Overweight woman denied cab service

[Derek Meister]

.. inevitable lawsuit underway.

From NewsNet5.com (http://www.newsnet5.com/news/3353328/detail.html?2):
Mararika Parker, who weighs 650 pounds, has depended on taxicabs for the past three years to drive her short distances, but she said she never had a problem getting service until February, WRTV reported.

"He said 'I can't ride you. You too big for my cab. You'll pop the doors off of my cab,'" Parker said. "I was so mad, I couldn't talk to him."

Parker went to the Indiana Civil Rights Commission, which is now pursuing an investigation against Indy Airport Taxi.

There's video of the report on the site as well.

Personally, descrimination suits are always something of a gray area when it comes to things outside the generally protected classes of race, religion and sex. That is, I can understand the need to protect the rights of individuals from having their lives severely inconvenienced from mass discrimination, but I also understand the arguments that a business should have the right to refuse service to individuals for reasons not to do with mass discrimination.

On an unrelated note, the video does bring up another question, that of the situation of someone so horribly obese. Are they completely faultless here, or should they not always be protected from the consequences, outside of the health concerns, of their situation? I'm overweight right now, but I fully accept the responsibility for such as well as the consequences, and I'm not anywhere near the obscene nearly 3X my weight this lady is.

[Chris Nahr]

SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY POUNDS!?

A little walking would do her some good, no?

[Jason McCullough]

"You'll pop the doors off my cab" is hilariously, blatantly, unjustifiably discriminatory, but I don't think she can make a claim unless she's legally classified as disabled.

But geez, 650? Takes some work to get up there.

[Peter Frazier]

As PJ O'Rourke said in an essay quite a while ago, there's a difference between 'you shouldn't say that' and 'you can't say that'. I'd rather live in a society where niceness wasn't legally enforced but something that was expected. Of course, I'm also not picked on very often so I can say that.

[Rollory]

I get picked on a lot, but I'm not always very nice either, and I prefer being able to not be nice to not being picked on. Choice is good.

I've never had much sympathy for the obese. There's "built big" and "slow metabolism" which are reasonable excuses, but if you eat with the slightest bit of common sense that won't take you far beyond 300. Grossly fat people deserve to be laughed at; if nothing else, it's society's final attempt to get them to face up to their own problems. (Which this woman obviously refuses to do)

[Tim Partlett]

I think discrimination comes down to whether a condition is considered a lifestyle choice, or an inescapable product of circumstance. For me I think being fat is the former, for while your genes may make life more difficult for you, you don't have to be fat. So in that sense, this scenario is, for me, more like someone refusing to take a drunk in his taxi, and I don't really see anything legally wrong in that. If he'd said to a drunk, "I can't ride you. You too drunk for my cab. You'll piss on my seats", I don't think anyone would be complaining, and I think there's just as strong a case for people being genetically predisposed to alcoholism as obesity.

[Doug Erickson]

If bars can refuse service to drunk people and restaurants can refuse service to smokers, I'd venture that cabs should be able to refuse service to archfatties. 650 pounds is LUDICROUS. There comes a point when a person's self-indulgence can fracture society's ability to tolerate it, and I'd say 650 pounds is definitely pushing it.

[Rywill]

Yeah, I agree with Tim. I would think that at 650 pounds, the woman must have something out-of-whack medically, but it's not like I'm any kind of expert. It just seems like, Jesus, how could you get that huge if there wasn't something wrong with your metabolism or body chemistry or something?

I think as a modern society we're going to have to confront this question more and more, though. The more we succeed in eliminating racism, sexism, homophobia and discrimination against the disabled (obviously we still have quite a ways to go on all fronts, but we're getting there), the more we're going to have to confront the next wave of discrimination: that based on arguably freely chosen actions, but ones where maybe genetics has its thumb on the scale. Stuff like alcoholism, obesity, drug addiction, maybe even nicotine addiction. How much do we sympathize because you may have a genetic predisposition (or, in the case of drugs/smoking, that you might have made an uninformed bad choice that resulted in physical addicition)? How much do we say that it's your own problem or fault because it's possible for you to overcome your bad circumstances by force of will?

I'm fascinated to see how it plays out. I'm still honing a personal opinion, but I definitely tend to come down on the "less sympathetic" side. My dad's terribly addicted to smoking after having started at a time when doctors said cigarettes improved your vigor. My whole family tends to be overweight and I keep trying to exercise more and eat better, but am still overweight myself. So it's not like I'm throwing stones with no understanding at all. But I tend to think my dad's inability to quit smoking is a failure of his more than anything (although I understand that he got dealt a bad set of circumstances in this regard, he could overcome it), just as I think my own inability to get down to my target weight is a result of my own lack of willpower.

[Enidigm]

My whole family tends to be overweight and I keep trying to exercise more and eat better, but am still overweight myself.

Try fasting one day a week, it helps reset your stomach's "caloric expectations". Im sure its not great for you over a long period of time, but it does help break a cycle of binge eating and cleans your systems out.



I genuinely think weight problems are 90% about lifestyle. Even high caloric foods aren't all bad if your constantly moving around physically - yardwork, house maintainence, recreational exercise, ect. People are just so sedentary it doesn't matter what kind of diet your on, if your not increasing your metabolism you won't be able to stay at a healthy weight.

Cases like this woman's are almost so degenerate, its animalistic in some ways - like a cat that won't stop eating even if its swollen in its own fat. There is such a lack of self awareness you wonder if they're even concious human beings all the time, and not just grazing ruminants at a trough. That 'reptillian', instinctive part of the brain seems to completely take over in some individuals, and the rational mind that remains enslaved to the instincts guiding them.

[Jason McCullough]

Cases like this woman's are almost so degenerate, its animalistic in some ways - like a cat that won't stop eating even if its swollen in its own fat. There is such a lack of self awareness you wonder if they're even concious human beings all the time, and not just grazing ruminants at a trough. That 'reptillian', instinctive part of the brain seems to completely take over in some individuals, and the rational mind that remains enslaved to the instincts guiding them.

Can we talk about them like they're human beings?

This is off topic, but lately I've been reading far too much about eliminationist psychology, and hearing people referred to as "animalistic", or "not conscious human beings," or "vermin" tends to raise the hairs on your neck. Obviously we're not going to have a Fattallnacht, but still.

[DennyA]

Also, many people who reach crazy weights like that have some sort of metabolic problem -- it's not always gluttony. Nice of you to assume that, though.

[Derek Meister]

I've heard just as much research say that metabolic and genetic problems will at most add a hundred to two hundred pounds to your normal weight.

The video in question ended with a note that the news channel has put her in touch with a nutritional center that is putting her on a diet program to lose weight. If it was truely the fault of a metabolic or genetic reason, a diet would do her no good, so there's definitely blame to be laid at her feet for getting to 650 lbs and rising.

[DennyA]

Well, if the blame is to be laid at her feet, you can't really hold her responsible. Doubt she's seen them for a decade!

[Tim Partlett]

Fat is just food energy that you don't use. People may be genetically less efficient at converting food into energy, or they may be born with stronger appetites than others, but if you only eat the food you need, or burn off the excess with exercise, you won't get fat. The reason obesity is a serious problem in countries like the US and the UK is not because of our genes, but because we eat too much fatty foods and sit on our asses in office jobs or in front of the goggle-box.

[Cool Breeze]

So, by owning my own business, or working for an employer, I am legally bound to service anyone and everyone? Please, let's not take this further than it needs to be.

The cabbie was a prick. He broke no laws. It was not discrimination.

If she complains legitimately to his company then he should be severely reprimanded or fired.

Let us not turn this into a legal issue, please; lest I'll think visiting the P&R forum of this board is room enough to have you classified as legally disabled.

[Mark Asher]

If bars can refuse service to drunk people and restaurants can refuse service to smokers, I'd venture that cabs should be able to refuse service to archfatties. 650 pounds is LUDICROUS. There comes a point when a person's self-indulgence can fracture society's ability to tolerate it, and I'd say 650 pounds is definitely pushing it.

So cabs shouldn't give rides to say, several people at once? Why is 650 pounds a problem? That's three businessmen. Cabs shouldn't give them rides?

[Mark Asher]

The cabbie was a prick. He broke no laws. It was not discrimination.

Most cabs are licensed by the cities in which they operate. It's possible that agreement they work under prohibits discrimination.

[Tim Partlett]

Maybe he genuinely believed she might break his car? It's not like he got out of the cab, weighed her, and then calculated her weight relative to three normal sized people. If I were his boss, I'd probably fire him, but if it is his own cab, I don't see why he has to give rides to anyone.

[Enidigm]

Can we talk about them like they're human beings?

This is off topic, but lately I've been reading far too much about eliminationist psychology, and hearing people referred to as "animalistic", or "not conscious human beings," or "vermin" tends to raise the hairs on your neck. Obviously we're not going to have a Fattallnacht, but still.

I do understand what your saying but perhaps my strong language distracted you from understanding my perspective.

By now i think most of us would agree that human beings are a complex interplay of instincts and higher mental states. Though i loathe organized religions in the 21st century, both they, and their contemporary secular philosophers, recognized this fact thousands of years ago, and so all ancient theologies aspire to a more reflective, self conscious 'paradigm' of human existance beyond the immediate bodily needs. Sins were almost always sins of the flesh, of 'degeneracy', of letting the body get the better of the mind; or worse, letting the body 'enslave' the mind, allowing lusts to guide logic. In fact such a being would be in my mind's eye the personification of the demonic according to Judeo-Christian traditions.

If obesity were a disease i would expect it to hit suddenly, randomly, and tragically. "I was about to become a neurosurgeon/astronaut when suddenly i was struck by obesity!". Or if it were congenital (which it appears to be to some extent) more corrolative - ie,. 600 lb man has 600 lb son.

Its my opinion that there is a strong corrolation between gross obesity and , well, not intelligence, but perhaps self-realization. How many obese doctors vs. secretaries have you seen? In fact i would risk conjecturing obesity almost never occurs amoung those either highly successful or interested in self-fufillment (artists, ect), but in those whom by lack of education or intellect have 'sunken' into a life without any aspirations for spiritual or intellectual fufillment.

