Cost of Food & Obesity Amongst Poorer People

nicko33

posh*spice wrote: »

I thought posters might find this interesting
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/oct/16/our-social-environment-encourages-obesity

I'm not sure I agree. I think "the public gets what the public wants" that is, the food industry provides the food that people want to buy....and at the moment that just happens to be the unhealthy stuff...

"Tax bad food, subsidise good food"
unfortunately that probably means taxing fat, rather than the real evil, sugar.


Worth looking up is the TV series "The Men Who Made us Fat"
reviews of the episodes are on this site
http://www.zoeharcombe.com/category/obesity/

aliasojo

posh*spice wrote: »

I thought posters might find this interesting
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/oct/16/our-social-environment-encourages-obesity

I'm not sure I agree. I think "the public gets what the public wants" that is, the food industry provides the food that people want to buy....and at the moment that just happens to be the unhealthy stuff...

I agree with the article.

It's not a chicken and the egg situation imo, it's much clearer than that, we've been manipulated on a huge scale.

The food and drink industry find a product which is cheap to mass produce and will supply a good profit.

They encourage us to buy their wares, they lead we follow.

paulmapp8306

Well - having read most of this thread - though not all yet, Im going to have my - very basic - say.

1. In 99% of cases, if you eat less calories than you use you will loose weight. If you eat more you gain weight.

2. For MOST of the countries population - junk food is way cheaper than healthy food. there ARE plces to get cheal fruit/veg etc but its not readily available for most.

3. Money makes a difference. If the poor eat unhealthy it IS often because eating healthily is too expensive (though if you can afford take aways you cant us this as a rason - many poor simply cant afford take aways).

4. Preparation time is a factor for many. Not the ppor here - but two working parents with childrent to look after dont necessarily have the time to shop a severl locations for ingrediants nor the time it takes to cook from scratch every day. if its a choice between time with your children or time cooking - you cant blame parents from choosing the children can you?

So - whats the solution? bloody difficult it what - and too fold. I dont believe in the Tax rubbish foods more - I firmly believe this is primarily a way to raise income for the government and !!!!!! all to do with health. It may help as part of an overall solution of course, but only if the money raise is used to promote health living and doesnt just dissapear into HMRCs coffers. So.

1. Impose a Fat tax if you will - on unhealthly foods, be that take aways, supermarket foods or whatever.

2. Use that money to subsidise healthly foods - and the government needs to set the prices for healthy foods nationally (fruit/veg/ etc) or the supermarkets will just raise their proffit margins so the subsidies wont make it to the people - and people in remote areas wont get the benefits.

3. If your on benefits - part of your payments should be in the form of food vouchers - only redemable on healthy food.

4. Education, Education, Education. CLEAR, ACCURATE, and CONSISTANT.

Koicarp

I really don't think education comes into it. I've worked with families from all eduactional levels from Phd's to those where parents have a learning disability, and have never come across one that doesn't know that broccoli is healthier than chips.
As a society we should think about why poorer people access health services only when they are ill, whilst richer people access them in a more preventive manner.
We should also be thinking of why poorer people accept ill health as if it were inevitable, they receive health services if offered whereas richer families take a much more active role in seeking health care.
A few pages back I mentioned "locus of control" poorer people on my caseload are less likely to contact me to tell me they have had a reduction in control of their condition, whereas the better off ask for an appointment to let me know they are fine and see if I have any knew advice for them. Poorer people accept care/services/life which happens to them with a sense of inevitability. My better off clients have had success in life and see no reason why they can't be successful in managing their health with a little assistance from me.

paulmapp8306

Isnt that all part of education though?

If you educate the poorer to be more pro-active wont that help? currently there doesnt appar to be much in that kind of education.

mumf

Koicarp wrote: »

I really don't think education comes into it. I've worked with families from all eduactional levels from Phd's to those where parents have a learning disability, and have never come across one that doesn't know that broccoli is healthier than chips.
As a society we should think about why poorer people access health services only when they are ill, whilst richer people access them in a more preventive manner.
We should also be thinking of why poorer people accept ill health as if it were inevitable, they receive health services if offered whereas richer families take a much more active role in seeking health care.
A few pages back I mentioned "locus of control" poorer people on my caseload are less likely to contact me to tell me they have had a reduction in control of their condition, whereas the better off ask for an appointment to let me know they are fine and see if I have any knew advice for them. Poorer people accept care/services/life which happens to them with a sense of inevitability. My better off clients have had success in life and see no reason why they can't be successful in managing their health with a little assistance from me.

Education then. That inevitability, that acceptance comes, I think ( where it applies) from institutionalisation. The benefit system IS an institution-the employer if you like. People locked into that system do as they are told. They accept their fate. Chuck in a dose of sloth, laziness or plain old lack of motivation and there is the situation we speak of.

