If You're Poor in America, You Can Be Both Overweight and Hungry | Hacker News Reader

If You're Poor in America, You Can Be Both Overweight and Hungry

bloomberg.com

68 pointspseudolus187 comments

Based on a lot of the comments here it seems a lot of you don't understand what it's like to be poor, how soul crushing it is, how unescapable it is, how you have to make short term choices at the expense of the future just to survive.

A good example of this would be smoking, you know it's bad for you, we all do, it's an expensive habit and it's something people from poverty are more likely to do. Why you ask? Because they use it to keep going, it's a stimulant, it gives and extra bit of energy to keep going, to keep working those multiple shitty jobs with shifting hours, small breaks and soul crushing atmospheres.

It's hard to think about the future when you are being crushed by the present reality.

It's much the same with junk food. When time is the thing you don't have and money is the second thing you don't have. Cooking food, especially prep heavy food like beans that have to be soaked overnight, then boiled the next day, then if it's a large enough batch (which it would have to be for efficiency) you have to place it in containers, portion it out etc. We are talking about hours in a day that you don't have (made worse if you are raising a family, working two jobs, taking care of extended family, as many of the poor do). So instead you buy a hotdog from a 7-11 or a shitty vending machine hamburger at work. Life gets worse, seems like there is no hope of it getting better until eventually that little bit of you food you enjoy is about the only part of your life you enjoy, because what else is there.

It actually almost makes sense in a way since you are getting the most calorie bang for you buck, and when that dollar has to go really far, and you aren't sure if food will run out later, the quick math that supports the immediate future over the long term one is what wins out.

I'll never understand the cruelty of trying to place the blame of systemic problems on those effected by it.

"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed." — Herman Melville

> Based on a lot of the comments here it seems a lot of you don't understand what it's like to be poor, how soul crushing it is, how unescapable it is, how you have to make short term choices at the expense of the future just to survive.

I know what it is like to be poor. I have been poor. I have had a lot of friends who were poor. Yet few of them were fat. Poor people are not very fat where I'm from. People in USA are not fat because they are poor, they are fat because they are in USA. Blaming it on poverty is a cop-out. I'm not sure why they are fat, but there is no universal law that poor people make bad choices and don't have time to cook.

There is a difference in pricing structure. Junk and unhealthy food in the US is much cheaper and more available than basic ingredients which you could use to make wholesome meals. Also much easier to store.

We had a similar problem in Poland in 60s, people in some areas ate a lot of bleached flour (and potato flour) in various forms, inviting health disasters and obesity. But that was due to lack of availability of other things mostly.

Pricing structure influences availability for poor. The "feel good" addictive factor is a real kicker. Some foods should come in black coffin boxes with a warning label on top.

That's interesting. How was the pricing structure problem addressed?

Initially, the availability issues were fixed by rationing (dreaded food coupons), then by improving production and transport, and finally the Berlin Wall fell, after a short hyperinflation almost everybody can afford basic food and most kinds of produce (except meat) are cheap.

The problem is somewhat flipped now that affluent people overeat or eat fast food due to time pressure. These are more expensive than produce and basic components (excluding most kinds of meat, still) even including preparation and work required. Fewer people cook at home, though healthier take out options are quite available in many places. Small restaurants, kinda like old American "greasy spoon" but healthier and more often with disposable cheap packaging and cutlery - big catering is barely competitive. Replacing in many instances previous "milk bars" with both cheap and more gentrified options depending on area.

I think the main difference is how near these are to living and work spaces.

“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”

The people just don't know better and the only thing that might teach them is if they experienced it themselves. Which most won't so they'll stay ignorant.

> The U.S. Congress, for one, should increase funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — food stamps — on which 50 million American families depend.

This is anecdotal but I used to work at a corner store in a poor neighborhood. We received plenty of customers paying with EBT but not once (literally, not once) did someone come in and buy peanut butter, pasta, bread, canned veggies, or any of the cheap nutritious foods with EBT. It was always junk food (or worse, candy and soda). It seems to me SNAP is a very small part of the problem compared to a lack of education and resources.

I shop at a local Hispanic grocery store, and I'm always surprised how many people will buy soda, sugary breakfast cereals, candy, essentially boxed fast food, and other garbage with their food stamps rather than the great fresh produce, meats, seafood, etc. that's available. It certainly isn't everyone, but it does seem to be the majority anecdotally. I agree that education is a far more important piece of resolving this issue

One should not underestimate the extent to which stress, depression, and anxiety can make us crave comfort food, and rob the energy to do things like cook your own meals. Especially if you're a working poor and already tired when you get home.

True, but that's a self reinforcing feedback loop.

Eat junk -> Feel like crap, low energy -> Eat more junk

Not a good long term strategy. There are widely available low cost foods that can help break that loop. Rice, beans, eggs, frozen vegetables... In fact frozen vegetables are often more nutritious than non-frozen, unless you're eating close enough to picking time.

> Not a good long term strategy.

That's exactly the point. When you're poor, you don't have the luxury of considering a long term strategy.

> that's a self reinforcing feedback loop.

That's exactly the point. You don't break out of those just by deciding one day to be rational.

People do it all the time. It's unfortunately the exception, not the rule.

Eat junk -> Feel like crap

Put a bunch of effort into making good food -> Feel like crap

Seems obvious what I pick.

Not to mention mental health issues can also make "healthy" meals just taste like shit making everything worse and driving people to get more unhealthy food.

Definitely! Depression has a habit of blunting sensory experiences, including taste.

Looks like we should stop saying "comfort food" and just say "high calories/high carbohydrate unhealthy food"?

What you call it is immaterial, what matters is how it makes your System 1 feel. Comfort food is just a phrase I chose to use because that's what it is.

One should also not underestimate the roles that culture and ignorance play in food selection.

Don't bend over backwards to excuse people of personal responsibility.

Worth noting that processed foods also provide far more calories per dollar. So in a way, they're maximizing their limited funds, albeit with long term consequences.