Heres a google for you :http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0887/is_11_22/ai_111023396
I don't know if there has been any research brave enough to study directly some measure of IQ vs. BMI in adults.

Show me a obese CEO/musician/hippy/whatever and ill retract my supposition.

I ought to qualify this by reminding everyone of the difference between being 'overweight', which just happens in a high-cal/low activity world, and 'gross obesity' which is the subject. Don't confuse the two (although they are related environmentally).

Anyway thats was my point. I suspect people like the woman in question have 'sunken' into 'animalistic' behavior because of a lack of spiritual or intellectual/educational fufillment. When nothing remains but in someones life but the base instincts - eat, sleep, fuck - it leads to all kinds of degenerate behavior of excess, which in this case is obesity.

[Derek Meister]

Musicians may be a bad example, as I could list more than a few.

[Toddy]

Its my opinion that there is a strong corrolation between gross obesity and , well, not intelligence, but perhaps self-realization. How many obese doctors vs. secretaries have you seen? In fact i would risk conjecturing obesity almost never occurs amoung those either highly successful or interested in self-fufillment (artists, ect), but in those whom by lack of education or intellect have 'sunken' into a life without any aspirations for spiritual or intellectual fufillment.

That's the stupidest fucking thing I've read on this board that wasn't posted by Koontz. A lot of people are overweight these days, from all socioeconomic backgrounds. I can provide a dozen examples of people I personally know who are both very successful and fulfilled in their careers (lawyers, doctors, veterinarians, writers, reporters, etc.) and overweight. Not extremely overweight or anything like this woman, but still on the chunky side. It's just the way that our society is going right now. Too much choice, too much temptation, too much TV and PC and gaming.

But I will agree that poorer people have more problems with weight. That's got nothing to do with intelligence, though. Junk food is cheap food. A lot of people out there would love to eat better, but they simply can't afford to do so. It's a lot cheaper to take the family to Mickey D's than it is a real restaurant, too. Over the next decade, I really hope that companies start smartening up and giving us healthier options for reasonable prices. That's the one reason I love the constant lawsuit threats against companies like Nabsico and McDonalds--fear of a big tobacco-like loss might cause these idiots to start treating consumers better.

[Derek Meister]

I would suggest that there is a marked difference between someone overweight, even by a hundred to two hundred pounds above their ideal weight, and people who are over six hundred pounds and rising.

For most overweight people it's obviously not an ideal situation, but it doesn't physically interfere with their normal physiologic functions like simple breathing to the point that the 500lb+ tends to.

[Enidigm]

That's the stupidest fucking thing I've read on this board that wasn't posted by Koontz. A lot of people are overweight these days, from all socioeconomic backgrounds. I can provide a dozen examples of people I personally know who are both very successful and fulfilled in their careers (lawyers, doctors, veterinarians, writers, reporters, etc.) and overweight. Not extremely overweight or anything like this woman, but still on the chunky side. It's just the way that our society is going right now. Too much choice, too much temptation, too much TV and PC and gaming.

But I will agree that poorer people have more problems with weight. That's got nothing to do with intelligence, though. Junk food is cheap food. A lot of people out there would love to eat better, but they simply can't afford to do so. It's a lot cheaper to take the family to Mickey D's than it is a real restaurant, too. Over the next decade, I really hope that companies start smartening up and giving us healthier options for reasonable prices. That's the one reason I love the constant lawsuit threats against companies like Nabsico and McDonalds--fear of a big tobacco-like loss might cause these idiots to start treating consumers better.

"I ought to qualify this by reminding everyone of the difference between being 'overweight', which just happens in a high-cal/low activity world, and 'gross obesity' which is the subject. Don't confuse the two (although they are related environmentally). "

Again its just an idea. Maybe im wrong, its not a cherished ideological world-view ect.

[Stroker Ace]

ectetera ectetera ectetera :P

[Erik]

The Selfish Gene's point was kind of nutty - Cass Elliot was a musician and a hippy. And George Broussard is a CEO and he plays guitar. I know for a fact that he voted Gore in 2000, which makes him a hippy too. But I don't buy this either:

Junk food is cheap food. A lot of people out there would love to eat better, but they simply can't afford to do so. It's a lot cheaper to take the family to Mickey D's than it is a real restaurant, too. Over the next decade, I really hope that companies start smartening up and giving us healthier options for reasonable prices. That's the one reason I love the constant lawsuit threats against companies like Nabsico and McDonalds--fear of a big tobacco-like loss might cause these idiots to start treating consumers better.

A) You don't have to eat everything that's put in front of you.
B) It's a lot cheaper to make food at home.
C) There are relatively healthy choices that can be made even within a diet consisting entirely of "cheap" and convenient packaged food.

For three years, my more or less wife administered locally a federal aid program called WIC. It served just the type of people I think you're talking about - poor with kids. As with a lot of poor Americans, many of them were fat. Part of the program required her to compile detailed information about every recipient's daily diet. A huge number of the people she interviewed routinely drank a 12 pack of non-diet pop a day - that's an entire day's worth of calories just from soda. I probably don't need to point out that a healthy alternative to pop is pumped free into the houses of even poor people. It's anecdotal, I suppose, but my non-morbidly obese gut tells me that there's no way that McDonald's is causing poor fat people to make the unhealthy choices they make. And believe me, they don't want you lobbying congress to make McDonald's give them less food for the money. Especially since you're Canadian. Hell, why not force healthy restaurants to lower their prices? I know that little puddle of food in the middle of that giant plate didn't cost the French restaurant 30 bucks to make. Maybe it's time to nationalize and ration the food supply.

Once everybody gets their wish and drugs are finally legalized, I can't wait for the outrage and lawsuits directed at the poor company that's gonna have to responsibly market crack.

[Kalle]

But I will agree that poorer people have more problems with weight. That's got nothing to do with intelligence, though. Junk food is cheap food. A lot of people out there would love to eat better, but they simply can't afford to do so. It's a lot cheaper to take the family to Mickey D's than it is a real restaurant, too. Over the next decade, I really hope that companies start smartening up and giving us healthier options for reasonable prices. That's the one reason I love the constant lawsuit threats against companies like Nabsico and McDonalds--fear of a big tobacco-like loss might cause these idiots to start treating consumers better.

Junk food is anything but cheap. The obstacle to eating better is not cost, it's comfort. The key to eating better, and cheaper, is to make your own meals at home. But cooking dinner takes time and effort, it's so much easier to go to McDonalds.

[Enidigm]

Junk food is anything but cheap. The obstacle to eating better is not cost, it's comfort. The key to eating better, and cheaper, is to make your own meals at home. But cooking dinner takes time and effort, it's so much easier to go to McDonalds.

Actually cooking at home in the short term is fairly expensive for young individuals/couples, even relatively health conscious, because of the costs of cookware-spices-ingredients. That bottle of olive oil will last three months, but when your at the grocery store all these 'extra' things you need seem expensive at the time if you haven't bought any beforehand. Also, the fresh groceries are usually more expensive than canned or pre-processed. Alot of people look at that 40$ grocery bill, say to heck with that, and go to Taco Bell instead. Cooking at home is cheaper in the long run if you make simple dishes of course.

[CindySue22]

Another dumb people's post by CindySue:

Until it is shown that people with "normal" metabolism can get outrageously fat (650 lbs.), I will go with the "not a choice" side of things.

I'm 55 and used to be in really good shape (really). Then I got older, started driving a truck (very similar to sitting at a desk), and started eating fatty truckstop food. I've been doing that for over 15 years now, and while I have gained weight, and am not in good shape any more, I am in no way obese. I don't watch what I eat at all-if it tastes good, I eat it.

I think I have "good metabolism"; if I can have good metabolism, why can't other people have bad metabolism?

As to whether this 650 lb. woman should have rights to a cab ride-well, maybe not in that cab, but they could have called a "mini-van" (even in the small town I live in, they have these) to give her a ride.

[Derek Meister]

Until it is shown that people with "normal" metabolism can get outrageously fat (650 lbs.), I will go with the "not a choice" side of things.

Then you're willing to change sides? Bescause there are a number of studies that show that "genetic" and "metabolic" reasons are far rarer than most people think, and that even in the most extreme cases they only account for at most 200 lbs over the normal ideal weight of a person.

Everything I've been reading about the issue suggests that it's impossible for you to have a problem that will find enough substance in a reasonable diet to turn into enough fat to make you 650lbs and rising at age 28.

In this particular case, later followup reports admit that it's diet and excercise that this woman lacks, as she's being put on a program by the nutritional center she was referred to.

[CindySue22]

Derek, my first post in this thread, where did I change sides??

And the fact that she has been referred to a "nutritional center" means little, IMO. As one who has gone through the "mental help" game, I am not one to automatically assume that government agencies are the best source of help, or even that they really know what is going on; in my experience, they have formulaes that they follow. If one "fits" into a category, fine, if not...

[Derek Meister]

The sequence so far:

Until it is shown that people with "normal" metabolism can get outrageously fat (650 lbs.), I will go with the "not a choice" side of things.

Then you're willing to change sides? Bescause there are a number of studies that show that "genetic" and "metabolic" reasons are far rarer than most people think, and that even in the most extreme cases they only account for at most 200 lbs over the normal ideal weight of a person.

Derek, my first post in this thread, where did I change sides??

You say that until you can be shown otherwise, you will believe X. I show otherwise and ask if you're now willing to change to side counter-X.


And the fact that she has been referred to a "nutritional center" means little, IMO. As one who has gone through the "mental help" game, I am not one to automatically assume that government agencies are the best source of help

It's a medical organization, involving people trained in nutritional science, and a pretty reasonable source of expert advice on diet, including the area of weight loss.

I have no idea where you got "government agency" from.

[Ben Sones]

So cabs shouldn't give rides to say, several people at once? Why is 650 pounds a problem? That's three businessmen. Cabs shouldn't give them rides?

