A Class Issue

I've been saying it for years: Fat is a class issue. Meaning, in the United States in particular, whether or not one is obese has a lot to do with your socioeconomic class. The condition is not entirely determined by your bank account, but your money has a heavy influence on your weight.

Now, at least, someone has agreed with me--or at least expressed that agreement in public. I call to your attention this article, Slim Chances for America's obese by author Gillian Tett, as posted on the Financial Times website. The money quote:

…one key for higher obesity rates in poor areas is that those communities have less access to expensive fresh food, exercise and other health aids. The problem is widespread among children, where the obesity rates have grown at a particularly sharp rate. Conversely, surveys suggest that individuals who are obese tend not just to suffer worse health, but have less-positive job prospects.

A few comments to make here: it's refreshing to see someone acknowledge the plain fact that fresh foods is expensive. So often, when this topic is broached, the discussion includes a scolding tone about how ridiculous it is that the poor don't eat enough of that good, fresh, and presumably cheap produce that the (well-compensated) commentator gets to enjoy on a regular basis. That is just nonsense; fresh produce--especially good fresh produce, which you can't get at the supermarket--is not cheap. Not only does it often cost more per unit (or, more particularly for the subject at hand, per calorie) on the face of it, but fresh foods are, ahem, fresh. That is, they go bad. Every fruit that rots, because the buyer did not have the opportunity to eat it before was lost, is wasted money. And--this may shock you, if you are a pundit--poor people don't have money to waste. A can of Spaghettios may be shit, and not very healthy, but it's shelf stable. You won't lose to decay a penny of what you spend on it.

Also, as Tett notes at the end of the above quote, if you're poor and obese you're likely to stay that way. I know from personal experience, if I go looking for a job, all other things being equal, the potential employer is going to hire the skinny person over me. This may, perhaps, be enacted with an eye towards the bottom line, via health insurance premiums. But just as likely, it's because the person who's doing the hiring simply doesn't like the look of you and your excess adipose tissue. You get trapped in a vicious cycle, one that is almost impossible to break with out a lot of help, or perhaps just some dumb luck.

Notably, many of the comments that follow Tett's piece are dedicated to refuting the position her article lays out. This is not surprising; no group lives more on the bad side of the Real Golden Rule™ ("Blame the object of your hatred for being the object of your hatred.") than the obese. That strategy--denying that the ever-growing problem of obesity in this society is something more than millions of individual personal failings--has grown in tandem with the problem. It's one of the reasons that this issue is not likely to be resolved anytime soon, not just in an election year (as Tett points out in relation to governmental intervention).

But at least now I have one example that confirms that I'm not just a lone voice in the wilderness.