Maximizing calorie per dollar almost certainly means boxes of pasta, jars of peanut butter, and bags of rice and beans. I think comfort, habit, and convenience have more to do with it than calories.

I think it's both!

I agree, it's unlikely many people have literally thought through "what single food will best maximize my calorie intake?"

However, it's relatively intuitive that spending some amount of money on cereal will get you further than spending the same amount on Apples. And so they buy cereal.

But all of those need time and effort to prepare. If you put a dollar cost on the effort involved McDonalds dollar menu might come ahead.

This could have to do with the fact that you were at a corner store, rather than an actual grocery store. I mostly buy junk food at corner stores too, because I buy groceries at the grocery store.

It isn't particularly surprising that those with less money would limit their purchases at the corner store to non-essential items. That is usually how corner, or literally convenience, stores work.

Same thing way back in the 80s. Only they would buy a small fruit (lime, lemon) for 10 cents with a 10 dollar stamp... then use the change to buy their liquor. And this was a middle class neighborhood.

Never saw stamps used for what they were supposed to be there for. Sad.

It is lack of education, but those lacking the education that really matters are those making the rules that fill the food supply. Nothing will ever change as long as those responsible are allowed to hide behind cultural beliefs that they control.

Just came back recently from vacation in Italy, and was very sad to walk into an American supermarket again.

My gut reaction was "where is the food?" Just row after row of stuff in boxes, with a few fresh fruits and vegetables in one row and a small deli counter, and even there the meats and cheeses are far more processed and industrial scale.

In Italy there were multiple sections of meats and cheeses, fresh breads clearly delivered that morning, in season fruits and vegetables. (I noticed all of the vendors had lots of cherries and apricots, displayed far more prominently and in greater quantities than anything else. Of course it was because they were in season, so that was what all the Italians wanted to buy.)

Even a tiny little corner market had a section for fresh bread, and chunks of really good quality cheese for about €1.

I don't know if it's cultural difference or quality of Italian soil and climate or something else, but seemed like it was cheaper and more convenient to eat real food there than processed and packaged junk.

Where are you shopping? Most US supermarkets have lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as a meat counter and often recently-thawed fish. ("Fresh" fish can't actually be distributed without days of delay unless you live very nearby to where it's caught.) There's also always fresh high-quality bread, though there may be some excessively processed carbs as well Deli's usually don't provide very healthy food -- it's all processed. When I was in Italy a few years ago, supermarkets were very similar to those in the US.

It's the relative quantities and pricing and placement of the various kinds of foods.

There was a much larger selection and variety of fresh breads. The meats and cheeses in Italy heavily emphasize where and how they are produced, with official designations enforced by law. You can get those products imported in the US, but they cost a lot more, of course.

In general, the most common items in Italian supermarkets are what get labels like "artisinal" and "organic" and much higher prices than what you would pay in Italy.

And I still haven't seen a convenience store in the US with high quality fresh breads and cheese.

Maybe the simplest way to think about it, the average Italian supermarket is Whole Foods but much cheaper.

(And don't get me started on the pinnacle of civilization that is the Italian Bar! I need to write a blog article on that.)

I will say, now that I'm back in the U.S., I have been finding the fresh bread and fruits and vegetables, and where they are cheaper, that maybe I missed before because I was seeking it out.

Having lived in several parts of the US, I can say tell you anecdotally:

When I lived in a very poor neighborhood, the local Walmart didn't even have a fresh fruits and vegetable section. Nothing. They had a canasta of apples and bananas near the register, that's it. And it wasn't a small wallmart either.

There was a nice neighborhood, about 10 miles away, that had a Walmart with a wonderful selection of fruits and veggies. Since I was poor, I would drive there.

I've done better financially and now live and go to nicer supermarkets. But I have noticed a direct relationship between the amount, quality, variety and freshness of fruits and veggies in rich vs poor neighborhoods.

Personally, I always chucked it down to overall profitability per user. For example, rich people supermarkets have many more low profit/even loss leaders, because the average bill is much higher.

From my understanding, profitability per product varies tremendously in supermarkets (from loss leaders to products where the vast majority of the sale price is profit)

In poor areas, the average bill is low, and losses from stealing/vandalism go way up (I actually found a human feces laying on the floor in the poor neighborhood market I went to)

I'm guessing perishables have way lower profitability vs canned/packaged goods.

America has such a huge divide between areas, it's like different worlds: people talk, dress, and act very differently.

My guess is this is better in places with less separation between rich and poor (like dense cities), since the supermarkets have to offer good stuff to the poor if they want to reach the rich.

I've definitely seen what you're describing, but not all of our supermarkets are like that. If you visit higher-end supermarkets (like HEB or Trader Joe), you'll see fresh breads baked in-store, gourmet cheeses, top quality meats, and fresh in-season fruits.

If you visit Walmart Supercenter grocery stores, you'll see mostly lower-end crap and frozen boxes.

The simple explanation is that each is catering to what their audience expects, and the prices they can afford.

Yeah, I would say the quality of food in even a discount Italian supermarket is more similar to the HEBs and Trader Joes.

This is the case in my comparison between Spain and the US. Spanish produce was definitely cheaper (in a larger city than I usually live in, to boot). There's also a slightly different setup though. Here in the US, sometimes a supermarket is the only place a person has in range (or tries to be). This means they carry EVERYTHING, and they want it to last on the shelf as long as possible. Meanwhile, I would go to a corner store for bread in Madrid, a block over to a produce store for fresh fruit and veg, and occasionally to the supermarket about 15 minutes walking to stock up on more pantry-stable goods and treats.

In my experience people cook what their parents cooked. The immigrants from the middle east cooked middle eastern food, the native Europeans cooked European food etc. And those immigrants were very poor, so being poor is not really an excuse. Also they open their own stores stocking wares useful for middle eastern food in areas with lots of immigrants, so food deserts becomes opportunities for poor people to make a career. This means that there are basically no undeserved areas, if people live somewhere there will be ways to buy healthy food there.

