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Forums - General - Why are minorities more likely to be obese and have diseases?

Dr.Grass on 20 March 2012
Jereel Hunter said:
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

Poverty ---> Depression ---> Unhealthy lifestyle


Something like that would be my guess, more or less.


Actually, just Poverty ----> Unhealthy Lifestyle.

When you have no money, you buy what's cheap. As someone who's recently been trying very hard to eat healthy, I see the cost of my food purchases skyrocketting. Fresh fruit and veggies are more expensive than canned, but canned have all kinds of sodium and preservatives. Organic is even better, but also even more expensive. Everything follows this pattern. Cheaper processed foods which minorities are more likely to rely on are less healthy, and food is one of the biggest factors in your health. Also, minorities are more likely to live in poorer housing conditions, and thus deal with things like mold which negatively effect health. Less likely to have insurance, so probably not going to regular checkups and getting healthy life advice from a doctor. Also, more likely to be working 2 jobs and not getting enough sleep, which comes with plenty of its own side effects.

That's why I'm trying to get a little land in a Eco-Village. 

Don't even have to work more than half day then.



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greenmedic88 on 20 March 2012
mrstickball said:
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"?

The thing is only health conscious people are in the habit of sourcing out most, if not all ingredients in the foods they eat, almost always prepared themselves. 

I suppose one could use the "don't know how to boil water let alone the first thing about seasonings and spices" argument of ignorance against prepping one's own food, but I'd wager to say it's typically more of an instance of "just don't want to, would rather eat take out." 

Taste-wise, if one regularly eats foods with the amount of sugar or salt found in most processed foods (diabetes or stroke inducing), natural foods are typically going to taste blander unless one detoxes from the former. 



Galaki on 20 March 2012
mrstickball said:

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

It's hard when they are unwilling to try.

Some will burn down the house just trying to cook instant noodle :)



Pre-order limited edition Blue Slime Condoms

ladyumbra on 20 March 2012

I know many people have said it before but poverty is really the biggest factor. I'd like to add though that it creates bad habits that are incredibly hard to break as you age.

As a child I was in the " so poor/underweight the government feeds me at school" camp a couple times despite my mother working two jobs. Meals at home were usually some form of rice or pasta dish and sausage was probably the meat I encountered most frequently. I ate pretty fucking poorly overall as a kid but I was skinny because I couldn't get nearly enough food to be fat. I was hungry a lot and it lead to me associating food not as a necessity but as a goal or a reward. If I could achieve x i would be given food as a reward. Read 10 books at school for pizza , check, ace a test for a candy, damn straight, touch a worm ( friends idea) for a cookie, why the fuck not? In high-school this actually lead to me doing other people's homework and projects for food or money. I also hoarded my Halloween candy like you wouldn't believe to make it last and birthday money from relatives was used to get the maximum amount of cheap filling food I could buy.


So yeah when I turned 18 and moved out on my own I took a childhood of poverty, bad food associations and general bad food habits with me. I hoarded cheap unhealthy easy to cook food ( 25 cent mr noodles forever) and yet also bought cheap fast food I didn't necessarily want because for the first time in my life I could. I gained a lot of weight really quickly because I was suddenly free to make my own purchases and those were made based on what I had become accustomed to growing up. It took a lot of time to unlearn my bad habits and I'm still not fully there. Also food prices are still not awesome everywhere and it depends on the food in question. I can get fresh baked bread across the street for less than a dollar but lunch meat is still ridiculous prices and fresh fruit is absurd. I get fresh fruit when it's in season for Ontario Canada because it's cheapest then, other than that if I want fruit it's cheap canned crap coated in HFCS. I am a married adult and still below the poverty line, I eat better than I did as a child but not incredibly well and it's still hard to afford to eat more than marginally healthy while also trying to overcome a lifetime of set in habits.

There are thousands of kids in the US and Canada who have to be sent home with backbacks filled with food every weekend just so the government can be sure they will get the minimum required amount of food. A lot of them are probably going to grow up with unhealthy feelings regarding food. Add to that how many of them will remain in poverty as they become adults, how many will likely not be taught how to cook or what healthy eating really is etc. etc. Poverty leads to obesity and from there a whole other host of factors can lead to people staying obese.





blkfish92 on 20 March 2012
spurgeonryan said:
Half?

Anyways, fast food is fast , easy, and everywhere! Who wants to sit down and make something that may or not be good when you can go feel special at a restaurant and eat food that you know is good. I totally blame fast food and other restaurants. I went to KFC yesterday with my kids while I was waiting for my Doctors appointmen. Two african american guys bought two meals a piece. Everyone in the restaurant was morbidly obese (white women included) and there was a White guy who seemed like he wanted to try everything because he had no will power and everything looked just so good that he bought enough for my whole family. Then he proceeded to sit down and eat it.

