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by DrSprout 5860 days ago
To call it gluttony is insulting to those who work 50+ hours a week, can barely get by, and yet are still overweight. Food is not a significant part of cost of living in the US, especially if you eat poorly. The paradox is that eating poorly actually ends up being gluttonous if we're looking at it from a health standpoint.

But many of the people you're insulting do not have the luxury of eating healthy meals and going for 30 minute runs every other day.
3 comments
yummyfajitas 5860 days ago
Assuming that the people who are food insecure are also poor (i.e., below the US poverty line), they do not work 50+ hours/week. 80% of the poor don't work at all, and are not even looking for work.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2007.pdf

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DrSprout 5860 days ago
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/09poverty.shtml

Poverty level for a 4-person household (which a single mother with three children would be) is $22,050/year. 3-person is $18,310.

50 hours a week @ $7.25/hr (federal minimum wage) * 52 weeks/year = $18824.

Although, good luck finding 50 hours a week of work in this economy.

And that only applies to US citizens. Never mind undocumented immigrants. (Though many do earn minimum wage and pay taxes.) Restaurants will often split low-income workers to avoid either restaurant giving them more than 40 hours a week, so they can avoid overtime and benefits.

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yummyfajitas 5860 days ago
...good luck finding 50 hours a week of work in this economy.

First, I cited statistics from 2007, before the economy went down. Second, the statistics show that 80% of the poor are not looking for a job and that only 10% of them work more than 35 hours a week. Third, only 3.5% of the poor want to work more than 35 hours/week but are unable to find work.

Lastly, minimum wage is more or less irrelevant. Only 1.7 million workers (373k of whom were under 19) earned minimum wage or less in 2007. Assuming everyone earning min wage or less is poor [1], that's only 4.5% of the poor.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2007.htm

Also, to respond to a statement you made in your previous post: I work more than 50 hours/week, yet I still manage to find time to exercise and to cook healthy food. (Yesterday: work from 9 to 7, 3 hours of martial arts, dinner, work from 12-1.) If I can do it, why can't the poor?

[1] Teenagers earning min wage, but living in a non-poor household are not counted as part of the poor.

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CodeMage 5860 days ago
Also, to respond to a statement you made in your previous post: I work more than 50 hours/week, yet I still manage to find time to exercise and to cook healthy food. (Yesterday: work from 9 to 7, 3 hours of martial arts, dinner, work from 12-1.) If I can do it, why can't the poor?

Let me start off by saying that I don't disagree with the statistics you quoted or your interpretation of statistics. I'm only disagreeing with what I quoted.

Cooking healthy food and practicing martial arts both come at a cost. This cost can be a cost in money, in time or effort spent, etc. In my experience, poor people usually can't afford that cost easily.

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yummyfajitas 5860 days ago
The monetary cost of running is about $100/year, biking considerably less. As for the cost in time, the average person in the bottom 25% of earnings spends 30 minutes/day more watching TV than the average person in the top 25% (2 hours, 6 minutes total). (No breakdown for "poverty" vs "non-poverty" is given.)

I think the poor could manage some exercise or preparation of healthier food if they wanted to.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t11.htm

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DrSprout 5860 days ago
Do you care for a family on your own? I'm talking about a specific class of people - primarily unwed single mothers - who do not have time for themselves. Their time is eaten up by making money for their families and caring for them.

Simply making the declarations that poor people don't want to work, and poor people are generally fat, even if true, ignore sizable quantities of people for whom exercise and healthy eating are not feasible.

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lutorm 5860 days ago
To copy the thread ended by sprout: How many of those are single mothers without viable child care options?
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kiba 5860 days ago
Didn't the federal government prop up corn growers and engaged in sugar protectionism?

You have to wonder, how much of the problem is actually caused by government's interventions.

I remember the world bank propping up coffee production in Vietnam, leading to poor quality coffees everywhere.

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fr0man 5860 days ago
Not to mention there's a valid point to be made but linking to heritage.org 'research' undermines your validity right off the bat.
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yummyfajitas 5860 days ago
The original data is mostly government statistics and the original sources are all cited. Are you asserting that heritage lied about the contents of the reports they cite?

Or are you simply saying "people I don't like wrote the report, therefore it must be invalid"?

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fr0man 5860 days ago
I'm saying obesity among America's poor is a real problem and there are studies that support that claim that come from somewhere other than a conservative think tank dedicated to keeping the rich rich and keeping the government from helping the poor.
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yummyfajitas 5860 days ago
The review article I linked to did indeed cite several studies of the type you are asking for.
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