Healthy food isn't really more expensive. The price of the food depends a lot more on the shop it's being sold in than the particular item.
Nah, I think it really comes down to a mix of:
1. Many poorer people have jobs with longer/more awkward hours, and it's easier to buy unhealthy food in a rush/at an inconvenient time. Your local greengrocers/butchers shop/whatever likely closes at about 5PM whereas the corner shop stays open till the wee hours of the morning/doesn't close at all. And if you're in a rush, unhealthy food is often quicker to prepare/sold prepared based on whether you're talking microwave dinners or fast food.
2. Many poorer areas are food deserts, or at least have a lack of decent shops. For instance, over where I currently live, there are about 4 different supermarkets, local grocery shops, butcher's shops, bakeries, fishmongers, etc and every other kind of place to buy food you can imagine.
This means it's somewhat convenient to buy something healthy at almost any time of day.
On the other hand, if your only choices in walking distance are a corner shop, petrol station or pound store, the choices for healthy food are a fair bit less, and its more convenient to buy something unhealthy than travel to the shops elsewhere.
I think there is some truth in what you are saying, but if that is true then people without jobs getting SNAP benefits would tend toward buying healthier food. That isn't the general trend I see in the people I've worked with. Most of them tended toward buying highly processed food and it wasn't because they didn't have time to prepare meals.
I did work with one family who was very concerned about eating healthy, but they would tend to buy the absolutely most expensive food they could find thinking it was healthier and then running out of food halfway through the month.
I'm not saying there aren't people who buy unhealthy food because they can't find healthy food, but I see a lot more people hampered by poor life skills leading too poor food choices than grocery store closing hours.
I'm not sure that healthy food is more expensive when you only look at the items, because vegetables are not (some fruits are, but veggies are far more important). With even limited cooking skills you can produce pretty cheap and yet very good meals.
However, I still think your point is valid, because it's not just the food items themselves. You need time to prepare them, plus a stressful life puts psychological pressure (which is real and not "imagined") on your brain for swift and easy rewards. So if you don't just look at the stuff on the plate, but see "eating" as a system consisting of sooo much more, the entire context, I think that's a big part of what in the end indeed makes bad food more expensive.
I almost forgot to mention a possibly even bigger part: When you live in poor areas availability of certain foods is vastly limited, and availability of bad foods is through the roof. Try shopping in supermarkets in poor areas and compare it to a wealthy suburb supermarket.
Straw man at the very least? How many people use veggies for their energy? That's what most people use grains for - bread, pasta, potatoes. All of them also cheap.
Given obesity rates, the problem is too much energy. After all, one part of calling for more vegetable consumption is so that people lower their energy intake. Example: https://www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org/eating-vegetable... (the number of articles on cutting calories by eating more vegetables is uncountable)
Just as an aside, a short excerpt from a bio.chem course that shows the connection between high energy intake and obesity: https://youtu.be/rTR-Ev3hj4c
Under scarcity, in choosing which foods to buy, how tolerant are you to the risk of being hungry because you allocated too few dollars to calories rich foods? My guess is extreme risk averse.
The link between poverty and obesity in the modern world is well established. That means you can hardly point to a lack of energy consumption. I added a video to my comment, from a bio.chem course, that shows a common pathway how high energy state leads to obesity.
Note that I can't and don't want to (and don't need to) show very much here, only provide an argument against what I think is a strange argument from @Retric about "not enough energy in veggies". Energy is not the problem (the psychological feeling of "I have no energy", which may be more prevalent in poor people (I don't know), is not the same as a low energy level).
I doubt the considerations you mention actually happen, or when then it's not widespread. I think it's automatic behaviors rather than conscious choices, and I doubt most people think about their foods energy content (given that a large majority of people, including and for some groups even especially among the poor, consume too much of it). As I see it, the energy claim doesn't fit the available data - which shows an excess, not a lack. That's why I think explanations as well as actions have to aim somewhere else - or would you say we should provide even more energy in food (especially aimed at poor people or not does not matter, since obesity affects all groups to varying degrees).
The point about low calories is veggies are inherently an extra and not a staple. You need to add veggies to your diet and can't simply replace a plate of rice and beans with them.
The preference for low cost per calorie foods makes it easy to over eat when your body is missing some nutrient. Which can create offial feedback loops. But, the simple "how do I eat for 20$ this week" is IMO a factor at the individual and cultural level that should not be ignored.
Nah, I think it really comes down to a mix of:
1. Many poorer people have jobs with longer/more awkward hours, and it's easier to buy unhealthy food in a rush/at an inconvenient time. Your local greengrocers/butchers shop/whatever likely closes at about 5PM whereas the corner shop stays open till the wee hours of the morning/doesn't close at all. And if you're in a rush, unhealthy food is often quicker to prepare/sold prepared based on whether you're talking microwave dinners or fast food.
2. Many poorer areas are food deserts, or at least have a lack of decent shops. For instance, over where I currently live, there are about 4 different supermarkets, local grocery shops, butcher's shops, bakeries, fishmongers, etc and every other kind of place to buy food you can imagine.
This means it's somewhat convenient to buy something healthy at almost any time of day.
On the other hand, if your only choices in walking distance are a corner shop, petrol station or pound store, the choices for healthy food are a fair bit less, and its more convenient to buy something unhealthy than travel to the shops elsewhere.