I'm not broke, and I still shop at dollar stores because why pay more when you don't have to? I've been to a lot of dollar stores in a lot of cities, and I've actually never seen one that doesn't sell everything for a dollar (or less). I mean actual dollar stores, btw. Not those "we're like Wal-Mart but scuzzier" places like Fred's Dollar Store. The one here just started a full blown frozen food section, so they have all kinds of stuff that's no different than what you would find at any supermarket. (FYI, salmon primavera tends to have vegetables in it. In fact, if anything, the dollar store version is lacking in the salmon area. I'm not surprised. It was only a dollar!)

As I've said, I agree with you about cultural reasons. Including advertising. Nobody speaks up for the carrots, after all. Maybe stress eating is a big factor, too, because people are such pussies now. But 1950s dad can kick 2010s dad's ass (if anyone can find the deadbeat, absentee fuck to begin with), so I'd listen to him.

I'd keep the depression point as it discourages people to work out.

IMO, it's 50/50. Half choice. Half addiction. Everyone has different level of tolerance, though. So, it's true that badgenome can just go cold turkey, it does not mean others can do the same. Most will just give up after 2 days and forget about quiting. I think it is partly due to personality, too.

And when I say it's half choice, it is you who decided to pick up smoking in the first place. Now, you're addicted. You created the problem in the first place.

Yes, basically. They don't stop drinking it because they don't want to. I don't dispute that caffeine is addictive, but the caloric content of soda is clearly labeled and if people can't figure out that pouring it down their gullets is making them gain weight, then the idiocracy is truly upon us.

The anti-corporate conspiracy theories are pretty hilarious.

Poor people have no desire to make food, and would rather buy junk at the store that is pre-made and unhealthy.

In America, you can make healthy, delicious food for cheap. The problem is that you absolutely have to make it either from scratch or in some way that is rather labor intensive. Few people really want to do that, so they go the easy route. Why do you think that the food companies are trying to push EBTs to begin to accept fast food? Because the poor don't want to make food themselves, and they would be entirely willing to eat junk food 3 meals a day if they could. Simply because its easier.

I work with lots of people in poverty. I see it all the time. No one is willing to eat healthy because they assume that healthy food doesn't taste good, when it certainly does, but it merely takes effort to learn to create tasty, cheap, healthy meals.

I mean, heck, for $2 a meal, I can make a phenomenal sandwich on homemade whole wheat bread with very few calories. The difficulty is that I have to cook the meat, and bake the bread. When was the last time you saw someone in poverty say "I can't buy flour to make my own bread, or tomatoes to make my own sauces"?

Childhood obesity is far more common in single parent households than dual parent households, and is far more common in households where mothers work than in households with stay at home moms. While the cause of this is unknown, it is likely that this obesity trend is driven by making food choices that prioritize convenience over nutritional factors.

When you consider that family unit of many minority groups has been destroyed by government social engineering, they often live in government planned communities that are devoid of green-space which are being classified as food deserts due to the lack of healthy options available, and are educated in a public education system that prioritizes propaganda and fails to teach basic nutrition, is it a surprise that these minority communities have substantial problems with obesity?

Believe it or not. It may be easy for you but...

And why isn't it easy for them, exactly?

The cost of cabbage in the US is $0.29/lb where I live, and 10x that for the same amount of ground beef. Most meats in the US start at $2/lb and go up from there, while almost every vegetable I can think of is under $2/lb. Ultimately, like so many things in life, there is simply a lack of goals and desire to heat healthy food. Just like there's a lack to learn outside of education, or a lack of drive to do other such productive things. All it takes is a few hours at AllRecipes.com to build a virtual lexicon of healthy items to get.

I've had this argument with many, many, obese Americans. They always blame something that is supposedly out of their control - corporations, society in general, the cost of healthy food, and so on. They never, ever, want to admit that any fault lies with themselves, when in reality, most of it is their fault. Yes, corporations play a part thanks to their generous meat and dairy subsidies which lower the true price of meat and dairy, but that isn't the end-all in regards to blame.

I never understood the "not enough money to eat properly" argument myself. 

The reality is most obese people simply don't want to eat properly; it has nothing to do with what they can or think they can afford. They'd rather eat processed food that typically tastes better due to the high salt or high sugar content, whether take out, fast food or pre-packaged snack foods that offer little nutrition relative to caloric content.

Since I know I can live off of about $50 worth (city prices) of groceries without eating anything else per week that consists mainly of vegetables, fruit, milk/soy milk, eggs, legumes, whole grain pasta, brown rice/quinoa, chicken breast or fish and nuts without losing or gaining weight, there really isn't any excuse.

High caloric density/low nutritional density diet usually says it all.

I don't buy the ignorance regarding what constitutes eating healthy/clean either unless it's willful ignorance or functional illiteracy/lack of basic intelligence. 

People often use the time excuse for exercise, which is legitimate if you're working multiple jobs and barely have time to sleep properly. Of course, the response to that is eat no more than necessary, which is technically even easier than exercising since you don't have to do anything but spend less time eating or obsessing over food that doesn't benefit health. 

There are deconstructive effects to the wave function of individuals that are weakly coupled with the mean of the overall collective motion. Subsequently, such entities which stray far from their eigenvalues generally have very mixed state-matrices. The probability of these 'fluke' solutions to the wavefunction thus increases.

Exotic particles behave in more far-out ways than your everyday stuff.

You can apply quantum mechanics to anything really.