Will she pay three fares?

[Rywill]

Actually cooking at home in the short term is fairly expensive for young individuals/couples, even relatively health conscious, because of the costs of cookware-spices-ingredients. That bottle of olive oil will last three months, but when your at the grocery store all these 'extra' things you need seem expensive at the time if you haven't bought any beforehand.
Whoa, that's nutty. I don't think poor people are being forced to eat out because of the high price of olive oil. It's cheaper to cook at home than to eat at most places--a super-cheap place like Taco Bell or McD's is about the same, or maybe a tiny bit less, than eating at home, but not much. And the stuff you can make at home is obviously much better for you.

If there's a correlation between being poor and super-obesity (not just being 25 or 50 lbs overweight, but being like 150-250 over, or more), it's probably because there's a common thread of instant gratification / failure to think in the long term. It's not that all poor people are like that or all super-obese people are like that; but someone who is like that--a short-term thinker--is probably disproportionately likely to be poor, and is probably also disproportionately likely to be very overweight, because both of those would be natural results of being a short-term thinker. If there's a correlation (I don't know whether there is or isn't, but I tend to agree that my own observations, at least, tend to support one), I would guess that's why: common cause.

[Mark Asher]

So cabs shouldn't give rides to say, several people at once? Why is 650 pounds a problem? That's three businessmen. Cabs shouldn't give them rides?

Will she pay three fares?

Was she given that option? Is that the rule in effect? Does a small, skinny person get a discount?

I have no problem with cab drivers refusing service to anyone. Don't want to go to a bad neighborhood to pick up a fare? That's fine. Don't want to pick up someone from a bar because he's probably drunk and will puke in your cab? That's cool too. Don't want to pick up the fare waiting at the Guns - Ammo - Liquor store? More power to ya!

However, if the cab business is regulated in your city, I expect you to live up to the terms of your license, whatever they may be.

[beecubed]

Actually cooking at home in the short term is fairly expensive for young individuals/couples, even relatively health conscious, because of the costs of cookware-spices-ingredients. That bottle of olive oil will last three months, but when your at the grocery store all these 'extra' things you need seem expensive at the time if you haven't bought any beforehand.
Whoa, that's nutty. I don't think poor people are being forced to eat out because of the high price of olive oil. It's cheaper to cook at home than to eat at most places--a super-cheap place like Taco Bell or McD's is about the same, or maybe a tiny bit less, than eating at home, but not much. And the stuff you can make at home is obviously much better for you.

i think selfish has a good point. think of the transition from eating out to eating home as similar to a transition from a renting a furnished apartment to buying a home. there *is* a significant investment in equipping and stocking a kitchen.

i have all kinds of non-standard shit in my kitchen that i bought specifically for one recipe: orzo, dry cooking sherry, sundried tomatoes, rice wine vinegar. obviously, i will use it all eventually, but it still made the initial outlay high for a single dish.

buying kitchen equipment can also be expensive. i know from experience that crappy equipment makes for an unpleasant cooking experience. and, as we've discussed in other threads, good cooking equipment can be pricey.

[edit]

but i also agree with you, in that fear ofinitial cost is only part of the problem. short-sightedness and laziness also play big roles, no doubt.

[Peter Frazier]

I'm thinking that people being obese because they can't afford cooking utensils is one of the nuttier theories thrown about here. It really isn't that expensive to get basic cookware. Most meals don't need expensive ingredients like saffron or truffles either. It isn't that difficult or expensive to make healthy meals.
I can understand people not home-cooking because of the hassle and time it takes and thus eat take-away but that doesn't take into account the morbidly obese people who cook but make huge, fatty dishes.
Given the awareness of the need for healthy diets, it wouldn't surprise me to see obese people eventually treated like smokers when it comes to medical care. How long can you engage in obviously unhealthy activities before the rest of society gets sick of paying your medical bills?

[Rywill]

Yeah, I mean, look, I understand that a poor person isn't going to be cooking healthy gourmet meals. But there's plenty of healthy stuff you can make that doesn't require rice wine or whatever else you guys are complaining about. You buy some rice, some vegetables, and a little bit of chicken, and you've got a great healthy meal for the whole familiy for probably $15-20. And a one-time expense for a pot and pan, so that's maybe another $25, once in your life.

Also, don't forget that the truly poor can get food stamps to use at the grocery store--but not at McDonald's. This whole "They can only afford McDonald's" thing just doesn't fly at all.

[Cool Breeze]

Since when does being poor equate to being fat? Did we lose touch with reality here, or are we simply rewriting the last three thousand years of history to fit our needs?

I also don't see where the taxi company has a license with the city is said anywhere. Regardless, I doubt there's a clause which says "refusing a fare to any person, any person at all, will negate your contract and open you up to a suit from the city."

[Peter Frazier]

Since when does being poor equate to being fat? Did we lose touch with reality here, or are we simply rewriting the last three thousand years of history to fit our needs?

It's been in the last hundred years that the fat=wealthy paradigm was broken.
Increased food production, cheap processed food, convenient junk food, sedentary lifestyles and higher incomes all help. Really, the only poor skinny people I can think of are junkies (we're talking in gross generalizations here).
It's a strange inversion which has also seen sun-tans move from being associated with poor outdoors workers to wealthy travellers back to ignorant white trash (at least in Australia, the skin cancer capital of the world)

[Ben Sones]

Was she given that option? Is that the rule in effect? Does a small, skinny person get a discount?

I was joking. Should have added a smiley, I guess.

[Ben Sones]

It really isn't that expensive to get basic cookware.

Also, in general, the healthier you cook, the cheaper the costs. A lot of the most expensive stuff at the grocery store is packaged and prepared foods, which also tend to be less healthy for you. Fresh vegetables and fruits and the like are pretty cheap, though they require more preparation time. You can easily cook a healthy meal that costs a less than what it would cost to take the family to McDonalds.

[Duality]

Given the awareness of the need for healthy diets, it wouldn't surprise me to see obese people eventually treated like smokers when it comes to medical care. How long can you engage in obviously unhealthy activities before the rest of society gets sick of paying your medical bills?
Already happens. When my dad's company changed health insurance providers, the mandate was that everyone in the company had to meet a weight requirement or incur extra fees.

Of course, the fat cats (literally) didn't like being subject to that either, so they ditched it.

A lot of obesity also has to do with portion control. I don't just mean the tubby kids on Maury that eat 2 whole pizzas and 6 pieces of fried chicken for breakfast, but even as simply as regularly eating a whole box of macaroni and cheese when you're the only one eating.

(Incoming anecdotal evidence!)

Since I've been living with my parents, I've pretty much taken over the cooking duties. But one thing I notice (and we're a fat family, my mom is the only one that has ever made a concerted effort to lose weight in our house) is that people complain that I make too small portions to properly feed this house. I go by the portions of recipes and package labels and this barely feeds 4 people.

[Derek Meister]

Heh, imagine the controversy if the parents of one of those kids on the daytime talk shows were charged with child endangerment for willingly feeding their kids that much food and knowingly putting their child's heath at risk.

I'm sure this has already happened, I'm just too lazy to google for a specific case.

[Duality]

Not sure how many cases involve a child who hasn't died, but here's (http://www.salon.com/sept97/mothers/obese970922.html) a pretty disgusting one that does.

Made worse by "fat acceptance" groups supporting the mother, trying to derail the case by claiming its full of anti-fat bias.

[Doug Erickson]

When most low income people cook at home, it probably involves a microwave and Velveeta, or a DiGiorno's pizza, or a tub of Breyer's. Most poor folks don't eat out that much; they just don't prepare well-rounded meals, at least in my admittedly limited experience.

[Doug Erickson]

For three years, my more or less wife administered locally a federal aid program called WIC.

Before I became the rich idle hippy I am today, I used to work at a grocery store as a clerk in a poor area of Centralia, WA. I remember the WIC program, because people would come in with these vouchers for things like "a pound of Wastern Family cheese" or "48oz of generic whole grain cereal".

Dear LORD how the po' folks used to bitch about that program. "I don't want milk and fucking cereal, can I use this to get some chicks and jos at the deli? Can I trade this for cash?" Some of them would offer to sign it over to me (impossible even if I wanted to) if I'd give them a QUARTER of the value of the voucher (or less) in cash.

They sure loved food stamps, though. They'd send their kids in with a dollar food stamp each, and they'd have 'em each buy a nickel candy. Since I was required to give them actual change (any amount under a dollar was returned as change), mom/dad would, IN FRONT OF ME, run back to the cooler case and get a sixpack. Or smokes. Or deli food. Or all of the above, if they brought all the neighbohood brats with 'em. I swear, one woman came through with like TEN kids once, and I *know* they weren't all hers. The kids were all malnourished in some fashion, be it morbidly obese, or Ethiopian bloat-belly scrawny. It was really disturbing stuff.

Hence, I preferred the WIC program. I used to RELISH saying "No, ma'am, I'm sorry, but I can only apply this voucher to an item meeting the requirements." They'd get really pissed of course, and remark how it wasn't the government's (or my) place to decide what they (or their baby) did or didn't eat. I felt it was rather a GOOD idea, though; the government isn't obligated to provide you with luxury foods and items; just the basic staples needed to survive. A few folks -- especially young poor mothers of a more practical mind -- seemed to appreciate the program, since it let you get a lot more food per voucher than the food stamp program, and provided a huge discount on infant formula and food. I remember asking one such gal why she was positive on the program when all these other folks hated it, and her response was along the lines of "food stamps don't buy you shit unless you're in a racket with someone else. I don't have anyone but my baby, and I get a lot of good stuff for him." I'm not sure if the WIC program has changed, or if it varies from state to state, but it seemed a pretty decent one during my tenure.

[novacane]

The difference between the people who aren’t ‘in shape’ and people who are truly morbidly obese, is knowledge. Sure there’s the rare cases where actual physical conditions make keeping the weight off a full time struggle, and there’s the people who just don’t care. But if you’re drinking a 12 pack of coke a day and you’re at all bothered by being overweight, it’s plain that you’re lacking the most basic of nutritional knowledge. So let’s face it, it’s seems more likely that a middle class family are going to be able to visit a doctor or seek out the relevant information than a ‘poor’ family.

