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Farmageddon on 04 December 2011
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Kasz216 said:
Farmageddon said:

Also, I don't really see your point in saying that "As it turns out... the "Poor don't have access to healthy food" argument is even more debunked by this study." Unless you believe the average american diet to be healthy, how could having similar levels of overweight and obese people as the average american mean poor people have access to a healthy diet? All it would show - and that's if you control for a lot of things - is that poor people are not forced by their income to eat something even less healthy than the other americans, unless you could show poor people to have other factors that tend to make them fatter then non-poor people. Does the paper do that and I've missed it?

It's basic statistical reasoning...

If the poor and rich have the same level of obesity, then money is obviously not a correlating factor... suggesting something else.

Thereby debunking the arguement that is why people are fat.

It's not that simple. Poor people being no fatter but also no leaner than the average american doesn't really say anything about healthy food at all. What it does imply is that whatever the "quality" of the diet the the non-poor american consumes (fattening-wise), the poorer people can afford (and do eat) a diet of similar "quality".

And that's the reason I said "Unless you believe the average american diet to be healthy" before asking "how could having similar levels of overweight and obese people as the average american mean poor people have access to a healthy diet?"

And, again, all that is provided you control very well for a hell of a lot of factors (genetics, lifestyle, those things).

I can see that if the non-poor are none slimmer than the poor then money above the amount the poor have to afford food isn't the only necessary factor for a healthier diet, but that doesn't mean it's not one of them. Again, I think it's pretty obvious it isn't one of them, I just don't see this paper showing it.

But yeah, it does suggest there has to be something else.