[monos]

> What do I care if 1% of the population have 99% of the > wealth if there are no consequences to it? I certainly > don’t want to reduce inequality out of spite.

You might want reduce it because the lowest x% don't have enough to eat. Share the cake.

[yummyfajitas]

This is not necessary in the US or most other industrialized nations - our bottom x% tends to eat too much, not to little.

[Teckla]

The poor don't eat too much compared to the middle class and the wealthy. The poor eat the wrong kinds of foods, because the wrong kinds of food are inexpensive.

[yummyfajitas]

If you are fat, you eat too much food. You have more than enough to eat. The situation described by monos, "the lowest x% don't have enough to eat", does not apply. His advice to "share the cake" will only make the real problem (the bottom x% already eats too much cake) worse.

Also, price is not the controlling factor here. 3500 cals of crap might be the same price as 2250 cals of nutritious food, but so what? If you were optimizing for cost, you would eat 2250 cals of crap, not 3500. If you have the money to be fat while eating crap, you also have the money to maintain a healthy weight on nutritious food.

If you can can buy a Big Mac, you can also buy a Premium Southwest Salad ( http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/full_menu/salads/premium... ).

[Teckla]

Sorry, but I respectfully disagree. You've oversimplifying the complex subject of nutrition.

It is now known that it's not as simple as "calories in - calories burned = weight gain or loss". The body burns more calories processing some kinds of foods compared to others. The body is less efficient or less encouraged to convert some kinds of excess calories into fat, depending on the source of the calories. It is becoming more clear that insulin plays an important role in a large percentage of cases of obesity, and it turns out most of the most cost effective foods encourage the body to produce the most insulin (and, almost paradoxically, also encourage hunger).

Your own example demonstrates my previous point. I would need to eat 18 (!) of those salads you suggested, every day, to merely maintain my weight. Or 5 Big Macs. It's obviously an extreme example, but which do you think poor people would choose? Buying cheap food can make the difference between paying the rent and living on the street.

With all due respect, it's ignorant and offensive to blame poor people for all their problems. Having an adequate amount of money makes an astonishing difference in your ability to achieve good nutrition, lower your stress, pursue advanced education, get enough exercise, etc.

I know it's popular to blame all poor obese people for their own predicament, but it's simply ignorant.

[yummyfajitas]

I agree with your first paragraph - there are significant corrections to the rule of "calories in - calories out = weight gain". That doesn't mean it's not a good first order approximation (in my experience, within about 15% [1]). It also doesn't mean that fat people aren't eating too much. If you are 40lbs overweight, eat less. If you are not overweight but don't have a 6 pack, that's the time to start worrying about exactly what you are eating.

Also, you are correct - the straw man you are arguing against is wrong. It would be cost inefficient to eat 18 salads and 0 big macs.

Now, lets say you are obese. That means you are eating 6 big macs. If you are constrained by cost, you could reduce consumption to 5 big macs (saving the cost of 1 big mac), and you will eventually be merely overweight rather than obese. Or you could change your consumption from 6 big macs to 4 big macs + 1 big salad, and you will approach a healthy weight (and save money). If you want a visible 6 pack, you might even need to play around with the exact composition of your 2250 calories.

You are also ignoring the fact that it isn't very expensive to cook healthy food at home. Last night I cooked about 6 meals from rice, lentils and frozen vegetables. Total cost: about $5. 6 big macs costs about $18.

Also, as for exercise, the lowest earners have the most free time and they exercise the least (I won't even get into the vast majority of poor who don't work at all). They spend the most time watching television. The highest earners have the least free leisure time and spend the most time on exercise (and the least on TV). I'm not sure why having more leisure time would make it harder to get exercise or cook a healthy meal.

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

[1] My personal experience: I was obese as a teenager. I got myself down to a reasonably healthy weight simply by reducing intake during a 1 year period when I was living well below the poverty line (this was during college and due to some unusual choices I made). I was hungry as all fuck. My rate of weight loss was within 15% of what calorie counting predicted.

[barry-cotter]

The poor eat the wrong kinds of foods, because the wrong kinds of food are inexpensive.

Convenient dominates inexpensive. Frozen vegetables fried in a wok with butter and assorted spices is easy, fast and cheap, but not as easy as pizza goes in oven.

[wlievens]

What part of 'if there are no consequences to it' did you glance over?

[loewenskind]

But what is the point of such a line of discussion? If there are no consequences then of course no one would care. The whole reason such a thing is discussed is because there are indeed very real consequences.

[gaius]

Not really. Here in the UK "the poor" have satellite TV, free healthcare, smoke 40 cigarettes a day, and pay someone else to cook their food.

What does it matter that "the rich" go to the opera and smoke cigars and eat at fancy restaurants instead of the kebab shop? How does any of the latter take anything away from the former?

[loewenskind]

We were talking in the context of the US where this is absolutely not the case. In the UK the wealth inequality would be less of a big deal than in the US precisely because the UK takes better care of it's poor (with the unfortunate abuse that comes with that).

pg's comments about wealth are correct: me going out and creating something that makes me a billion dollars doesn't take anything away from anyone. But this is provided I'm a one man show and have no team. As soon as it's not "me" but a company, then me having enormous compensation very much does take away from others. The more money I take out of the pot, the less there is for workers, new positions, etc. It wasn't so long ago that top CEO's were making 70k/yr. :)