[Derek Meister]

Just to stir the pot some more: The 900 Club (http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/dimtext/kjn/people/heaviest.htm).

[Jakub]

The difference between the people who aren’t ‘in shape’ and people who are truly morbidly obese, is knowledge. Sure there’s the rare cases where actual physical conditions make keeping the weight off a full time struggle, and there’s the people who just don’t care. But if you’re drinking a 12 pack of coke a day and you’re at all bothered by being overweight, it’s plain that you’re lacking the most basic of nutritional knowledge. So let’s face it, it’s seems more likely that a middle class family are going to be able to visit a doctor or seek out the relevant information than a ‘poor’ family.
I don't think it's knowledge but willpower.

At 240lbs I'm not morbidly obese but enough to be aware and ashamed of my physique. Despite that, I still enjoy my sodas and fast food too much. I avoid it when I can, but a lot of the time the feeling is "it'd be just so NICE to chow down some pizza and wash it down with a coke", even if I have some perfectly fine bread and fruit ready. It also wouldn't take me much, if at all, longer than the 30 minutes pizza delivery time to cook my own meal.

[Mark Asher]

It's not hard to put on weight. You don't eat healthy, you snack, you drink sugared soda, you don't get enough exercise, etc. Just adding five pounds a year has you at 50 pounds overweight by the time you're 30. It's not a matter of not having the proper cooking equipment. It's just a lifestyle choice a lot of people make.

Once you put the weight on, it's difficult to take it off, for whatever reason. Most people that diet fail, and they're not all morons. There's something else going on. Maybe it's just a lack of willpower, but people fail on diets so often it seems to be a weakness most people can't overcome.

Also, fresh fruits and vegetables are not always cheap if you're buying for a family. I think fresh hamburger's cheaper than a lot of fresh fruit. I'm almost positive that salty snacks and cheap cookies cost less than fresh fruit. Families on limited budgets tend to go for quantity over quality. I can get a package of off-brand vanilla creme cookies fpr $2 that will last for 3-4 days in my household. I think I can buy 2-3 oranges for that price. Those will be gone the same day I buy them.

[Karen]

Show me a obese CEO/musician/hippy/whatever and ill retract my supposition.



Ben Cohen..... (although I'm not so sure about the musician part, but i'm sure he's been in a drum circle.)

[Bub, Andrew]

Also, fresh fruits and vegetables are not always cheap if you're buying for a family. I think fresh hamburger's cheaper than a lot of fresh fruit. I'm almost positive that salty snacks and cheap cookies cost less than fresh fruit. Families on limited budgets tend to go for quantity over quality. I can get a package of off-brand vanilla creme cookies fpr $2 that will last for 3-4 days in my household. I think I can buy 2-3 oranges for that price. Those will be gone the same day I buy them.

I just wanted to point out that Mark is absolutely right. My wife and I are eating much healthier and our grocery bill and prep time has skyrocketed. There's no way we could afford to eat this way if we were poor, even if we didn't also have two kids.

Go to the supermarket and do some pricing. Look at canned peaches vs. fresh. Kid's cereal versus healthy cereal. Look at vitamins... I mean, really look at the prices. Etc., My dad grew up poor, one day a week they'd have 3 slices of white bread and brown gravy as dinner. Sometimes filling a belly is the best you can afford to do. Nutrition comes secondary, as a luxury and that's where bad habits are born. Not all the poor in this country are swapping food stamps for Malt Liquor Bull.

[Ben Sones]

Also, fresh fruits and vegetables are not always cheap if you're buying for a family. I think fresh hamburger's cheaper than a lot of fresh fruit. I'm almost positive that salty snacks and cheap cookies cost less than fresh fruit. Families on limited budgets tend to go for quantity over quality. I can get a package of off-brand vanilla creme cookies fpr $2 that will last for 3-4 days in my household. I think I can buy 2-3 oranges for that price. Those will be gone the same day I buy them.

Well, okay, if you want to compare the cheapest junk food you can find with one of the more expensive items in the produce section, then I guess you can make it work out that way. Even so, oranges in your area must be expensive. I can get normally four of the large, navel oranges for $2 at my local store; and as many as eight when they are on special. Or I can get a whole bag of the smaller bulk oranges for around that price.

$2 at my local grocery store will also buy you two bunches of bananas, 3 lbs. of peaches, eight ears of corn (as many as sixteen when they are on special), a bag of apples, two of those 1 lb. packages of baby carrots... if you think that there isn't any affordable produce to be had, then you just aren't looking very hard.

Look at canned peaches vs. fresh. Kid's cereal versus healthy cereal.

There's nothing wrong with many canned foods, as long as you avoid the ones that are pumped full of sodium or sugar. As for cereal, I guess it depends what you consider "healthy." I mean, there are a lot of cereals that are marketed as "healthy" that are expensive--the high-end fruit and grain cereals that come in the tiny little boxes. But that's just a marketing gimmick; store brand Cheerios and Corn Flakes and the like just as healthy, and a lot cheaper. Even the brand name versions of those cereals are a lot cheaper than sugary kid's cereals like Lucky Charms and Fruity Pebbles. I like Special K, which goes for about $2.99 for an big, oversized box. A similar sized box of Lucky Charms sells for around $5, the store brand version goes for about the same price as the Special K.

[shift6]

Potatoes are a very cheap item in the produce section. A buck will get you an entire bag of 10-12 full size potatoes. You can also get two heads of plain iceberg lettuce for about a buck. Or three (sometimes five) Ramens which are not unhealthy compared to fast food. Or a medium sized can of pork and beans which will feed a couple mouths and again, compared to fast food...

[Doug Erickson]

Yeah, produce isn't that expensive. Again, anecdotally, it seemed to me that the poor folks favored foods that required simple or no preparation, like potato chips and donuts. I rarely saw them get produce unless they seemed to be the sort that were earnestly trying to make a difference and were using the WIC program as intended.

[Jason McCullough]

Something I've anecdotally noticed: when you're making very little money at somewhere like Wal-Mart, it certainly seems like no goddamn free time at all. Maybe that's behind the quick-fix foods?

[nutsak]

Yeah, produce isn't that expensive. Again, anecdotally, it seemed to me that the poor folks favored foods that required simple or no preparation, like potato chips and donuts. I rarely saw them get produce unless they seemed to be the sort that were earnestly trying to make a difference and were using the WIC program as intended.

Because poor people are lazy right?

[Doug Erickson]

Because poor people are lazy right?

On the contrary, and as Jason indicated, I think that when you don't enjoy your life, you actively seek out ways to make it more tolerable, such as comfort foods. If you're pulling two jobs to make ends meet, you don't have time to prepare an elaborate, nutritionally-balanced meal that may not taste half as good as a box of Hostess donuts.

I'm sure a few are "lazy", though, in that they're depressed and unmotivated, and comfort foods help a bit in assuaging that depression.

I'm only offering my observations, not diagnosing. There's obviously several factors at play that result in the same outcome: poor people don't eat very well, and it takes an outside agent (a baby, therapy, friends, a doctor's orders) to get them to consider their nutrition and health. I see no reason to excuse their behavior, though; life isn't fair, and some folks simply have to work harder at their health than others, regardless of their situation.

[Ben]

nutsak- Lazy people are often poor, so that is one part of the issue.

I don't buy the 2 jobs theory. It's not like prep time is a necessary part of healthy food, and there's not much difference in cost between candy bars and apples as snack food.

I'm pretty sure it's just regular human stupidity, except rich people have people telling them to eat right and lose weight more often. I imagine gross obesity and intelligence correlate strongly negative. But even rich stupid people can afford a gym membership, they go to doctors more often, they can waste $17 by buying a diet book, etc.

Even the supersugary kid's cereals are healthy compared to McDonald's, and you can get giant bags of generic cereal for like $3. And cereal is both tasty and low prep time. It's really close to the perfect food.

[Doug Erickson]

gross obesity and intelligence correlate strongly negative

Ben's apparently never worked at a major software company.

Also, since when did intelligence and wealth strongly correlate?

[Stroker Ace]

gross obesity and intelligence correlate strongly negative

Ben's apparently never worked at a major softwware company.

Also, since when did intelligence and wealth strongly correlate?500 pound programmers? next time on the jerry springer show!

[Rywill]

Also, since when did intelligence and wealth strongly correlate?
Since, um, forever. It's not that all smart people are rich, but very few smart people are poor (which is what we're talking about here), despite what Good Will Hunting told you.

[Jason McCullough]

Not sure what "poor people are dumber" has to do with anything. I know plenty of "smart" people with awful diets.

I don't buy the 2 jobs theory. It's not like prep time is a necessary part of healthy food, and there's not much difference in cost between candy bars and apples as snack food.

Dunno, but "too damn busy to eat properly" was kind of the story with a friend of mine's mom. Single parent, raised him working god only knows what hours at a truck stop for years and years, pretty large.

It's more relevant, I think, that all this stuff tends to point in one direction. Yes, everyone could be perfect, but a lot of various factors all push them in one direction.

[Doug Erickson]

I dunno, I know quite a few poor academically smart people; mainly those who didn't get a traditional law/medical/engineering degree, or who couldn't afford an education beyond a community college, or who simply don't have any ambition, period. Conversely, I know a lot of rich idiots who got their money through inheritance, lucky circumstance, nespotism, or the foolishness of other wealthy folk.

I'd say ambition and persistence correlates strongly to wealth, not intelligence. Your snotty bias aside, I think you'd be surprised how intelligent many low income folks are.

[Ben]

Doug- So what's your theory on the correlation between intelligence and wealth? Your anecdotes aside, smart people don't need food stamps.