Why isn't this happening in the US? Do people suddenly forget how to cook when they move there? Or is it the strange zoning laws which prevents people from opening local stores with affordable groceries? Or is it some selection effect, like people who cares about food don't immigrate there? I mean, if fresh produce would sell then grocery stores would obviously stock them. And fresh produce sells very well basically everywhere else in the world, so what is the problem with USA?

>Why isn't this happening in the US?

My personal experience with this is that the cheap, unhealthy, sugar-loaded foods are the obvious choice when you don't know any better. I mean, they're delicious, and a lot of people are overweight, so why not?

I've since learned that maintaining my weight is important, and that means I should end a meal being just hungry enough to eat more, and if I'm losing weight that means being hungry at the end of a meal, and proteins and healthy fat choices help me from getting so hungry I eat a whole tray of brownies.

As for comparing this to other countries, I think the lifestyle of the US is more sedentary in comparison, and for me at least I get more hungry the less I do during the day. I sometimes eat because I'm bored, and that means sugary stuff. When I lived in Brazil and walked around all day I ate a lot but never really cared for sugary stuff the way I do now.

There are plenty of regular grocery stores with produce and meat in the US, and also many stores that specialize in foods of immigrants. For instance, in a city of about 100,000, there are three grocery stores that sell produce within a mile or two of where I live, and three Asian (meaning east Asian) grocery stores, and at least one Indian grocery store. There's a Mexican grocery store not too far away, and I'm sure there are halal places too. A lot of people get produce at farmers' markets which are everywhere as well.

You may not be aware of this, but writing articles that make absurd generalizations to get clicks and upset people is popular on the internet these days.

Protein. If I binge on carbs I can be painfully full but still hungry. If I eat a hunk of roast beast I feel like pushing it away long before I'm physically stuffed. And the satiety lasts longer. I've spent years now N=1 testing the hypothesis that protein satiates me faster and longer than the other macro nutrients, and it seems to pass each test.

I've never understood the "not full eating carbs" thing. This isn't the first time I've heard it either.

Myself ... I get full eating food. Carbs, protein, whatever it is. If I eat a lot of it, I'm full.

I guess what I find interesting and the point of my response is that there is clearly a difference from person to person in how their body produces the "full" feeling. Somehow in your case, a belly full of carbs, blocks (or inhibits) that full signal from firing?

This may be related to ones number of copies of the amylase-coding genes.

Put a saltine in your mouth and start chewing it, without swallowing. Note the amount of time required until it starts to taste sweet.

Anecdotally, I never taste sweetness from this test. And I do not feel satiated by high-carb foods. I could eat spaghetti until I'm basically the gluttony murder victim from "Seven". The satiety signal from carbs is almost completely absent. The feeling of fullness only comes from the physical stretching of the stomach, or from other macronutrients.

That's why low-carb diets work better for me. I eat less when only eating foods that make me feel as though I have eaten at all.

That's an interesting theory. I'm curious though -

If you are low in the amylase enzyme then I would actually expect carbohydrates to NOT cause weight gain. Doesn't that enzyme break down complex carbs into consumable (usable) simple sugars?

Both the salivary glands and pancreas produce amylase, but in different isoforms. Salivary amylase is ptyalin, coded by the AMY1 gene. Pancreatic amylase is coded by AMY2. Humans have multiple copies of these genes, and more copies means more amylase is produced. Someone with 4 copies of AMY1 can still digest starch, but someone with 16 copies of AMY1 might have most of their eaten starches reduced to oligosaccharides long before their ptyalin is inactivated in the stomach. More copies of AMY1 is directly correlated to historic populations with higher starch consumption.

Gut biota will also make their own amylases.

An amylase blocker causes carbohydrate malabsorption, and that is about the same as a lactose-intolerant person consuming lactose. The starches end up getting fermented in the intestine. The gut biota will consume most of them, but I suppose it is possible they might drop some on the floor for the intestine to absorb.

My hypothesis is that the slower rate of digestion of starch produces a lesser effect on perceived satiety.

Here's the rub: it's much easier to overeat with carbs and sugar than with protein, fiber and fat. A lot of people wouldn't blink at 80g of carbs from fries or desert but eating four apples in one sitting is much more difficult.

Honestly, hunger and satiety have a surprisingly large physiological component so is I think its some sort of psychosomatic thing based on current trends.

Me? I get full on food, including carbs.

Sometimes on a weekend day for a treat I go to a cafe in the morning. When I'm there I eat a donut and a bagel and that will be the only thing I eat in the whole day, I feel full after eating it and I am plenty satiated for the rest of the day even though "broscience" tells me I should be starving again a half hour later.

But do you get that feeling faster eating a steak than bread or cookies, in terms of total calories consumed?

i myself get that feeling of being full faster from eating carbs. a glass of soda can effectively kill my appetite before a meal

Not just "carbs", but refined carbs & sugar.

If I binge on bananas, fruit, and veggies etc I feel stuffed too. In fact to the point where I lost ~30 lbs in 40 days because I couldn't eat enough calories. The "potato hack" leverages a similar property with starch.

Fiber & fat both make you feel very satiated.

What is the "potato hack"?

Boil white potatoes, then refrigerate them, to cause retrogradation of the starch?

This causes the starch to become more resistant to digestion and lowers the glycemic index of the food. Potatoes are already pretty good for satiety, and retrogradated potatoes are filling and slower to digest.

resistant starch

People might be different, I feel the actual opposite of this. I can easily eat a steak and feel craving for more. A mixed plate that is 1/3 meat and 2/3 carbs satiates me much more completely. I'm often amazed at just how much I can eat when all I'm eating is meat.

It also makes sense that a diet that generates ketosis so that you lose weight quickly (e.g. protein-heavy/carb-light) would be accompanied by feelings of hunger.

On average, people in the US have a high-protein diet relative to the rest of the world.

There is a lot of evidence that periods of food scarcity in childhood have a profound impact on our body chemistry and the way our body feels hungry or metabolizes food.

> On average, people in the US have a high-protein diet relative to the rest of the world.

