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Debra Dickerson might do better to explore why fat is more acceptable among Latinos and African-Americans for two reasons. First, White Americans could use an attitude adjustment and learn something. Jordin Sparks and even Lakisha are probably healthier than your average thin-through-eating-disorder white woman.
Of course, healthy eating and exercise are optimum, but that brings me to my second point. African Americans and Latinos are disproportionately poor. 1 in 4 African-Americans and 1 in 5 Latinos live in poverty. Poverty limits your food choices. Vegetable and fruits are much more expensive than starches such as potatoes, rice and pasta. Note that beans and rice are mainstay dishes in soul and latino foods. Why? Because they are inexpensive foods. Both red beans and rice and mexican beans and rice are seasoned with pork -- why? because it's the least expensive meat.
Tucker Carlson recently ridiculed the idea that the poor were going hungry because they are all so fat. The voice of someone who has never struggled financially in his life. Recently four Representatives, three Democrats and one Republican, lived on the average food stamp budget for one week. All reported difficulty in eating healthy foods, lassitude from the lack of nutritious meals and other difficulties.
For $1.00 you can make an egg pudding and feed four. To do that with fish and steamed vegetables would take 8 times as much. It is white's relative affluence that even allows the thin aesthetic and I wish Dickerson had taken the role poverty plays in body size and food choices before getting all judgmental.