Which, by the way, I didn't mention. I didn't say rich people are smarter, I said grossly obese people are stupid but rich stupid people have personal trainers and doctors. Not just overweight but grossly obese, I imagine a lot of very smart people don't have the free time to eat right and exercise when they are putting 60+ hours a week in at the lab or office. There's a whole different level of being bad for you when you go from the chain smoker eating take out Chinese four nights a week to the superfatso eating multiple pizzas for every meal.

[Rywill]

I dunno, I know quite a few poor academically smart people
Really? I know zero. Now where are we? Should we count how many people we know to try and figure this out? I have a better idea: why don't we take a larger sample than who you know plus who I know, like go look at mean incomes as compared to education level in the census, and see how it turns out. I actually don't have to look because I already know the answer, but you can look.

mainly those who didn't get a traditional law/medical/engineering degree, or who couldn't afford an education beyond a community college, or who simply don't have any ambition, period.
You don't have to have a graduate degree to avoid being poor. A college degree will do it easily, and even a high school degree will do it if you have ambition. Remember, I'm not arguing here that most smart people are rich (or that most rich people are smart); I'm arguing that most poor people are not smart. Because if you're smart, you can usually manage to go through high school even if you have to work some nights, and you can go to college if you really want to (but again, you don't have to in order to avoid poverty). And you can get a job that pays you well enough to eat regularly.

Conversely, I know a lot of rich idiots who got their money through inheritance, lucky circumstance, nespotism, or the foolishness of other wealthy folk.
Sure, so do I--heck, they're my best clients. Like I said, though, I'm not making any claims about the smartness of rich people; I'm making claims about the richness of smart people.

I'd say ambition and persistence correlates strongly to wealth, not intelligence. Your snotty bias aside, I think you'd be surprised how intelligent many low income folks are.
Well, we could have a whole separate debate about whether it's really intelligent to have no ambition or persistence in your job. I'd say it's definitely not. But putting that aside, I don't think I'd be surprised at all how intelligent many low-income folks are. Remember, we're not talking about people who are simply working low-wage jobs. We're talking about people so poor that they can't afford to buy normal amounts of food at the grocery store. That means a decent-sized family with one low-income wage earner, or no wage-earners. I've known and worked with tons and tons of people like that, particularly the couple of years I worked in an indigent law clinic (which I'm sure skews towards the less intelligent, but still). I didn't find myself surprised. I didn't meet one single really smart person who just happened to be dirt-poor. Not one.

[Anaxagoras]

I'm arguing that most poor people are not smart. Because if you're smart, you can usually manage to go through high school even if you have to work some nights, and you can go to college if you really want to (but again, you don't have to in order to avoid poverty). And you can get a job that pays you well enough to eat regularly.


I don't agree with this. I think you're expanding "smart" to include way too many things when you use the word like this. "Smart" is usually meant to mean analytical skills of some sort. The ability to make connections, to filter out superfluous information, etc. That smartness must be directed at a goal, and coupled with other traits, in order to raise you out of poverty. If you have no idea how to make money, what good will analytical skills do you? All you know is some people have money, and some don't. And you're one of the don'ts.

You're absolutely right in that it's possible for almost anyone to get out of poverty in this country if they know exactly what to do... but where are they going to get this golden book of perfect advice?

[Ben]

I'm shockingly enough going to agree with Anaxagoras. There's probably a fairly good case you could make for it not being smart to be lazy, but it's not very smart to be crazy, either. At some point on that road you've defined "smart" as "successful", making the discussion kind of pointless.

Of course, I wholeheartedly agree with Ryan's larger point. There are a lot of smart people who have crappy jobs, but they at least have crappy jobs. They make $20K a year, but they don't have 5 kids and $30K of 25% APR credit card debt.

[Doug Erickson]

What Anax said. Rywill, you've managed to extrapolate "smart" to mean to mean college-educated, then possessing acute common sense, then as a sort of index for one's desire for social advancement, and then simply as ambitious. Finally, you define "smart" as simply being successful, which is a completely silly piece of circular logic.

Next, you redefine "poor" to include a very specific subset of the poor -- namely, "people so poor that they can't afford to buy normal amounts of food at the grocery store" or "a decent-sized family with one low-income wage earner, or no wage-earners". I define poor as "struggling to make ends meet", in my case, where the person does not earn enough to support any form of long-term financial planning, and has difficulty in keeping the bills paid. While you may see this as some sort of Darwinism in action weeding out the "weak", there is nothing in this lifestyle that precludes intellectual curiosity, a literary mindset, or honest academic ambitions. There aren't many rich poets or musicians, but that certainly doesn't make them stupid or useless. They simply have very different values and priorities, which you don't seem to grasp.

My wife, for example, has almost no ambition outside of scholarly pursuits. Were it not for the fact that she married me, a person of some ambition, she would be content on the $25K/year of her bookseller's job -- hardly rich, but the fact remains that's she very intelligent. She has friends very much like her who aren't married and have to struggle to make ends meet, but who are likewise extremely well-read and lacking in ambition. *I* have male friends like this, whose intellectual opinions I respect a great deal but who do not feel much motivation to seek out wealth outside of meeting their basic needs. Hell, I grew up in a community of people like this in rural Washington; they were certainly not wealthy, but neither were they stupid. They just had a completely different set of communitarian values. It might be hard to grasp this with your Libertarian mindset, but the pursuit of wealth (and a college education for those ends) is NOT an intellectual thing; it's merely a question of personal values and persistence.

I define "smart" in a very general sense; someone with academic talents who is well-read and has reasoned, well-considered opinions on a variety of subjects. Basically, a person whose advice I might solicit on higher matters, and who has demonstrated academic and logical talents. A well-developed fiscal acumen only appears when you place a very specific priority on money, and that's a value judgment that can be just as easily dismissed through intellectual means as it can be likewise embraced. And even if they ARE honestly "stupid" with money, that's one very small facet of their overall intelligence, and to reduce someone's viability to their income is horribly degrading and plainly superficial.

Really, I think you're playing the role of Libertarian dogmatic, here, looking for validation in the idea that entrepreneurship and ambition is a character trait of a better and smarter kind of person, rather than a completely neutral one.

[Doug Erickson]

Of course, I wholeheartedly agree with Ryan's larger point. There are a lot of smart people who have crappy jobs, but they at least have crappy jobs. They make $20K a year, but they don't have 5 kids and $30K of 25% APR credit card debt.

Conversely, there are plenty of rich folks who piss away their inheritances and acquired wealth frivolously, and accumulate staggering debt (Michael Jackson, anyone?). In fact, I'd venture that the percentage of rich people who are financially stupid is probably about equal to the percentage of low-income people that are financially dumb. The only difference is that only 1% of the population is fabulously wealthy, whereas a good 40% or more are low-income -- meaning our exposure to financially irresponsible poor folks is going to be a lot higher.

Again, I don't find any sort of correlation between intelligence and wealth. There's definitely a strong correlation between ambition and wealth, and likewise a strong correlation between financial intelligence (duh) and wealth, but it's absolutely insulting to indicate that the general idea of intelligence is DEFINED by one's ability to accumulate wealth. In fact, it completely bends the notion of intelligence to capitalist values, rather than the very broad spectrum of individual traits and skills it legitimately circumscribes.

[Robert Sharp]

Just to throw more anecdotal evidence into the mix, I am pretty poor (being a grad student and all) and my wife and I eat fairly healthy. Fish and fruit and such can be expensive, but you can also buy what's on sale and make things with fewer ingredients, etc. There are certainly ways to eat healthy, whatever your income might be. Even if you did feel it was more convenient to go to McDonald's or Taco Bell, you could get the chicken sandwich or bean burrito and have a (relatively) healthy meal.

[Ben]

Doug- You understand you just said that the proportion of rich people who are financially dumb is equal to the proportion of poor people who are financially dumb? IOW, making financially sound moves has no effect on personal finances, except when it does later on in your post.

Nobody said all rich people are smart, Ryan and I said smart people aren't poor. Ryan isn't redefining poor, those people are what this debate was about before you brought your particular brand of class warfare into this.

And you've really never contested smart people not being poor, even with your ridiculous anecdote attack debate method. Just like Ryan was veering towards defining intelligence as success, you are defining intelligence so vaguely that it loses all meaning. Everyone isn't smart, I'm sorry.

[Rywill]

Two things:

1. Like I said over and over, we're not talking here about people who are struggling to make ends meet. It doesn't matter whether you personally define "poor" that way or not, the "poor" that we're talking about in this discussion is people who are so poor that they can't afford to buy groceries. Your wife and all the people like her don't fit into that category; someone making $25,000 a year can afford to go to the grocery store. We're talking about people with so little money that they can't afford to spend more than roughly $10 per person per day on food. That means exactly what I said--large families with one low-income earner, or families with no wage earners. Take your self-righteous classism somewhere else. It's got nothing to do with what we're discussing here.

2. I'm not defining "smart" to mean "successful" in the sense of "wealthy." But I reject this notion that someone might be smart, but just so unmotivated that they take a job earning $10,000 per year and thus can't afford to eat. Because I'm sorry, that's not smart. I guess you guys are looking at smart to mean "book smart," like "Can solve math problems" or whatever, but that's not what I mean. The guy in Rain Man was not smart, no matter what he could do with math. Smart is an overall quality that means "Figures things out and understands them," and that includes things like "Understands needs money to buy food, and needs to earn money to have money." Making a choice to be a musician or academic and earn $25,000 a year because your job makes you happy is smart. Making a choice to work as a grocery bagger and earn $10,000 a year and eat at McDonald's or Taco Bell every day because you think you can't afford regular groceries, and then getting hugely fat, is not smart.

[Rywill]

Conversely, there are plenty of rich folks who piss away their inheritances and acquired wealth frivolously, and accumulate staggering debt (Michael Jackson, anyone?).
Do you not understand what this debate is about? For the third time, nobody is arguing that all rich people, or even most rich people, are smart. Lots of rich people are rich for other reasons. What I'm saying is not "rich people are smart," but "smart people aren't abjectly poor." Your examples of rich people who are dumb add exactly nothing to the discussion. It would be like if I said "All tuna are fish," and you said, "No they aren't--look at this guppy. He's a fish, and he's not tuna." So?