A problem with this statement is that you're assuming the average is applicable in a uniformly distributed manner. People who are obese (or morbidly obese) and in the lower income quartile could consume little to no protein, and still you could have a higher protein content in Americans' diets. On average.

Assuming the opposite doesn't get us any closer to finding the truth.

Agreed. Carbs and by extension calories are one part of a diet. Protein is another big one.

Apparently half of America is deficient in one or more micronutrients (ie vitamins, minerals, etc) as well. It’s shocking.

Every body is different and we react to different foods in different ways. The only mistake we can make it assuming other people's bodies work like our own. There is tremendous variation.

N=2, agreed.

After even a medium-sized protein shake I don't even want to look at food, but if I skip the protein and mainly build it with fruits and such then I'm hungry much sooner all the while consuming the same (or more) volume of stuff.

Maybe it’s the fat in the meat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning

Why not regulate junk food advertising? I don't watch much television, but when I do, it's shocking to see how normalized unhealthy food is in society.

The problem is the lack of access to quality, affordable, nutritious food. Food deserts are a huge problem in many parts of the US, where lower income households simply don’t have access to healthy food.

I don’t see how regulating advertising solves this problem.

You're viewing things in black and white terms. Food deserts are a problem, but they aren't the totality of the problem.

Lots of junk food is sold in places with ample access to food. Advertising is part of it.

Food deserts aren't nearly the problem one might naively think. Making high-quality, healthy, affordable, nutritious produce available to the households that need it the most does not tend to result in dietary shifts. Often what's lacking is the cultural knowledge, culinary experience, time, or physical infrastructure to cook the quality, affordable, nutritious food every human being should have.

What's available is an important factor in what people choose, but ultimately people have to make a choice between good and bad food. Little kids are especially vulnerable to fast food ads and people develop their eating habits when they are young.

> The problem is the lack of access to quality, affordable, nutritious food

not buying this - lentils are a nearly complete protein, don't really expire, certainly aren't expensive, and i don't think could be viewed as anything but healthy

That is a very real problem. It's commonly referred to as a food desert

https://www.cdc.gov/healthcommunication/toolstemplates/enter...

http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/usda-defi...

You're also assuming that people know how to make tasty meals out of lentils, or have the energy to do so. The idea of quality food encompasses not looking and tasting like grue.

i'm just responding to a strong and overly simplified claim, quoted above.

that people don't have cooking skill or patience indicates other problems other than access to food - i happen to agree - so i think it's fair to say the claim should include other things like: commuting etc. leads to low energy/motivation to cook leads to choosing unhealthier foods; lack of community structure means there aren't as many people to cook for so less efficient, etc.

again, OPs claim is that food access is "the problem"; i just think it should include other things, such as what you said.

You’re assuming that everyone has access to lentils, which is an incorrect assumption.

Many live several miles away from stores that sell produce and dry grains/legumes and aren’t able to purchase this kind of food on a regular basis, opting instead for canned goods or fast food.

I find that this is a common issue on the site when discussing problems. There are a bunch of people in this thread making claims that people do have access to healthy foods, or its their choice for eating unhealthy, when many of the people on this site have likely never been in a position where they could not access healthy foods, or were not even taught about proper nutrition. I find similar issues in other threads, such as the Airbnb thread where people are saying that there is no problem with Airbnb from the perspective of well off business travelers, with no consideration for locals. Time and time again people weigh in on arguments from a sheltered/privileged point of view with no consideration for people that may not have the money, time, knowledge, etc. to take for granted what we all do. I generally like ycombinator, but sometimes the echo chamber of primarily old, upper class male engineers is quite taxing

1. How many people know that about lentils?

2. Can you buy lentils at the convenience stores most accessible to people in "food deserts"?

Lentils aren't magic, there's plenty of foods like this -- pasta, rice and beans, oatmeal. Most of them are sold at convenience stores in urban areas.

Follow the money.

Jumping straight to prohibiting certain messages and / or their delivery is shocking to me. Free expression (even from vile creeps like Ronald McDonald) and public health are both important.

Tobacco and alcohol advertising is already heavily regulated. Makes little sense why these same standards should not be applied to food, especially when obesity's impact on society is far worse.

I want to suggest that it was also wrongheaded to censor tobacco and alcohol advertising.

Is it ok to censor porn ads in kids TV programs?

In a mature and thoughtful society, with robust communities committed to stimulating and attentive care for kids, yes I think it's preferable to take a super conservative approach to censoring content and instead to spend enough time directly with kids (our own and those of our friends and neighbors) to help them navigate the minefield of content that exists in the world.

I am hopeful that that's the world we're cultivating.

I'm sorry but it's not clear to me - do you mean that in that case censorship is allowed, or not?

In case it wasn't clear, my point is that no-censorship-whatsoever just can't work in the real world. You always have to draw a line somewhere.

Why?

I think that in order for our world to be peaceful and tolerant, we need to be extremely restrained in what expression we use the heavy hand of government to censor. I don't like tobacco or alcohol advertising, but I want to be able to live in a society with content I don't like (or even that I find dangerous) and still be healthy. I think that's important for the information age.

I'm a pretty strong supporter of free speech, but I don't see how it's relevant when you're talking about the speech of corporations.

This seems like a shockingly naive viewpoint given what we know about human susceptibility to advertising.

Consumers consider consider themselves too smart to be fooled by advertising, and yet advertisers spend billions every year because they know advertising works.

It's that gap in understanding that makes advertisements insidious.

We all agree that this is the problem, but the elusive solution seems to be the field on which we disagree.

I prefer to take an extremely restrained approach to state-backed restrictioins content and instead focus on empowering people to recognize when they are being manipulated and resist being fooled.

My concern is that the state-based censorship approach won't last long into the information age, and that if we haven't developed robust protections within our communities by then (against the full exposure of "bad" content) then the effects may be worse for the wear.

The naive part, then, is the idea that we can develop robust protections within our communities. At the risk of invoking "think of the children," our communities are ever-evolving, and the most vulnerable members are replenished regularly.

I'd love to believe that we could, as a community, make wise choices, but reality demonstrates otherwise.

