Letters to the Editor
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@Laurel
You're right about the food. But the same thing is true in the inner cities on both coasts. Plus, the building conditions are deadly, especially in extreme weather.
But I have to say, speaking as an Ohioan born, I've seen snobs and reverse snobs in the Midwest. It's not a disease restricted to the coasts.
I have another point, however, to add to your case: for many people who are very poor, the only thing they have is their self-respect. They don't like it when people come lecturing them as if they were kids. For that matter, I knew old ladies in a nursing home who'd raised families and snarled at the perky social workers who wanted to teach them all about nutrition.
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@Linney the Sullen
Nah, belittling men is just what you expect us to do. It's not what we do.
There are more people today who need to read what was said, rather than what they wish had been said!
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@Laurel
Sorry, I don't buy it. These are the exact same excuses I'm talking about.
You don't have to have a membership at a gym to get some form of exercise everyday.
Being poor doesn't prevent you from being able to afford a healthy diet. It just doesn't. I'm not talking about expensive Whole Foods-type stuff, I'm talking about SENSIBLE diets, things anyone who can afford to eat can afford. 'Oh, but what if you don't have a working fridge, HUH??' Come on...give it a rest.
btw, I AM working-class and don't even live in your country.
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Tronic
And you're the exact same kind of person I was talking about.
Yes, of course it's possible to reject any culinary variety and eat only beans, plus work out without being able to afford a gym membership or walk outside your own front door safely. Many people do.
But most don't - in skinny cities or fat cities. Most of the skinny people got that way by doing the things that were made easy for them by where they live. If these same skinny people moved to a city with no gym, they would become fat (statistics prove this, because people from other places move here all the time, and they don't change the obesity rate) - there's no essential difference in willpower.
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Wah? what about the menz...
The entirety of broadsheet can be summed up as "WAAAAH WHAT ABOUT THE WOMENZ?!!?!?!?!"
Why is it wrong for men to act like this in regards to male problems in the same way women do for female problems?
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It's not all location
I live in a low income minority neighborhood, and have access to better, cheaper produce than I did when I lived in a large, affluent city on the west coast. Whatever's in season produce-wise is *always* cheap because markets have it coming out their ears. Corn is 30 cents an ear right now and delicious; broccoli is under $2/lb year round. It's not a lack of availability or cost issue.
And men have lower life expectancies because they die in higher numbers in their teens and young adulthood. Women, the government, and doctors have nothing to do with the sizable minority of young men who are driven to indulge in risk-taking behavior. And some of them die in cars, motorcycles, jumping off of things, etc. Men who live get *better* care than elderly women after heart attacks and strokes. Men also have higher rates of heart disease, etc. There's nothing that can be done to raise the life expectancy of men that has anything to do with gender discrimination. (Don't drag race and get your 45-mins of cardio a day. Basic stuff.)
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@Laurel962: About trolls, diabetes, and good food.
You make many good points. The trolls here who mock obese people are lacking in both empathy and knowledge; but then, that's why they are trolls.
If more Americans are more obese now, it just might be because extremely powerful commercial interests use the power of the media to encourage people to drink corn syrup and eat greasy salt, i.e., soft drinks and fast food. A good friend who is a medical journalist told me that a doctor once told him that if he, the doctor, could eliminate the worst preventable killer of people, it wouldn't be tobacco or alcohol: it would be corn syrup.
Add to the a much more sedentary lifestyle than ever in our nation's history, a dearth of home economics courses and widespread ignorance of nutrition, and the unavailability in various localities of nutritious groceries, and is it any wonder that so many Americans are obese? The trolls ignore all this, and also ignore how emotionally and physically painful it is for obese people to deal with their problem.
But Laurel962, you wrote two things which I think were erroneous. First, you said that a diabetic person needed to eat lean meat. As a matter of fact, if you Google "diabetes" and "vegetarian diets," you'll find that vegetarianism is actually beneficial for people with diabetes. Here's a link to one such article, from the Mayo Institute: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/diabetes/AN00845
You also mocking wrote that not all people had access to organic legumes and rice from Whole Foods. True, but you can walk into any Safeway and find bags of brown rice and dried beans on sale for very little money: one to two dollars. Those foods are very available, even if fresh fruits and vegetables are not. However, the "cheap" vegetables, like cabbage and greens and carrots, are not too hard to find and are very healthy for you. It's not for nothing that so-called peasant food made use of these inexpensive ingredients which also happened to be some of the best foods anyone can eat.
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Poor people are not healthy
...as a rule. The reasons for this go well beyond mere obesity and nutrition issues which seem to have taken over this thread. These are just a few things off the top of my head--
--Poor people don't get much in the way of preventative care (blood pressure checks, glucose monitoring, cancer screening, etc.) and the reasons for that alone are myriad.
--Poor people are more likely to use drugs (and people who use drugs are more likely to become poor.) The article mentioned the higher mortality rate in areas like Appalachia and crystal meth is HUGE around there.
--Poor people live in high-crime areas where they're more likely to be victims of shootings and the like (this is something to account for when talking about life expectancy)
--When poor people DO end up getting care for a medical problem, it's usually pretty far gone by then (see above). (Diabetics generally present when they're loosing feet; hypertensives won't present until they have irreversible kidney damage and need dialysis.)
I'm of the opinion that this is much more of a poverty issue that it is a "women's" issue.