Cost of Food & Obesity Amongst Poorer People

wotsthat

breadlinebetty wrote: »

So how do you account for the skeletal prisoners in the concentration camps in WW11?

And how do you account for anorexics looking like skeletons?

FACT is the body needs needs a certain amount of calories each day to just function. If, say, an average build woman was comatose in a hospital bed she'd still need approximately 2000 calories a day just to keep her functioning and from turning into skin and bone.

So that blows your argument right out the water....

If people are starved (deliberately or otherwise) then their body mass will reduce. Lower body mass = lower calorific requirement. Take your averagely built woman in a coma who starts off with a requirement of, say, 2000 calories. If she's given 1500 instead she'll, give or take, lose a pound a week. At some point that 1500 calories will be sufficient to maintain her weight. If she's given 500 calories per day it's unlikely that an equilibrium will be reached and she'll starve to death.

There's some evidence that the body enters a starvation zone when calories are depleted and the body holds onto body fat at all costs. It's mixed evidence though and might be being used as an excuse by failed dieters. Either way if calories are way below daily requirements then starvation is the end result whether the person is 'big boned' or has an issue 'with their glands'.

I'm interested in the point you make in the OP. However, the UK is the wrong place to compare the calorific intake of rich and poor people. We are blessed with an abundance of cheap food. Take a wander into Asda - you'll be met by stacks of flapjacks for £1. That £1 will meet your daily calorific requirements - not healthy but it's easy to become overweight on not very much money at all.

The relative weights of the rich and poor in, say, India might be a better place to look at the effects of wealth on BMI.

Food companies have spent decades trying to persuade us that eating between meals is acceptable as a treat. This message has been bought hook, line & sinker - not so much in France though - spot the difference?

I expect here it's more about education and attitudes. I'd suggest that the average member of a running club was better educated than the population as a whole (and running clubs are dirt cheap to join).

chucknorris

adouglasmhor wrote: »

I was watching Kilroy one time when I was home on leave, a woman was explaining how she got 3 meals out of a chicken for her and her daughter (roast, then a curry or fricasse dish then soup using the carcass for stock), a scouse git in sunglasses, leather bomber, nice jeans and dripping in cheap gold jewellery went straight on the offensive, saying oh but you're a gourmet chef, I haven't got time etc. I can't learn that stuff at my age (the doley twonk had all day to get his fake tanned mutton backside to the library and get a book out), he obviously thought cooking was for mugs (like the ethnics in the take away) not him.

LOL I am certainly no gormet chef but I too get 3 meals out of a chicken, we had a roast last night, and tonight I will add some prawns and make a chicken and prawn curry which will last me two nights as my wife doesn't eat curry. It even stretches to four meals if you count the left overs that my dog gets.

misskool

It all takes EFFORT to eat properly and healthily. And some people just aren't all that bothered

Saturnalia

I wonder how much is due to social factors as well as simply economics?

Richer people are going to have more money and time to devote to "the body beautiful" does this then lead onto covert or overt pressure to follow the same standards?

The cafes in richer areas where the ladies who lunch hang out have all the interesting salads, low carb and low fat meals etc, there's simply more healthy options but it costs. Whereas poorer areas have more fast food and greasy spoon type places. So if you are out for a meal with your friends, you'll usually go where the majority wants.

Looking good in our culture means being thin, so are people exposed to the high-end-fashion lifestyle more pressurised to be thin? Not just down to the thin models in the glossy ads, but do the designer brands they want to wear even make the clothes in average-to-large sizes? Whereas for poorer people who couldn't afford that stuff even if they wanted to, and probably don't buy the fashion glossy mags, does that pressure not even enter their lives?

I suppose too if you live in an area where most people are overweight or the larger side of average, you'll feel you're ok at your weight, if everyone looks the same as you then it's socially acceptable. Whereas if you are surrounded by the beautiful people, you'd probably feel the pressure to keep up.