I'm very much loathe to grant the government yet more ability to restrict content, but there is no doubt that television advertising bans on alcohol and tobacco are effective[0], so I definitely understand the desire to enact similar restrictions around unhealthy foods given their societal costs. I think the line is too fuzzy for me to be comfortable, but I'd rather go that direction than re-introducing tobacco advertising knowing that doing so will result in a reversal of the positive benefits.

[0] https://www.nber.org/reporter/winter04/saffer.html

The first amendment only covers political speech. The government can and does censor things like profanity and pornography (there’s a reason why you can’t say “fuck” on the radio). Advertising isn’t political speech and wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) be protected. Considering that advertising is basically psychological manipulation to get you to buy products, especially products which directly prey on your lizard brain things like hunger, I see no reason not to censor junk food advertisements. It worked with cigarettes.

> The first amendment only covers political speech.

This opinion terrifies me. I'm grateful that so few people, including those in a position to decide on government restraint (ie, SCOTUS, etc), agree with you.

In your ideal world (where the text of the 1st amendment is interpreted as you propose), how do you prevent the government from simply labeling any speech it doesn't like as "non-political" and then censoring it?

Not true, the first amendment is about more than political speech. See this article for a little of the history of free speech:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/two-con...

[Note in particular: After all, the genius of the First Amendment lies in bringing isegoria and parrhesia together, by securing the equal right and liberty of citizens not simply to “exercise their reason” but to speak their minds.]

Food stamps, to foster good health, must exclude unhealthy items. I have seen people buying potato chips and sugary soda drinks in exchange for food stamps at convenience stores in Brooklyn. How is this practice even okay? If we want healthy population then food stamps must fruits and vegetables but must exclude soda and chips.

you know how much fruit/vegetables cost right? stop policing what people buy with their food stamps.

what's the #1 item people on SNAP buy? Soda. what's the #2 item people not on SNAP buy? Soda. What's the #2 item on SNAP? Milk #1 on non-SNAP buyers? Milk

It's not much difference between what people on SNAP and not on SNAP buy. It's just people not minding their own business because they think people don't deserve food stamps.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/food-stamps-diet_n_582f4bd7e4...

You want to force people to buy healthier food? Provide more for food stamps.

The more I think about it, the more I convince myself that charitable food security benefits should not be distributed as a cash-equivalent.

Food stamps don't bring grocery stores into food deserts. And food stamps don't stop the corner store from charging $2/lb for bananas when a suburban grocery store is charging $0.60/lb for them.

If you pump more money into EBT/SNAP/WIC, the bananas go up to $3/lb, and the people still get fat while hungry. There's always a way for someone to siphon the value out of a cash entitlement benefit.

I think food security might be better served in the short term by using the funds to buy market baskets similar to those provided by farm shares, and deliver the food directly to the recipients, or at least to walkable distribution points. In the long term, the money has to be used to produce a surplus of food beyond what the cash market currently provides, to be put into a separate supply chain that is resistant to diversion or manipulation by middlemen.

This goes hand-in-hand with housing security, where the government builds new housing units, to rent or condo, then uses some percentage of them for housing-insecure people, at reduced cost to them. It doesn't do as much good to get a free (to you) 10# bag of government potatoes if you don't have anywhere to safely cook them.

You can't push a string. You can't pull sand.

Pumping more money into a community is not going to change anything when its defining characteristic is that the mechanisms to move money out are already limited by the amount of money left inside.

This already exists in a form alongside SNAP, called TEFAP[1]. Except food isn't directly distributed to receipts, instead it goes to soup kitchens, food pantries, local distribution organizations and the like.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Emergency_Food_Assis...

What makes you think they'll buy more healthier food instead of just getting even more junk? That's like giving more heroin to a junky in hopes that'll he'll shoot up less.

OP said we should restrict items to healthier foods. My response to that is I'm for that if you increase the amount to match the cost of fruits, vegetables, and meats.

And honestly comparing people on food stamps to heroin junkies is disgusting. These people aren't addicted to potato chips. There are obviously people who abuse the SNAP program but you think people want to remain fat and unhealthy? The amount given to people on SNAP is not enough to pay for healthy foods. So given the choice between eating potato chips and not eating.. What options are you giving them?

I think anyone who overindulges in soda and other junk are junkies. The people who buy them off SNAP are no better. I think it may be a lack of education or cultural or even psychological thing. If the SNAP isn't providing enough, and you have this little amount of money to spend on soda and chips which provide 10x more pleasure than spending the same money on some fruit, I would probably be a junkie too. (Personally I have lived like that before). But I doubt that giving more money would help unless we try to push people toward better options at the same time. Now I avoid soda(especially) and junk like the plague, because I've changed my mindset and outlook on things. For me, it's better to eat less overall(not enough calories) or just miss the meal until the next opportunity than eating junk food. That's because I've experienced what consuming that trash is like versus eating healthily. But other people may not have the same experience or education or culture to reach the same conclusion. I am quite fond of the Japanese portion sizes for instance. I'm also really into fasts. I think everyone should learn that you don't need to always be eating 3-4 meals every single day outside of specific situations.

> For me, it's better to eat less overall(not enough calories) or just miss the meal until the next opportunity than eating junk food.

This is called an eating disorder.

Well that's uncalled for. I regularly lift weights and consider myself fairly healthy. I have an eating disorder if I skip a meal in a scenario where the only option is junk food?

To be fair, I skip the meal until I get a chance to eat something nice, and I'll usually eat an extra big meal to make up for the missed one.

What if you are eating processed food because you don't have the time, place, ability, or necessary tools to cook? What if you live in a food desert and you do not have reliable transportation to take you to a grocery with fresh foods? What if you have Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder and are also poor? Should you then just starve?

It seems like HN treads a lot of the same ground every time these things are discussed.

1. "Food deserts" are what happens when the demand for ideologically congenial explanations for socially inconvenient facts greatly exceeds the supply. There is an assumed causal directionality which turns out to not be supported. There's a lot of literature on food deserts (as typically stated) being more or less a meme since 2015, here's one example with a couple studies to back it:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/upshot/giving-the-poor-ea...

