Sure there is fruit but it tends not to satisfy hunger so is rarely craved. Besides from my experience it goes off too fast. If you are not eating it on the day of purchase, prepare a space in your bin. And again yes if you have the time & enthusiasm then cooking stuff for yourself & family helps, but if pushed to cope with the day's tasks and depressed over your situation, then it is a strong individual that can just shake that off and not become lethargic and find everything almost too much to cope with.

Poorer folk often survive/cope by just getting the easy fix cheap food, and weight issues become the result.

[abstibus]

Microwave + convenience foods + laziness + lack of exercise = obesity.

[jomifl]

Fat sugar and salt are very cheap. If food manufacturers can disguise these ingredients as something else that people eat every day then they will and do.

[LazarusShort]

poor people cannot be fat.

[daffy654]

///em10
fresh produce can be bought from markets for a fraction of the cost of the supermarkets to all that say well it's expensive.///

All well and good if you live anywhere near a market and are able bodied enough to carry heavy fruit and veg back home.