[extarbags]

Two things:

1. Like I said over and over, we're not talking here about people who are struggling to make ends meet. It doesn't matter whether you personally define "poor" that way or not, the "poor" that we're talking about in this discussion is people who are so poor that they can't afford to buy groceries. Your wife and all the people like her don't fit into that category; someone making $25,000 a year can afford to go to the grocery store. We're talking about people with so little money that they can't afford to spend more than roughly $10 per person per day on food. That means exactly what I said--large families with one low-income earner, or families with no wage earners. Take your self-righteous classism somewhere else. It's got nothing to do with what we're discussing here.

2. I'm not defining "smart" to mean "successful" in the sense of "wealthy." But I reject this notion that someone might be smart, but just so unmotivated that they take a job earning $10,000 per year and thus can't afford to eat. Because I'm sorry, that's not smart. I guess you guys are looking at smart to mean "book smart," like "Can solve math problems" or whatever, but that's not what I mean. The guy in Rain Man was not smart, no matter what he could do with math. Smart is an overall quality that means "Figures things out and understands them," and that includes things like "Understands needs money to buy food, and needs to earn money to have money." Making a choice to be a musician or academic and earn $25,000 a year because your job makes you happy is smart. Making a choice to work as a grocery bagger and earn $10,000 a year and eat at McDonald's or Taco Bell every day because you think you can't afford regular groceries, and then getting hugely fat, is not smart.

Two more things, Ry:

1. Where did you say this "over and over?" Maybe I'm dense, but it looks to me like this is the first time you have. Regardless, why would you assume that by "poor," everyone should know that you mean "completely impoverished" and not "lower-class?" Perhaps dictionary.com knows why:

2. (Law) So completely destitute of property as to be entitled to maintenance from the public.

Fair enough, from a legal perspective, you being a lawyer and all, but I know that when I think of "poor," I think of the people Doug described and down.

2. How is Doug's side of this classist, and not yours? I mean, he's not the one saying "all poor people are stupid." Perhaps you haven't seen this phenomenon in your own life, but people aren't always in complete control of everything that happens. Perhaps that, and not some econo-Darwinian "stupid" trait is to blame for the poverty of at least some people?

[Ben Sones]

Regardless, why would you assume that by "poor," everyone should know that you mean "completely impoverished" and not "lower-class?"

Because if you have been reading the discussion, then you'd know that in context we are talking about people that are so poor that they can't even afford to purchase healthy food. I think it's reasonable to assume that anyone replying to this thread has read the thread, and understands what the discussion is about.

[Doug Erickson]

we are talking about people that are so poor that they can't even afford to purchase healthy food.

But the people *I've* been talking about, from my WIC remarks on downward, can afford healthy food, or have access to it. Some simply choose not to, for a very wide variety of reasons. Rywill made the remark that there is a strong correlation between being poor and stupidity, and then cited some statistic on college education (I suspect that being poor and not having a college education also correlates very strongly, and NOT because the poor are stupid, which seems utterly disingenuous).

Rywill is simply redefining "poor" and "smart" to suit his convenience, compressing the definitions until he finally comes up with some semblance of a viable argument out of his classist remarks.

[Doug Erickson]

Just like Ryan was veering towards defining intelligence as success, you are defining intelligence so vaguely that it loses all meaning. Everyone isn't smart, I'm sorry.

Looks like the Libertarian crowd got their panties in a wad. You know it's game day when we start seeing "class warfare" and "classism" creep into the argument.

Intelligence is a vague concept, sorry. At the very least, it isn't in any way associated with or validated by wealth, no matter how much you'd like to use that as a convenient pseudo-objective benchmark for human worth. Here's the definition from Webster's:

a. The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge.
b. The faculty of thought and reason.

Sounds quite inline with my more nebulous definition, I'd say. Reworking the idea of intelligence to suit your ideology is pretty common practice, but it isn't correct, no matter how much you'd like it to be.

And why would I bother reiterating the idea that "some rich people are smart"? Er, DUH. I have issue with the argument that "wealth and intelligence strongly correlate", which seems against all common sense and experience, even though it may be a precept in the Libertarian cult of entrepreneurship.

[Ben Sones]

And why would I bother reiterating the idea that "some rich people are smart"? Er, DUH. I have issue with the argument that "wealth and intelligence strongly correlate", which seems against all common sense and experience, even though it may be a precept in the Libertarian cult of entrepreneurship.

Again, I think his argument is actually that poverty correlates with a lack of intelligence, which isn't really the same argument. He said, just a few posts ago, that he is not suggesting that wealth correlates with intelligence--plenty of wealthy people are not smart, and attained their wealth in other ways. Instead, he is arguing that intelligence correlates with wealth, or at least the ability to attain it. That jives pretty strongly with common sense and my experience. Obviously it's not some sort of universal truth--I'm sure there are very smart people out there that end up poor by chance or bad luck. But I think you are fooling yourself if you think that a cross section of smart people would show the same income distribution as a cross section of stupid people. That just seems totally contrary to common sense, which tells me that at the smart people are going to be better, in general, at figuring out ways to make money because they have The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge. Right?

[Jason McCullough]

Dunno. Here's a plausible line:

1. The smarter you are, the more likely you are to be ethical.
2. The more ethical you are, the less likely you are to make money.
3. Therefore, the smarter you are, the less likely you are to make money.

[Ben Sones]

Dunno. Here's a plausible line:

1. The smarter you are, the more likely you are to be ethical.
2. The more ethical you are, the less likely you are to make money.
3. Therefore, the smarter you are, the less likely you are to make money.

It's unethical to make money? Do you make money, Jason? Does that make you unethical, or just stupid?

[extarbags]

Dunno. Here's a plausible line:

1. The smarter you are, the more likely you are to be ethical.
2. The more ethical you are, the less likely you are to make money.
3. Therefore, the smarter you are, the less likely you are to make money.

It's unethical to make money? Do you make money, Jason? Does that make you unethical, or just stupid?

I think he means:

2. The more ethical you are, the less money you are likely to make.
3. Therefore, the smarter you are, the less money you are likely to make.

Which, while not true in every case, is true much more often than "if you are poor, it is because you are stupid."

[Jason McCullough]

Yeah, just that being nice tends to make you bankrupt. Especially when you consider these poor people can't go the professional route, due to the lack of college degree, so they end up selling cars, or running a dry cleaning place, or whatever.

[Ben Sones]

Yeah, just that being nice tends to make you bankrupt. Especially when you consider these poor people can't go the professional route, due to the lack of college degree, so they end up selling cars, or running a dry cleaning place, or whatever.

See, I think there's a difference between being ethical and giving away so much of your money (or, I guess, passing up the opportunity to make the money in the first place) that you can't even afford to feed yourself. One may be smart, but the other certainly isn't.

I think he means:

2. The more ethical you are, the less money you are likely to make.
3. Therefore, the smarter you are, the less money you are likely to make.

And again, I ask you--why is it unethical to make money? We're not talking about being a filthy rich corporate magnate, here--we're talking about making enough money to feed yourself a nutritious diet. So I'll ask again: do you make enough money to eat? And if so, why? Because by your reasoning above, it's because you are either unintelligent or unethical.

Which, while not true in every case, is true much more often than "if you are poor, it is because you are stupid."

It is? If I'm not misunderstanding your argument, you believe that, in general, a cross section of stupid people will be wealthier than a cross section of smart people. Is that right?

[Jason McCullough]

I never said it's unethical to make money. I said being ethical tends to make you less money; although there's plenty of ethical ways to make money, it's probably not coincidental that the titans of industry are assholes to a one.

I'm not seriously arguing that smart people are going to be poorer, I'm just throwing it out there as an example of how easy it is to come up with contradictory correlations.

[Ben Sones]

I never said it's unethical to make money. I said being ethical tends to make you less money; although there's plenty of ethical ways to make money, it's probably not coincidental that the titans of industry are assholes to a one.

Well, then you are just muddying the waters with non sequiturs, then, because that's not what this discussion is about. As I said in my post above, and as Ry said in his last few posts, nobody is arguing that wealthy people are all smart, or that they are all ethical. In fact, the issue has nothing to do with wealthy people at all, so all of these comments along the lines of "titans of industry are assholes to a one" are irrelevant at best and straw men at worst.

I'm not seriously arguing that smart people are going to be poorer, I'm just throwing it out there as an example of how easy it is to come up with contradictory correlations.

Well, then what are you arguing? Because this is pretty central to the discussion, and it's sort of annoying the way you and extarbags keep dodging this question to take issue with arguments that nobody is actually even making. Are smart people more likely to be living in poverty, or less so? Or does intelligence have no measuable bearing on one's ability and/or desire to earn a living?

[Jason McCullough]

Well, then what are you arguing? Because this is pretty central to the discussion, and it's sort of annoying the way you and extarbags keep dodging this question to take issue with arguments that nobody is actually even making. Are smart people more likely to be living in poverty, or less so? Or does intelligence have no measuable bearing on one's ability and/or desire to earn a living?

It has an effect, but I think its way behind your parent's social class in effectiveness. As to "arguments nobody is actually even making":

It's not that all smart people are rich, but very few smart people are poor (which is what we're talking about here), despite what Good Will Hunting told you.

[Squirrel Killer]

...it's probably not coincidental that the titans of industry are assholes to a one.

My father-in-law is no titan of industry, but he was pretty far up the food chain. He's a great guy and there's no way most people would call him unethical, but I'm sure everyone he had to fire or anyone who had to report bad news to him thought he was an asshole. Being an "asshole" is purely about perspective, I'm sure the asshole who cut me off this morning is actually a decent person, and I'm sure there are people who consider you to be an asshole, hell, I'm sure someone, somewhere considered Mother Teresa an asshole.

