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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I teach in a high poverty school and by 5th-6th grade, nearly every student is overweight. It's sad. Some of them stayed overweight as they grew but some of them were a normal weight and then just packed on the pounds.[/quote]

Schools are a huge part of the problem.  Our high poverty school has free breakfast and lunch for all. It’s all garbage food. Considering the high obesity rate-kids aren’t starving, they are overfed. Schools need to keep it simple, have a couple heathy options and that is it. White milk, apples, peanut butter/cold cut sandwich. And no chips/candy as prizes and incentives for everything 
 [/quote]

You just made it clear you don't actually understand what food insecurity is like.  It is not wasting away into thinness.  It is the inability to afford healthy food.  That can come with a lack of TIME as well.  Shopping, cooking and food prep takes time, which many struggling families don't have.  Have you ever thought about what the food in your house would look like if you have to take public transportation to collect it?

It is not simply "lazy poor parents feed their kids chips and soda all the time".  It's much more complicated than that.  But it gets you all off the hook to vote for people who might actually HELP these children if you can just blame their lazy, fat parents.

[/quote]

No, sorry, that is BS. Basics are cheap.  Eggs, milk, oatmeal, beans are cheap. Immigrants and poor people in less developed countries manage to cook basic simple food on a tight budget.  But American poor people can’t manage this.  Easier to hit up the drive thru. It’s easy to eat a lot of junk when using the government money and free school food[/quote]

I don’t know.  I remember around 2008 when the housing crisis hit and my husband lost his company and left with some big debt.  I could no longer go to the store and just buy groceries without looking at the prices.  One time, and I’ll never forget it,  I had $18 and some change to get two or three days worth of food.   The generic whole wheat bread was twice as expensive as the generic white bread so I got the cheap white bread.    I had to think of food that fills a stomach not quality food.   Basic pasta with cheap tomato sauce, they had buy one hot dog pack get one free.  No snacks or deserts.   No fresh vegetables.

This lasted about three months of a very limited budget. I can’t imagine a lifetime.   I suppose there are smart cooks out there who can take the basics and make something appetizing out of it but I couldn’t.  [/quote]

Poor quality low nutrient food can absolutely negatively impact your health in the long term.  It will NOT, however, make you obese.  Unless you eat TOO MUCH of it.  Unless you think that a slice of white bread contains substantially more calories than wheat bread?  (Hint: it doesn’t- maybe 10-20 calories per slice depending on the brand.)[/quote]

No duh. But eating a fresh, minimally processed, high fiber diet (that is linked to being fuller more easily) requires money, access, and education. You cannot possibly think that a person who can afford whatever they want at Whole Foods 2X/week who is getting fresh high quality food at every meal, is just “better at not overeating.” The body will keep being hungry until it’s nutritional needs are met. So, after eating 2000 calories of inferior food, *you will still be very hungry.* Whereas most people are not left as hungry following a day of balanced eating with fresh foods. Store bought wheat bread is also leaded with crap, by the way![/quote]

I grew up lower middle class without college educated parents and we had to very strictly budget. My mom added up her grocery cart in her head each week because she knew she couldn’t go over budget. We minimized junk food and takeout because it was BOTH expensive and unhealthy. We ate a lot of old school “meat and potatoes” type rules because mom was southern. No weight issues in our house. [/quote]

That’s great. It serves the point that “real” food is more filling and less likely to be overeaten. [/quote]

Yes I was making the point that she was busy and not well-off (she worked full time too) and still managed to feed us simple filling meals that did not  make us fat. Because she viewed it as an important part of her parenting job. We ate a lot of soups, stews, casseroles, lasagnas, roasted chicken, london broils, pork loins, etc. Almost always had a cooked vegetable and a potato/pasta/rice of some kind. Interestingly we didn't drink a lot of water (it was the 80's) but had a lot of juice, tea, and lemonade, fruit punch, etc. and none of us have blood sugar or weight issues. [/quote]

+1 I grew up very lower class/working class with two FT working parents (mom went back FT as soon as the family could break even on childcare- I think youngest sib was 2 or 3).  Very tight budget and we qualified for food stamps for several short periods when my dad was not getting overtime at work, which we relied on. My mom did almost all of the cooking and took pride in feeding us/cooking. She considered it very important. She made lots of soups and stews from scratch, casseroles (baked ziti or chicken broccoli rice etc) and some other easy recipes to eat during the week. Frozen veg or iceberg lettuce salad on the side. She shopped around meat sales, often prepped on the weekends (roasting an extra whole chicken or whatever was on sale)  or in the evenings after kids were in bed. Sometimes she wasn’t home for dinner so would leave reheating instructions for my dad or kids when we were old enough. My dad did not enjoy cooking but would make eggs/omelets, chili and a few other simple dishes if nothing was prepped. They could’ve thrown in the towel and fed us fish sticks and boxed Mac and cheese but did not.

That isn’t to say everyone can do the same, and I do understand the challenges for some make this impossible. Lack of transportation or kitchen facilities, food deserts etc. But it is also true that some parents could do so much better but lack cooking or planning skills or are just plain lazy. Too tired to make dinner yet find hours to spend on their phone or watching Netflix. [/quote]

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