> Another study, published this week as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, looked across the country and found that no more than a tenth of the variation in the food people bought could be explained by the availability of a nearby grocery store. The education level of the shoppers, for example, was far more predictive.

> because you don't have the time

Almost all data we have suggests poor people have more time too cook than middle class people. Examples abound: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/the-fre...

They may not have the resources/tools though.

For "food deserts", this can be fixed by requiring places to offer a good selection of quality healthy items in order to be able to accept food stamps. This will work, as long as the food stamp based income is significant enough for those shops (they wouldn't want to give up that revenue just to avoid adjusting their inventory). Same with a requirement to serve those with dietary restrictions.

For the affordability issue, healthy items can be classified as getting a discount on the food stamps. This can be implemented with food stamps plus coupons (that are only good when used in conjunction with them).

The requirement you describe is often why convenience stores have a basket with one or two each of Red Delicious apples, bananas, and navel oranges, with a sign saying "fruit $2"

It the same sort of dodge as defining ketchup or pizza sauce as a serving of vegetables in school lunches. There's never going to be enough funding to enforce the spirit of the regulation instead of just the literal wording of it.

Incorrect. Selecting what poor people do with resources as an answer just avoids the problem of rich people choosing what the poor eat, which is the fundamental problem. Let's keep the blame properly placed here.

Unhealthy items are cheaper than healthy items. If I'm on a limited budget and have to get enough food for a week, I'm not getting nearly as many fruits and vegetables as I would otherwise. Pasta is $1/lb and store-brand sauce is $2/jar, suddenly I can make 2 meals for $1.50 each. It's very cheap to buy carb-heavy items that don't have much else in the way of nutrition so of course that's what people buy when funds are limited.

But doesn't your assertion support his argument?

If unhealthy items are cheaper than healthy ones, then unrestricted food stamps will not work as intended. You must restrict them to only healthy items because unhealthy items are cheaper.

(Massive caveat: Big disagreements between people over what is healthy. But there is less disagreement over what things, e.g. soda, are unhealthy.)

Fuck poor people for wanting to eat things I don't want them to eat. How dare they have even a little bit of luxury.

Seriously, the attitudes of so many people on here are absolutely disgusting. Why don't we throw all the poor people in camps while we're at it?

I know it's very big brother-like or big government-like but why not require people on SNAP to take a nutrition class periodically as well as restrict what kinds of things can be purchased with SNAP? Would peddlers of junk-food erupt in protest overt that?

Is it really any more "big brother" than the government literally giving you an allowance to purchase food with?

I think at that point things like prohibiting junk food, or having to take a nutrition class, is barely moving the needle any further.

Interesting the article does not attribute any of the obesity to lack of exercise. It doesnt matter if your live in poverty or you are well-off, if you consume more calories than your burn day-over-day, you are going to gain weight.

Exercising is very beneficial for your health for a lot of reasons but it cannot prevent overweight without a proper diet.

The role of exercising has been exaggerated by Coca-Cola and other junk food sellers to shift the blame away from them: https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/coca-cola-funds-sc....

The idea that exercise cannot prevent obesity without a proper diet is very misleading. Yes, if someone eats 7k calories and does not train like an olympian, they are going to gain weight. However, you can consume 5k calories a day whilst exercising(properly) 5 days a week, and remain very trim and "cut" as the term goes. Proper exercise is not popular though, because if it was easy....well everyone would do it.

The idea that "you have to burn more calories exercising than you eat" is 100% false. The calories you burn while exercising make up less than half of the calories you burn because of exercising. Lean muscle mass maintenance caloric requirements exceed adipose tissue requirements by an order of magnitude. Simplified: the more lean muscle mass you have, the more calories your body will burn with zero effort to support that muscle mass.

That said, a proper diet is a great idea for a ton of reasons. I replied only to point out that proper exercise carries a lot of weight(no pun intended).

I understand your point but food is not just a sum of calories. Not all food is metabolised the same. Athletes consume a lot of calories but avoid junk food.

Edit: as I read your comment again, actually, I think we mostly agree.

That's simply not true. With intense enough exercise, a diet that would cause obesity among ordinary people will leave you extremely underweight with not enough energy to get through the day. If you look at athletes such as competitive swimmers and cyclists, you can find diets of 8,000 calories a day and more. Individuals such as Antarctica explorer had to consume massive amounts of butter, sugar, chocolate and animal fat to get through the day due to the intense amount of physical activity.

Of course, it is much easier and practical to eat fewer and healthier foods rather than exercise to such extreme amounts.

That's not my point though. It's not contradictory to say "intense exercising can cause starving if you don't eat enough" and "exercising cannot prevent overweight without a proper diet".

How is it not contradictory? That intense exercising is doing just that, preventing you from being overweight even if you are consuming tremendous amounts of calories and unhealthy foods.

You don't have to go too extreme either - take an average overweight person and put him through a certain amount of physical exercise - say, cycling multiple hours a day. He will lose weight with his original unhealthy diet, which had lead to him being initially overweight.

"cycling multiple hours a day" Well, I wasn't imagining _that_ level of exercising either. That's already sounds quite extreme to me.

My initial point was the following: just doing more sport is not going to help if you don't even know how much and how badly you eat. You need to reflect on your diet first, and then exercise, even if Coca-Cola wants you to believe that you can drink as much soda as you want without consequences, and that it's your own fault if you get fat afterwards.

Calories in, calories out.

Important note: calories are generally estimations... calorie counting apps even more so.... so if you're not careful your 3 strips of bacon (listed, 160 calories)) can easily be 250 calories.

The listed calories on many cooked foods are "average expectations" of that kind of product with "average cooking". Who defines average? No idea. But I advise people interested in loosing weight to research food labels and assume them as "ballpark" values. Failure to do so, on top of missing the extra tablespoon or 3 of coffee creamer can easily wipe out your 100-200 calorie deficit you planned.