StevieJ

Last appearance today for the great Frankel, one statistic made me think of this thread, he consumes 34,000 calories a day :eek:

callum9999

paulmapp8306 wrote: »

Well - having read most of this thread - though not all yet, Im going to have my - very basic - say.

1. In 99% of cases, if you eat less calories than you use you will loose weight. If you eat more you gain weight.

2. For MOST of the countries population - junk food is way cheaper than healthy food. there ARE plces to get cheal fruit/veg etc but its not readily available for most.

3. Money makes a difference. If the poor eat unhealthy it IS often because eating healthily is too expensive (though if you can afford take aways you cant us this as a rason - many poor simply cant afford take aways).

4. Preparation time is a factor for many. Not the ppor here - but two working parents with childrent to look after dont necessarily have the time to shop a severl locations for ingrediants nor the time it takes to cook from scratch every day. if its a choice between time with your children or time cooking - you cant blame parents from choosing the children can you?

So - whats the solution? bloody difficult it what - and too fold. I dont believe in the Tax rubbish foods more - I firmly believe this is primarily a way to raise income for the government and !!!!!! all to do with health. It may help as part of an overall solution of course, but only if the money raise is used to promote health living and doesnt just dissapear into HMRCs coffers. So.

1. Impose a Fat tax if you will - on unhealthly foods, be that take aways, supermarket foods or whatever.

2. Use that money to subsidise healthly foods - and the government needs to set the prices for healthy foods nationally (fruit/veg/ etc) or the supermarkets will just raise their proffit margins so the subsidies wont make it to the people - and people in remote areas wont get the benefits.

3. If your on benefits - part of your payments should be in the form of food vouchers - only redemable on healthy food.

4. Education, Education, Education. CLEAR, ACCURATE, and CONSISTANT.

I have to utterly disagree with most of that (excluding point 1 of course).

2. Fruit and Veg IS readily available for most people at reasonable prices. The issue is that most people are so bone idol, they can't be bothered to look any further than Tesco to find it. There are countless cheap fruit and veg shops (particularly ethnic ones), farmers markets and discount supermarkets right across the country.

3. If you're that poor then you shouldn't be eating take-aways at all. Money makes it easier of course, but it doesn't prevent you eating healthily.

4. Yes you can blame the parents... If time with the children is an issue, get them to help cook. Not to mention cooking isn't remotely as time consuming as you claim if you don't do anything ridiculously fancy. I cook a lot, but I can cook a vegetable lasange completely from scratch and clean up everything in less than an hour. Then there are the countless healthy dishes you could easily prepare in half that time.

As for your solutions:

1. Yes I agree with that (though the unhealthy/obese masses won't - just look at the outrage over taxing a pasty... Pathetic!).

2. No, the government should not (and presumably can not) set the price of food. Nor is subsidising healthy food really going to work.

3. I agree with this and combine it with your second point. Don't subsidise healthy food, just give the poor more vouchers so it's subsidised for them but not others (then you don't have the problem with supermarkets changing profit margins).

4. Everyone, thin or obese, is well aware that junk food is bad and vegetables are good - so I don't think education is going to make much difference. Though I do agree in part, perhaps introduce things like cooking lessons to encourage those that haven't even bothered to try cooking properly that it isn't actually as daunting as they may think it is.

cotleigh

Why did schools stop actual "cookery" lessons? A lot of the current problems with obesity / junk food / unhealthy food stem from many people not really knowing how to do basic cooking. Once, not so long ago, these skills were passed on by parents - especially mothers to daughters. But we can't expect this today, knowledge has been lost, so kids need to be taught how to prepare food from basic ingredients rather than just pressing a button to microwave another ready meal.

When I was at school (early 1980s) we had weekly cookery lessons (which the boys generally hated at the time!), but from talking to younger mates / friends kids, they now do pointless lessons about "food technology and nutrition" but not the actual practical stuff!

System

cotleigh wrote: »

Why did schools stop actual "cookery" lessons? A lot of the current problems with obesity / junk food / unhealthy food stem from many people not really knowing how to do basic cooking. Once, not so long ago, these skills were passed on by parents - especially mothers to daughters. But we can't expect this today, knowledge has been lost, so kids need to be taught how to prepare food from basic ingredients rather than just pressing a button to microwave another ready meal.

When I was at school (early 1980s) we had weekly cookery lessons (which the boys generally hated at the time!), but from talking to younger mates / friends kids, they now do pointless lessons about "food technology and nutrition" but not the actual practical stuff!

My cookery lessons at school consisted of baking cookies and cakes..not exactly healthy :rotfl:

Would have been better to teach us the basics (though i suppose you could argue parents should do that)