Mr Khan said:
badgenome said:
There are definitely variables, and some people may well sink as economic conditions worsen or the economy changes in a way for which they are unprepared, but it's usually temporary. Even in tumultuous economic times it's self motivated people who will tend to find a way to adapt to a new economy after they've been thrown for a loop while the less motivated tend to just stay at the bottom even after the economy improves. I'm not saying that if someone is poor right now they must be lazy. Similarly, someone needn't be obese just because they're poor. But the trend is clearly there, and a general lack of desire for self improvement is the only thing that makes sense to me. I'm surprised that it's even a controversial point, to be honest, and I'd be outright astonished if anyone would suggest that people have similar levels of self motivation regardless of economic status. I'm aware there are exacerbating factors, like those HappySqurriel referenced, and I'm totally open to another explanation as long so it doesn't rely on falsehoods like, "It's more expensive to eat healthy!" It isn't, and anyone who's ever set foot in a grocery store or even glanced at a supermarket circular should know better.
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I'd say it's not an issue of expense, but of effort and education, for this extends not merely into how the poor are less likely to be healthy, but are less likely to vote or participate in civil society organizations (that is to say, participate in an organization independent of the government or their job, keeping the argument open that merely going to church doesn't count as participation). I recently completed an 80+ page paper on democratization, and my findings indicated as well as the research i cited indicates that the greater your economic hardship is, the less likely you are to be able to dispose of your free time in anything, i'll have to say, productive (whether that is getting in shape or pushing for political reform in your community)
Part of it is cultural, of course. Those who are born poor may enter into a culture of poverty that places less emphasis on self-betterment, but i still move that the lack of motivation is environmental and generally not due to the decisions of the individual.
The expense of eating healthy is indeed overstated (unless we want to say that organic only is eating healthy, and even then organic alternatives are not that prohibitive), but the effort that it takes to compile base ingredients into a meal when the roughly-equal-cost bucket of chicken is available at KFC, and available right now, is more daunting.
I'll note that it happened to my cousin, too. She finally got a job in April 2010, and i noted by Thanksgiving of that year that she had rather let herself go, which was likely because of the drastic loss of free time that comes with full-time employment compared to the 9-months of post-graduation job-hunting that she did. The pressures of time are a real factor for the working poor.
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