Boredom. People sit and watch tv. Commercials pop up, time to get a quick snack! Before they know it they have been lounging all day being lazy and snacking well past midnight. Go to sleep late and wake up early for work to eat breakfast which is probably high in fat or sugar, along with a large coffee with cream, etc. Never ending cycle.
You cannot ban certain foods, because you will have chaos on your hands. I think some of it is addicting. I struggle to leave Soda alone, but with in a few days I have to have one. Which is sad because even though Diet coke or diet anything else is diet it is still packed full with enough salt to kill a coma patient! Not too mention your liver has to work extra hard to get rid of that dark liquid poison.

Sad world we live in, but you know that don't you Seth.


What baffles me is why do people enjoy being obese? Maybe not enjoy, but it seems like they think they have no choice, but to be obese. Yet, the case is they can easily cut down on fatty foods and simply workout for 20min 3-5 days a week!

Madness I say!



           

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mrstickball on 20 March 2012
greenmedic88 said:
mrstickball said:
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"?

The thing is only health conscious people are in the habit of sourcing out most, if not all ingredients in the foods they eat, almost always prepared themselves. 

I suppose one could use the "don't know how to boil water let alone the first thing about seasonings and spices" argument of ignorance against prepping one's own food, but I'd wager to say it's typically more of an instance of "just don't want to, would rather eat take out." 

Taste-wise, if one regularly eats foods with the amount of sugar or salt found in most processed foods (diabetes or stroke inducing), natural foods are typically going to taste blander unless one detoxes from the former. 


And who's fault is that?



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

NiKKoM on 20 March 2012

Low chances in the workfield > sucky job > Poverty > no health insurance > no screening for diseases > no warning/prevention > bad health



 

Face the future.. Gamecenter ID: nikkom_nl (oh no he didn't!!) 

IvorEvilen on 20 March 2012

Honestly, eating crap is more expensive than eatting healthy (unless you are going out to eat, in which case the opposite is true). The problem is the ease and convenience of the unhealthier choices. Corporations just want people to think that their processed food alternatives are cheaper.

To clarify, I'm not talking about health-nut organic foods, I'm just talking about going to the store and buying and preparing chicken instead of buying some microwave dinner or frozen chicken fingers. Sure, a case of chicken looks expensive... $12+ for one case? But that is enough chicken to feed a family of four 2-3 times. Pretzels are cheaper and provide more quantity, and are much healthier than potato chips. Water is drastically cheaper than soda, and good real fruit juice may cost more, but you don't need to drink a lot of juice because it's high in sugar.

The list goes on, but the real kicker is that since you are consuming healthier calories, full of the nutrients your body needs, you don't need to eat as much, thereby reducing the costs even further.

In terms of going out to eat, I can't help you there... I don't go out all that often simply because I can't afford it, but once again the convenience of it attracts people. I'm not living in poverty, but going to McDonald's several times a week is definately out of my price range. So in my opinion, the food choices of an individual are not directly influenced by income (perhaps indirectly though...). It all comes down to initiative and awareness.



SvennoJ on 20 March 2012

A lot of it has to do with time as well. I used to eat pretty unhealthy at the start of my career. Not because I didn't have the money to buy good food. Coming home at 9-10 at night feeling exhausted did not inspire me to at all to cook a good meal. Sure on the weekends I would murder a couple of high quality ingredients in my attempts to make something edible, but 5 days out of the week it was microwave meals or pizza.
McDonald's salads for lunch was pretty much the healthiest thing I ate during that time. If you don't have a well paying job that option is pretty much out, considering a salad costs $7 and a burgers starts at $1.



sethnintendo on 21 March 2012
spurgeonryan said:
I do not know why anyone would not be able to eat proper meals in America. The government gives out piles upon piles of food stamp money to low income families. More money than I have ever spent on food in a month. Could easily incorporate healthy food into that. You cannot say that no one knows how to eat healthy because it is in every damned magazine, newspaper, website, and tv show on the planet. You just have to do it. Exercise is not a hard thing to do either.


I thought of an idea a long time ago (mainly from seeing so many fat poor people use food stamps to buy unhealthy food) about limiting the food one can get with food stamps.  I believe if you are given money by the government to eat then they should control what you eat more.  Chips, ice cream, candy bars, soda, etc should not be covered by food stamps.  If someone wants to eat unhealthy and get fat then it shouldn't be on tax payer money.