Also, look at regulating your blood sugar (diets like keto help), or, if you like carbs, do smaller meals over the day -- this reduces the spikes in blood sugar that trigger hunger.

not so much - we know that e.g. refined carbs trigger metabolic reactions differently than e.g. pure fats. the gall bladder isn't really used when carbs are ingested, but is when fats are, so there are clearly metabolic consequences.

so while pedantically might be true, the mechanism of the calories does matter a lot.

Also, ethanol has no storage form, but it's definitely calories in. Of course most people don't drink ethanol in a fasted state without any other macronutrients, so they still get fat since the body preferentially metabolizes the ethanol and stores the other stuff.

As I've heard it: "You cannot outrun your mouth"

For example, jogging at a steady pace for an hour will burn around 700 calories (give or take some, depending on weight). If you stop at a McDonalds at the end of that run and have a Quarter Pounder with fries, you're now at a net of +70 calories from where you started.

Mm... yes and no. Exercising will trigger EPOC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_post-exercise_oxygen_co... which will make you burn more than 700 calories overall.

But I agree with you, the calorie to volume/satisfaction of the fast food meal is a horrible deal.

Exercise really doesn't matter all that much for weight loss, your body has evolved to be crazy efficient (and commonly available food is incredibly calorie dense). A 200lb man will burn about 200 Calories running a mile, which is on the order of one coke, or two slices of bread.

Exercise can give you a bit of an edge and increase your rate of weight loss, but it doesn't do much if you're eating in excess.

"Calories in vs Calories" out is grossly and wrongly oversimplified to the point of likely being harmful. Consider this simple point: the Metabolic Energy of Almonds can vary by as much as 25% simply by the way they are processed. https://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2016/FO/C6FO0...

The vast majority of weight gain is due to food, not a lack of exercise. If you eat a McDonald's cheeseburger, it takes an hour of exercise to burn it off.

Worse, you are burning the cheeseburger off, and the fries, and most of the drink. There are just a few extra calories that you don't burn off, and that adds up over the course of a year.

So the weight problem is technically an eating problem, but it's subject to unconscious behaviors and perceptual biases that you have to control over a long period of time.

The article doesn't attribute anything to anything, even its recommendations make no sense, like planting legumes instead of soybeans... That's terrible reporting, possibly worse than useless.

That said, the first law of thermodynamics continues to apply: calories in - calories out == weight gained. The real question is, what makes people overeat to an unhealthy extent? The feedback through leptin should stabilize your weight at slightly above normal by suppressing appetite, but somehow it doesn't seem to work? (Or not anymore?) Why is that?

Lofty talk about unspecified "nutrients" doesn't help anyone. (I think it's probably fructose, especially when not accompanied by fiber. But I don't know enough detail to convince anyone.)

> calories in - calories out

Calories in - (calories used + calories excreted). Of course, calories in = calories in food x extraction efficiency, and already the simple formula has become filled with inconsistent values.

You're wrong. Calories are a measure of physiologically usable energy and already take extraction efficiency into account. Even if you had a point, which you don't, the first law of thermodynamics would still apply, and leptin would still provide negative feed back.

> Even if you had a point, which you don't

My point is simple: "calories in" is unmeasurable. It depends on the food you eat, how it's prepared, what else you eat with it, etc. "Calories out" is unmeasurable. It's based on what you do, how you move, how your body processes what you eat, etc.

The first law of thermodynamics can apply all the live long day, but the statement "calories in minus calories out" is useless.

It's implied in a couple of places:

"Their lifestyles tend to be sedentary because of their built environments, and their food tends to be served in large portions."

"Employers can help, too, by providing mental and physical wellness programs, as well as discounts and subsidies for physical activity programs. These investments are inherently worthwhile, because employees who exercise tend to have better concentration and work output."

I highly recommend exercise, but when you look at how much calaries exercise burns off it is tiny.

Eating less calaries is the only real way.

Exercise helps with getting in shape, but does next to nothing for losing weight.

Interestingly I find this personally to be almost completely untrue.

In particular.

When I am exercising I'm generally less likely to be bored and sitting around snacking and eating. Running, paddling, hiking, biking especially with friends take up a lot of time. Recently I haven't been excercising and so am sitting around (and yes, eating a lot more).

After exercising my appetite is different. I'm hungry in a different way (I tend to eat a bit healthier etc). So after a lot of exercise I don't want the bag of Doritos or highly processed junk food.

Being in shape helps tremendously with things like mobility. Even basic core strength. I've seen folks get VERY sedentary and then start eating a lot more because of mobility issues. I'm convinced in part this is because when you have mobility issues you don't have as many other things to do with your time.

I have worked outside in less developed countries for a few months at a time (ie, no desk work). I ate a relatively poor diet (lots of carbs etc) but boy was I in GREAT shape. The truth is, if you spend the day outside working with your body you WILL be fit. Again, you often don't snack as much as well, it's three meals and then if you are working there isn't usually much food that's easy to snack on.

What I'm saying is that you cannot burn off the calories you get from eating five cakes by exercising. Also, if you're obese lots of exercise types aren't recommended, since it puts too much stress on your body, since it is so heavy. If you want to lose weight, eating less is the way to accomplish it.

Personally, I hate exercise, since it's so boring. To be engaged I need things to think about, but exercising gets in the way of deep thought, so I really dislike doing it. I'm more comfortable walking, but then it's difficult to write down my thoughts...

What exercise does is give you margin. If you're naturally inclined to eat more than your basal metabolic rate by 500 calories per day then it's trivial to maintain your weight if you're getting two hours of walking in per day. That's not even exercise -- that's just movement. But our lives have become so sedentary that this is a huge task for some people. So many people sit in a chair or stand stationary all day long for their jobs.

It's not surprising, though, what with being told to not run in the hallways and sit down in your chair all throughout school.

Fasting is the answer. It also resets craving for sugar.

I'm really surprise that this is a title on a news story.

When I was growing up as a little child, I saw a very poor obese person. I asked my mom how could this be. She told me when you eat trash, you get fat, but since you don't get nutrition, you stay hungry. It was the third world, so instead of fast food it was rice and lard, but the same concept.