ILW

Saturnalia wrote: »

I wonder how much is due to social factors as well as simply economics?

Richer people are going to have more money and time to devote to "the body beautiful" does this then lead onto covert or overt pressure to follow the same standards?

The cafes in richer areas where the ladies who lunch hang out have all the interesting salads, low carb and low fat meals etc, there's simply more healthy options but it costs. Whereas poorer areas have more fast food and greasy spoon type places. So if you are out for a meal with your friends, you'll usually go where the majority wants.

Looking good in our culture means being thin, so are people exposed to the high-end-fashion lifestyle more pressurised to be thin? Not just down to the thin models in the glossy ads, but do the designer brands they want to wear even make the clothes in average-to-large sizes? Whereas for poorer people who couldn't afford that stuff even if they wanted to, and probably don't buy the fashion glossy mags, does that pressure not even enter their lives?

I suppose too if you live in an area where most people are overweight or the larger side of average, you'll feel you're ok at your weight, if everyone looks the same as you then it's socially acceptable. Whereas if you are surrounded by the beautiful people, you'd probably feel the pressure to keep up.

Are you honestly saying there are "poorer" people out there who think being 18 stone at 5ft 2" is healthy?

lostinrates

Saturnalia wrote: »

I wonder how much is due to social factors as well as simply economics?

Richer people are going to have more money and time to devote to "the body beautiful" does this then lead onto covert or overt pressure to follow the same standards?

The cafes in richer areas where the ladies who lunch hang out have all the interesting salads, low carb and low fat meals etc, there's simply more healthy options but it costs. Whereas poorer areas have more fast food and greasy spoon type places. So if you are out for a meal with your friends, you'll usually go where the majority wants.

Looking good in our culture means being thin, so are people exposed to the high-end-fashion lifestyle more pressurised to be thin? Not just down to the thin models in the glossy ads, but do the designer brands they want to wear even make the clothes in average-to-large sizes? Whereas for poorer people who couldn't afford that stuff even if they wanted to, and probably don't buy the fashion glossy mags, does that pressure not even enter their lives?

I suppose too if you live in an area where most people are overweight or the larger side of average, you'll feel you're ok at your weight, if everyone looks the same as you then it's socially acceptable. Whereas if you are surrounded by the beautiful people, you'd probably feel the pressure to keep up.

You raise two really interesting points....richer people do have more money to devote to food and exercise...but time? Not always I think..(rich as is 'normal' people as opposed to uber rich)

The other is that thin is beautiful in our society. Showing how times have changed in recent centuries of course.

What is considered beautiful tends to be less common, least obtainable I think. So perhaps society is so obcessed with maintaining weight and looks versus the lure of junk food that 'self controll' has become the desirable feature? Not sure.

aliasojo

ILW wrote: »

Are you honestly saying there are "poorer" people out there who think being 18 stone at 5ft 2" is healthy?

Is that your honest interpretation of what was written?

Or are you just attempting to be provocative?

Saturnalia

ILW wrote: »

Are you honestly saying there are "poorer" people out there who think being 18 stone at 5ft 2" is healthy?

I don't see where I said that, could you point it out please?

lostinrates

ILW wrote: »

Are you honestly saying there are "poorer" people out there who think being 18 stone at 5ft 2" is healthy?

It very rarely is. ( I am sure there must be some body builder some where who is this 'ideal' though)

But interesting itself that we have become so (necessarily?) focused on over wieght issue as a health issue. For women (I am not sure about men) it is less unhealthy to be overweight than underweight (at extremes of course, someone as underweight as many are overweight no longer exists), but also for reasons of fertility and other things, yet the women we aspire to look like are usually under ideal rather than over ideal looking (whether they are or not we cannot tell just by lopoking I guess).

This of course is a different point from that raised in the op.

CLAPTON

there is no unhealthy food
only unhealthy diets and unhealthy ways of living.