[Jason McCullough]

Getting this back on topic:

1. Rywill: (paraphrased) How much of weighing 650 pounds is genetics, culture, income, or willpower?
2. Selfish Gene: "Its my opinion that there is a strong corrolation between gross obesity and , well, not intelligence, but perhaps self-realization. How many obese doctors vs. secretaries have you seen? In fact i would risk conjecturing obesity almost never occurs amoung those either highly successful or interested in self-fufillment (artists, ect), but in those whom by lack of education or intellect have 'sunken' into a life without any aspirations for spiritual or intellectual fufillment."
3. Brett says junk food is cheap, and that's why poor people tend to be fatter.
4. Erik says it's not cheaper than the healthy alternatives
5. Kalle says it's not cheaper, but that eating healthy takes more time and effort.
6. SelfishGene says cooking at home looks more expensive in the short run, so maybe that's it.
7. Rywill explains the correlation between poverty and obesity as a failure to make short run sacrifices for long-run gains, which poor people are notoritiously bad at.
8. Further arguing about how expensive it is.
9. Argument about intelligence vs. income breaks out following Doug's hilarious anecdote.
10. Is it knowledge or willpower?

I'm going with Rywill's methodological explanation, but not his causal ones - people get fat because they're unable, unwilling, or don't know about the short-term vs. long-term trade off here. The only question is why: do they not have enough free time? Not enough money? Not enough willpower? Are they just "stupid"?

My causal explanation is culture. Everyone sucks at willpower and sacrificing now for benefits later - it's just that the culture and environment when you're poor exacerbates this. Everyone you know is large, no one eats healthy, no one is a gourmet or a foodie, no one has the slightest idea what the difference between the basic components of food is, other than the television yelling at you that fat or carbs are bad, depending on the day of the week - learning to eat properly is like going to another planet and returning with a report for your peers. It doesn't help that the lower classes have a very non-reading oriented culture.

This isn't the food version of "poor people have low incomes because they're abused by the rich"; I don't agree with that either. It's entirely self-contained.

I guess I think it's all culture. Unfortunately, when most people talk about "the culture of poverty," they mean "poor people are individually lazy so we have no responsibilities to them."

Orwell's Road To Catalonia has some interesting stuff along these lines.

[Doug Erickson]

That just seems totally contrary to common sense, which tells me that at the smart people are going to be better, in general, at figuring out ways to make money because they have The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge. Right?

Only if we were all robots. See, there's these things called "depression" and "stress" which can turn the smartest man into an inert blob capable of only appreciating immediate stimulus, and which afflict a very large percentage of poor people due to their situation. As I mentioned explicitly several times earlier, there's a lot more to poverty than just the perceived wages of stupidity -- there's a whole host of psychological issues and mental disorders, both common and unusual. There's also the restricted access to high education and the sort of financial safety net us middle-class and rich folks take entirely for granted.

Emotional strength and discipline are not hallmarks of intelligence, but they are what's needed to dig out of the hole of poverty.

[Doug Erickson]

Or does intelligence have no measuable bearing on one's ability and/or desire to earn a living?

Somewhat. Here's my hypothesis, for you to pick at: intelligence ONLY starts to matter in the accumulation of wealth when the context permits it: that you have a strong emotional frame of mind, access to high education, earnest ambition, and the ability to meet society's most general prerequisites for access to a decent job. Fail any one of those criteria, and your chance of landing a good job is sorely reduced.

The correlation between intelligence and the ability to secure and maintain a good job is weak. The correlation between on-the-job performance and intelligence is probably much higher. Take my wife, for example: if she were given a 100K/year job doing something she loves, I do not doubt that she'd be a high-ranking employee in five years. On the other hand, her ability to get that sort of job is limited NOT by her intelligence but her ambition and specific education.

[Robert Sharp]

I'm not buying that smarter people are more ethical, Jason. I MIGHT buy the claim that there is a correlation between education and ethical behavior, but even that would be hard to prove. Still, if that is what you mean by "smart" it would make more sense.

At any rate, I'm unclear on how we are defining healthy food here. A bean burrito at Taco Bell is less than a dollar and is fairly good for you (protein, etc.). Not great, but not bad. Yes, fruit is expensive, but that's not the only healthy food out there.

It just seems really hard to prove WHY these people are buying "unhealthy" food. Is it just a money problem? Is it education? Do they just not care about their lives? Are they depressed because they are poor so they want comfort food? There are too many variables.

[Jason McCullough]

Ok, you got me there; I'm using "smart" as a stand-in for "education."

[Desslock]

2. The more ethical you are, the less likely you are to make money.

The opposite is true.

[Jason McCullough]

Ok, counterpoint: car salesman.

[extarbags]

2. The more ethical you are, the less likely you are to make money.

The opposite is true.

Really? Oh, good point.

[Stroker Ace]

I have a Nintendo Gamecube. Nintendo is the best company ever. Ever.

[Duality]

Does Nintendo make you more ethical?

Or just fatter?

[Ben]

So Doug, do you believe college educations to be unrelated to intelligence? What's your theory about the relative intelligence of high school dropouts vs. people with advanced degrees? Remember, you "don't find any sort of correlation between intelligence and wealth."

The median worker with an advanced degree makes nearly three times as much money as the median worker with less than a high school diploma($396/wk vs. $1,149/wk).

Intelligence isn't 'validated' by wealth, and not being rich doesn't make you stupid (well, I certainly hope it doesn't). But being dirt poor, so poor you can't afford decent food or find the time to cook healthy meals or whatever? How smart could you be?

Jason- The most unethical people are in prison making 15 cigarettes a day. Your relationship is pretty questionable.

There are situations where being unethical helps you make money, but in the vast majority of jobs being ethical is an advantage. Most people make their money from getting promoted, not from swindling.

[Derek Meister]

Jason- The most unethical people are in prison making 15 cigarettes a day. Your relationship is pretty questionable.

I believe that would be the most unethical people who aren't smart enough to not get caught, which in line with the recent pages of this thread puts a strong correlation between intelligence and how many cigarettes you make per day.

Examples of the most unethical people not being in jail: Spyware developers, spammers, Kenneth Lay and StrokerAce.

[Doug Erickson]

First, higher education is only available to those with the money and resources necessary to obtain it. Despite the fact that folks like us are surrounded with college-educated folks, we're still not a majority. Chances are, if we can obtain and afford higher education, we also have a good support infrastructure backing us up, usually in the form of parents who make a decent-to-great income. We have resources and support available the poor do not.

But being dirt poor, so poor you can't afford decent food or find the time to cook healthy meals or whatever? How smart could you be?

Like I said, I believe depression, stress management problems, and mental/emotional issues contribute MORE towards the inertia and/or antipathy that makes a person dirt poor. You can be incredibly smart, but if you aren't well-adjusted or are clinically depressed, it's very difficult to muster the ambition and long-term planning needed to dig yourself out of a hole, and it's even WORSE when you have no support or resources to assist you.

To sum up, I see no reason to believe that the poor are stupid; screwed up and lacking in resources, yes; dumb as dirt, no.

Also, bonus points to Ben for keeping this civil, in light of That Other Thread That Shall Not Be Named (tm).

[Ben]

There's a relationship between unethicality and deviousness that governs chance of a given criminal going to jail.

I'm pretty sure the least ethical people are armed robbers, con artists, etc. Those people are in jail. Lay engaged in unethical behavior on a massive scale, not massively unethical behavior. IOW, a more unethical Lay would've engaged in some fraud or theft earlier in his career and never had the opportunity to do the Enron scandal.

[extarbags]

There's a relationship between unethicality and deviousness that governs chance of a given criminal going to jail.

I'm pretty sure the least ethical people are armed robbers, con artists, etc. Those people are in jail. Lay engaged in unethical behavior on a massive scale, not massively unethical behavior. IOW, a more unethical Lay would've engaged in some fraud or theft earlier in his career and never had the opportunity to do the Enron scandal.

What? Being unethical precludes craftiness?

[Jason McCullough]

Argh, now we're back on a side issue again!

Lay engaged in unethical behavior on a massive scale, not massively unethical behavior.

I dunno, I'd call defrauding people of literally billion of dollars to be "massively unethical behavior."

[Ben]

Well, he didn't kill anyone or anything. His individual unethicality on some sort of scale of ethics was not extremely high, but because of his position he was able to do a great deal of damage.

Lay was able to keep his unethicality under wraps for most of his life. Maybe he was waiting for the big score, I dunno, but I think a less ethical Ken Lay makes his move earlier, IMO YMMV. I think stress and whatnot caused Lay to go for defrauding, not innate unethicality. To clarify, I do not believe Enron worked out how Lay wanted it to. Do you?

Doug- Higher education is available to an awful lot of people thanks to student loans and financial aid. Personally, I'm from a lower-middle class family and I had a sub 3.0 GPA in high school. I went to a pretty decent college with relatively little help from my parents, and what help they gave could've been replaced by more time at the part time job and less video card buying. I'm not tremendously sympathetic to the plight of the non-college bound. Maybe you can't go to Harvard, but it's not like community colleges have strict entrance requirements. Or high tuitions.

While non-intelligence related problems are responsible for some people's poverty, intelligence and income do correlate. Not incredibly strongly, but it's definitely significant. You aren't ever going to convince me that the average stupid person makes as much money as the average smart person using any reasonable definition of intelligence. That's counterfactual and against common sense.

[Rywill]

Two more things, Ry:

1. Where did you say this "over and over?" Maybe I'm dense, but it looks to me like this is the first time you have.
Well, I said it here:
It's not that all smart people are rich, but very few smart people are poor (which is what we're talking about here)

And then again here:
Remember, I'm not arguing here that most smart people are rich (or that most rich people are smart); I'm arguing that most poor people are not smart.

And yet again here:
Like I said, though, I'm not making any claims about the smartness of rich people; I'm making claims about the richness of smart people.

...all before the post where I said "I've said this over and over." I won't call you dense like you did, but you're definitely not reading this thread much at all before you go off posting replies about what people said.

Regardless, why would you assume that by "poor," everyone should know that you mean "completely impoverished" and not "lower-class?"