This was 30~ years ago.

Recently, I started volunteering at a food pantry.

I was shocked at how many grown men and women say: 'but I see a ton of fat poor kids... they don't need food'.

I mean, there's a remarkable level of ignorance and lack of empathy you need to have to use such an observational to jump to such a conclusion.

The fact that such a well known fact is a title on bloomberg news piece is a sad statement to the status of our society.

I think the problem with people with lower income buying crappy food boils down to the infrastructure they can afford for their food purchases.

If they rely on packaged food / edibles for everything, it’s probably because they don’t even have a good kitchen+fridge+storage space. Fruits and vegetables spoil easily, so it’s time consuming to keep bringing produce that’ll spoil most of the time.

So even if snap buyers can afford to buy produce in store, being able to buy stuff that won’t spoil, I think pushes them towards such foods

Even more overweight people suffer from malnutrition than huger. Carbs are cheap, proper nutrition may not be.

There was recently post in HN describing how sailors in Japanese Navy suffered fro beriberi while having access to calories. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rice-disease-mystery-e...

I think that calling it carbs is dishonest. Carbs from oats/rice etc. are fine IMO.

The problem is with simple sugar without any other nutrients(protein/fiber). Also soda intake in USA is scary.

I never met (educated) overweight person who was suprised about their weight (gain). Most people just eat a lot of sweets (but are fine with it).

> Carbs from oats/rice etc. are fine IMO.

They are not. Eating white rice leads to malnutrition. You need vitamins and micronutriets, not just carbs and proteins.

White rice is enriched with vitamins in the US precisely because it used to lead to malnutrition when people depended on it.

And brown rice is also generally available.

Perhaps an indirect way of tackling the problem is increasing the quality and diversity of school lunch programs in low-income areas susceptible to obesity. Compared to lunch programs in some European countries, especially France, US lunch programs are unlikely to inspire much appreciation for healthy eating [0]. In short, get them while they're young. Also, bring back home economics programs for both boys and girls with an emphasis on healthy food preparation. It's a great life skill.

[0] https://cromwell-intl.com/travel/france/school-lunch-menus/

https://qz.com/515148/a-typical-week-of-school-lunch-for-kid...

Calories-in/calories-out is broken. This isn't a simple "overeating" / "feast or famine" problem - it's that people are eating carbohydrate-rich food. Insulin then shoots up, triggering fat storage.

And if they're in a persistent caloric deficit, they'll experience a net loss of body fat.

It's physically impossible to gain body fat in a caloric deficit.

I count my calories on an diet entirely consisting of white bread and it works for me.

Pretty spot on analysis. Unfortunately, if your body has been in a state of caloric deficit for a long period of time, as soon as you eat slightly above your basal metabolic rate, your body will start to store the excess as fat.

I've seen this repeated as dogma. Is this based on empirical science, or just a hunch?

Check out the research on the life of a fat cell. Basically, fat cells live for years upon years; they shrink when they don't need to hold anything, but are always ready to take on new fat as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

This is often repeated, but never proven as true.

I've often wondered that if you give someone a calorifically rich but nutritionally poor food stuff, will the body eat to excess to try and make up for the nutritional deficit?

Much of this is due to protein dilution through the course of time, from hunter & gatherers to agricultural societies to industrial and post-industrial societies. [1]

[1] 'How the Body Uses Protein vs Energy' by Dr. Ted Naiman, MD. link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLh78As-MOs

Not just America, Africa has the same problem of poor people filling up with cheap carbohydrates and sugar. Diabetes, heart disease, cancer, aka Metabolic syndrome

The tl;dr:

> Food-insecure and low-income families face unique challenges that impair their ability to consume a healthful diet and maintain an ideal body weight. Their lifestyles tend to be sedentary because of their built environments, and their food tends to be served in large portions. The relatively inexpensive, calorie-dense food at their immediate disposal often lacks the nutrients needed for optimal health. As a result, though they may follow a nutritious diet for short periods, these are punctuated by cycles of financial and personal stress that lead to food deprivation, overeating, limited access to health care, reduced opportunities for physical activity and greater exposure to unhealthy food environments.

For all the people arguing that healthy food can be cheap. Not really... My cousins on my mom's side grew up in a house hold of 3 generations, the house had one car, which was used for getting to and from work. Breakfast was walking to the corner store and buying a thing of donuts. None of them knew or could afford to cook. Things like cooking are more difficult if you are constantly having utilities turned off on you, don't have a car, etc.

Cost isn't the issue, but you're right that ignorance is. At the very same corner store a week's worth of eggs, peanut butter, and bread costs the same as a morning's worth of donuts for the family.

Not sure why you're being down-voted for this, as shared elsewhere in the thread [0] you're right. There's also this [1][2] from a UK think-tank which annoyingly I couldn't find any more information on, which says to meet UK government healthy eating guidelines, the lowest income decile would have to spend 74% of their disposable income after housing on food.

The 'healthy food is cheap' group seem to ignore the existence of food deserts, outcomes of research and living situations where kitchens are poorly equipped, running off a meter or other factors which mean spending up to half an hour preparing an (absolutely delicious /s) plate of boiled vegetables and rice isn't realistic. Not to mention rates of in-work poverty resulting in people with lower incomes working multiple jobs. Expending time and energy cooking a bland meal from scratch vs. buying chicken and chips with a fizzy drink for (max) £2.50? No contest in my view.

I live in a city center without a car and even being within maybe the top 20% by income here I still find it far easier to get by on junk food and have to consciously expend energy or money to avoid that. If I go to the Tesco Express (3 minutes walk) vs the Tesco Extra (30-40 minutes walk) then the offers on junk food make it much cheaper than the vegetables (Express are corner stores and carry a very limited selection with larger markups).

[0]: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/healthy-vs-...

[1]: https://www.hsj.co.uk/comment/the-bedpan-the-poor-cant-affor...

[2]: https://foodfoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/The...

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