I Think They Could Stand To Be Vegetarians For Awhile
August 12, 2008
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14 Responses to “I Think They Could Stand To Be Vegetarians For Awhile”
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“Feeling the economic pinch”? Nah… that’s just someone pinching an inch (or uh… more).
unfortunately, twinkies are darn cheap.
Crappy food is cheaper than healthy and just because you’re a vegetarian doesn’t mean you’re necessarily healthy. There’s no meat in a Twinkie.
Have you ever tried living on $100 a month for two people? The cheapest dollar per calorie is Doritos so even on a poor diet, yes you can get fat. Their obesity is likely due to a poor diet brought on by financial hardship and lack of healthy food choices within their market area due to the financial hardships of the community in general. The poorest of diets contain a lot of prepackaged foods and there is nothing like starches and corn-based ingredients to fatten the body and the margins of food manufacturers. I sincerely doubt that this family gets to eat a lot of meat or produce to begin with and now that they have even less of an opportunity to do so their health will surely worsen.
Not to rain on anyone’s parade here, but a reality check is definitely in order. Obesity is more common among people living below the poverty line than in the general population, and it’s more often a matter of dietary constraints than of will power.
Many poor people live on a carb-heavy diet - potatoes, pasta, white bread, corn, rice - because that’s all they can afford that will fill their stomachs. That diet is often low enough in protein, vitamins, and minerals that the body may still feel “hungry” in spite of a full stomach, and its natural tendency is to eat more in an effort to avoid malnutrition. That effort is frequently unsuccessful, and it’s not uncommon for someone in that situation to become both obese and malnourished.
One of the effects of malnutrition is chronic tiredness - anemia due to lack of iron is a frequent cause, as is B-vitamin deficiency - which in turn leads to lower activity levels, creating a vicious cycle even if there’s no change in the amount of food a person is eating.
Insulin resistance is another common effect of an extreme high-carb diet. If type II diabetes develops, it carries its own set of complications and is itself extremely difficult to manage without access to a well-balanced diet.
There are a couple of other, non-diet-related conditions worth mentioning:
Weight gain - sometimes severe - is a frequent side effect of common medications. The metabolic effects of a number of classes of meds are well-documented.
We shouldn’t dismiss the importance of a genetic predisposition to obesity, either. Studies during the past 20 years have shown repeatedly that heredity accounts for 50-70% of variations in people’s body mass index (BMI).
So don’t be so quick to pass judgment on these two women. There may be a number of reasons for their obesity, and “pigging out” isn’t necessarily one of them.
Just the facts, folks. We now return you to your regularly scheduled emergency already in progress.
Man ! I found the article…
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92592545
Looking past the initial hilarity of seeing these 2 overweight women having to go through a forced diet, it’s actually very sad…
Some people are so fucked ! It’s scary when you think that there are so many in this situation…
I can see massive riots comming… It’s not going to be pretty !
It’s lucky for them that McDonald’s has a dollar menu!
Whatever you do, don’t click on the “ENLARGE” button below the picture!!! :>
They’re BIG ENOUGH!!
A good diet would definitely help these two people. But no one mentioned exercise. Even with a horrible diet, you could still keep the weight off by exercising. And don’t tell me they can not afford it. Gym memberships may be expensive but sidewalks are free.
I’ve seen several people on TV like this who were actually malnourished, lacking protein, vitamins, or trace minerals. Sad actually.
From the article: “So they cut back on expensive items like meat, and they don’t buy extras like ice cream anymore. Instead, they eat a lot of starches like potatoes and noodles.”
They used to buy ice cream when they could afford to. Maybe if they had spent their ice cream money on healthier food they wouldn’t be morbidly obese. Maybe if they weren’t morbidly obese they could ride a bike to work and save money on gas. Maybe if more Americans made better decisions and took responsibility for their poor choices, we’d all be better off. At least the daughter is smart enough not to get pregnant just so she can get more money from the government.
What angers me about the article is that it seems that Gloria’s (the mother) own mother lives in the SAME apartment complex with her “baby” boy (a teenager), but they don’t seem to be considering MOVING IN TOGETHER to save on expenses. That’s like a “DUH!” moment! Irma and her kid move in with Gloria and her kid, pool resources (like Irma’s car) and pool incomes to cover the necessary expenses. It would be tight, but 4 people in a two bedroom is not really that bad.
dont give ME that crap about low income is the result of their fatasses. Yea bad food is cheaper, but exercise is FREE—that means no money involved. dont try to tell me they chose potatoes over Doritos, I call bullshit. they are that way largely ( excuse that particular pun) because not only do they have a poor diet, but they dont try to eat as well as they could with what they have, and they dont exercise, or maintain a regular healthy sleep pattern.
Actually, studies have shown that exercise does *nothing* to cause you to lose weight. You could exercise regularly, still eat the same crap diet, and guess what you have? Muscle and fat. Exercise just helps you look hot after you’ve lost the body fat that was covering up your muscles.
Only a diet change (healthy, balanced, regular meals, along with increased consumption of water) will cause the loss of body fat, because that kind of weight loss requires that:
1) your liver stop storing things as fat when it starts doing the work your kidneys should be doing due to dehydration;
2) keep your insulin levels stable; and,
3) makes sure you have all the nutrients you need to even allow your body to start burning off fat. Do you really think it’s going to do that if you’re suffering from malnutrition, despite getting adequate energy from carbs?
I didn’t start losing weight until I actually *increased* my calorie intake. I went from eating meals and substituting sugar for food when I was hungry because I was too lazy (and picky) to cook, to eating all the servings of food recommended for my BMR. I was eating several hundred calories more per day, but my weight quickly stabilized, then started to decrease by a pound per week (two being the most you should attempt to lose safely).
Also: LOFL at the idea of poor people not working out enough. Who usually has to work more than one job? Who usually has to do the jobs that are far more labor intensive? LOFL.