Maybe because they, unlike yourself, had read my posts before responding to them. For example, I say that here:
[If you're smart] you can get a job that pays you well enough to eat regularly.

And again here:
Remember, we're not talking about people who are simply working low-wage jobs. We're talking about people so poor that they can't afford to buy normal amounts of food at the grocery store.

I would consider it a huge personal favor if in the future, you would actually read my posts before you respond to them. It sucks to have to go back and cut and paste my old posts just to refute some baseless, thoughtless post of yours.

Jason: getting back to your original argument, I don't get it. Are you or are you not arguing that smart people are more likely to be poor? Because that's what it sounded like you were saying. Are you arguing that intelligence has no effect on the likelihood of abject poverty? In other words, that if you grab 100 people who are so poor they can't eat, that you'll get a random distribution of intelligence?

My causal explanation is culture. Everyone sucks at willpower and sacrificing now for benefits later - it's just that the culture and environment when you're poor exacerbates this. Everyone you know is large, no one eats healthy, no one is a gourmet or a foodie, no one has the slightest idea what the difference between the basic components of food is, other than the television yelling at you that fat or carbs are bad, depending on the day of the week - learning to eat properly is like going to another planet and returning with a report for your peers. It doesn't help that the lower classes have a very non-reading oriented culture.
That's a way better argument, but I don't buy it. I've seen that theory forwarded before, but I just find it so hard to believe that a terribly poor person would eat McDonald's instead of vegetables because they simply don't know any better. The government and private industries who have a stake in the matter do a good job of getting the word out about unhealthy food. I don't think anyone out there thinks that eating a Big Mac, fries and a milkshake is good for you. People do it because it tastes good. People do it too much because they're just unwilling to pass up on that good taste in order to make themselves healthier down the road.

See, there's these things called "depression" and "stress" which can turn the smartest man into an inert blob capable of only appreciating immediate stimulus, and which afflict a very large percentage of poor people due to their situation.
In the first place, you're now saying that your proposed cause of poverty (stress and depression) is itself caused by...poverty. So that doesn't really work out very well for you. On top of that, your notion that a smart person might forgo any type of reasonable living wage because he's "stressed" or "depressed" is way out there. There are certainly a small number of people who are affected with devastating, clinical depression over a long period. And some percentage of them are undoubtedly smart. But that is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of really poor people in this country, and it's an even smaller drop compared to all the really fat people. For you to claim that people who are abjectly poor are in that state because they're so depressed is nothing more than apologism.

Emotional strength and discipline are not hallmarks of intelligence
I disagree, and I really disagree as to discipline. Discipline is nothing more than recognizing that long-term gains are more important than short-term ones. That's one of the foremost hallmarks of intelligence.

The correlation between intelligence and the ability to secure and maintain a good job is weak.
What possible basis can you have for this statement? Show me any respectable study that says that. By "good job," you just mean something that pays enough to eat, right, since that's what we're talking about? Every study I've seen is pretty clear--that things like family wealth have the strongest impact on your job, but intelligence is also a close second. There are very few dumb CEOs or doctors. There are a lot of dumb grocery baggers.

First, higher education is only available to those with the money and resources necessary to obtain it.
Really? You better call my dad and tell him, because he grew up in a dirt-floor shack and had two parents who failed to contribute a single penny to his college education, and yet somehow managed to get a degree. And not from a JC, which is all you would need to make a better-than-living wage, but from Indiana University. If the point you are making is that techincally you have to get the money from somewhere, which might be student loans, of course you're right--college isn't free. But the assertion you're trying to make is that you have to have the money, or most of the money, in your family, which is completely and utterly false.

There's no question in my mind that most people who are smart are not abjectly poor. They don't have to be rich or be doctors or whatever; you might be smart and decide that you'd like to be a priest or a musician or a schoolteacher or whatever. But no really smart person is going to go "You know what? I'm just going to be a grocery bagger, and have so little money that I can't even spend more than $5 on a meal." Nobody rationally makes that decision if they have the ability to do something better, and nobody smart lacks the ability to do something better.

I'm trying to learn the lesson of the Zombie Thread, so I'm going to make this my last post, no matter what insane thing anyone says after this.

[Doug Erickson]

Discipline is nothing more than recognizing that long-term gains are more important than short-term ones. That's one of the foremost hallmarks of intelligence.

Discipline is also the fortitude and emotional courage needed to FOLLOW THROUGH with that recognition. It's very easy to observe that HURF DUH LONG TERM GAINS ARE BETTER but the difficult part lies in walking the walk, as it were.

There are very few dumb CEOs or doctors. There are a lot of dumb grocery baggers.

Most grocery baggers are either teenagers or retirees -- and I should know, I *was* one. Bad example.

[Jason McCullough]

That's a way better argument, but I don't buy it. I've seen that theory forwarded before, but I just find it so hard to believe that a terribly poor person would eat McDonald's instead of vegetables because they simply don't know any better.

Most of them have heard that vegetables are good for them, yeah, but they've never heard any details. It's just some abstract concept; after all, they don't know anyone who does it. Like going to college, or having a checking account instead of using a check cashing place (like we discussed a while back).

[Robert Sharp]

That's a way better argument, but I don't buy it. I've seen that theory forwarded before, but I just find it so hard to believe that a terribly poor person would eat McDonald's instead of vegetables because they simply don't know any better.

Most of them have heard that vegetables are good for them, yeah, but they've never heard any details. It's just some abstract concept; after all, they don't know anyone who does it. Like going to college, or having a checking account instead of using a check cashing place (like we discussed a while back).

It seems like you don't really even know any poor people, Jason, but I think somewhere else you have made it clear that you do. At any rate, it seems morelikely that they don't care than that they don't know. What details are necessary and how would they not get them? fat foods=bad low-fat foods = good, for example, doesn't require a lot of intelligence or knowledge. Are there really functioning people (i.e. living without complete support from someone else) that can't figure out the basics of healthy eating in a society like ours that is obsessed with it? Well, we are obsessed with talking about it anyway...maybe less so with actually doing it. Still, we are talking about knowledge here and the huge amount of information available means that you don't have to do any research to find out HOW to eat right. You may not do so, for whatever reason (that's the question here, right? what is the reason?), but the info is there.

[awdougherty]

From my limited experience in shopping, eating healthy is much more expensive than eating junk. If I go to the store and buy fresh fruit, vegetables, and lean meats, I'll probably spend a lot more than if I bought junk.

I think education also has a huge part of it. It does seem that more educated people seem to be healthier overall. Probably a combination of knowing more about what's bad for you, being generally happy and successful and wanting to do that for as long as possible, and being able to afford what it takes to be healthy.

I don't think it's a coincidence that worst schools, the worst poverty levels, and the highest obesity rates all occupy the same part of the country (meaning the south).

I agree that genetics can play a large role, but at some point there comes a choice. Sure it requires you to give something up, maybe a significant something, but that's how it works. For me, if someone is unhappy about their weight/health, they ultimately have a choice to do something about it despite circumstance and genetics. If they don't decide to change (which can be unbelievably hard, I know), they have to accept some level of responsibility.

Personally I don't think the cabbie should have to drive her anywhere. He should definitely be more diplomatic, but that's about it. What happens if she has trouble getting into and out of the vehicle? What if she smells terrible?

I don't know, I understand the ideas of psychological addiction, but I truly believe the only way to correct problems like this is to find the will to change. At the same time, I sort of think if someone at some level chooses to eat themselves to death, that really isn't any of my business, which also lends itself to the driver being free to not take her on as a passenger.[/u]

[Troy S Goodfellow]

From my limited experience in shopping, eating healthy is much more expensive than eating junk. If I go to the store and buy fresh fruit, vegetables, and lean meats, I'll probably spend a lot more than if I bought junk.

Depends on what you mean by junk.

If you mean chips and twinkies and noodle packs, yeah, it's cheaper to eat badly. But packaged meals with all those processed foods in them are more expensive and less filling than a balanced meal made from scratch.

You can get 15 pounds of rice for almost nothing and bulk packs of chicken or beef (which can be frozen) for 8-12 bucks. Vegetables can cost a lot, but if you are saving on the meat you can do fine. Individual yogurts can be bought for .75 cents or less, so you have dairy for lunches.

Having lived for a long time on the limited income of two graduate students, we quickly learned that making the time to cook once or twice per week (big meals, lots of left overs) costs less than eating out or relying on processed food.

Troy

[awdougherty]

Depends on what you mean by junk.

If you mean chips and twinkies and noodle packs, yeah, it's cheaper to eat badly.

That's exactly what I meant by junk, and to be honest, having also done the limited budget of two graduate student lifestyle, I can honestly tell you that's a long way from being super-ass poor.

Neighbors of mine when I was little, a single-income family where the sole bread-winner was a fireman with a severe gambling problem. Not a huge income to begin with, barely any of it came home. There were 3 kids to support. They drank kool aid at every meal because milk was way too expensive (even would use it for cereal sometimes). They ate chips and twinkies all the time because it filled them up.

Yogurt and things like that seem cheaper, and making large meals with leftovers saves money, but even as grad students, I bet we were doing better than many people in poor areas where the bread-winners work borderline minimum-wage jobs and have to support a number of kids.

[Troy S Goodfellow]

Yogurt and things like that seem cheaper, and making large meals with leftovers saves money, but even as grad students, I bet we were doing better than many people in poor areas where the bread-winners work borderline minimum-wage jobs and have to support a number of kids.

I wasn't comparing my situation to the truly destitute - that would be madness. We weren't rich, but we were certainly not poor. (Living in Canada made it better - no worries on health insurance.)

My point was that careful budgeting showed that you could stretch a dollar and that a lot of the so-called savings on prepared meals or junk food are illusory. I mean, we ate *very well*, for not a lot lof money, but it took developing cooking and shopping skills. This kind of thing can be learned but it requires time to do it.

If you are reduced to subsisting on Kool-Aid and cereal, you have a lot of problems, though. I've known families in similar situations but, like your gambling fireman, there was always more going on in the family than simply lack of income.

Troy