Reply to Poor people can't afford healthy food

Forum Index » Off-Topic

Reply to "Poor people can't afford healthy food"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's SO weird to me that people in poverty are expected to hold themselves to a high standard when it comes to food choices, but nobody freaks out when rich people to eat the Takis and Mountain Dew.

America has this weird belief that people in poverty, single moms, BIPOC are all supposed to hold themselves to a higher standard than the average middle class white dude. [/quote]

I don't think they have to hold themselves to a higher standard. They just also have a choice to eat healthy or not - same as anyone else. They aren't eating unhealthy due to circumstance but by choice.[/quote]

There are circumstances where it’s really hard to make good choices. But if we want people to make better choices, we need to be realistic about why it’s hard for them, and lack of access to healthy options is not high on the list. [/quote]

So it’s not a higher standard at all but an acknowledgment they can’t even meet the minimum standard.[/quote]

I don’t know that this is a particularly  helpful way of thinking about it? It would be good if even people who are not particularly good at functioning could live happy, healthy, and fulfilling lives. At the moment, a lot of them can’t. Half this thread is people saying “oh it’s just because their material circumstances are so bad” and that’s false, but saying “too bad, sucks to suck” is also lousy. [/quote]

But let’s stop saying they are being held to a higher standard. They clearly are not. They are functioning at an extremely low standard and many are coming up with any and every excuse imaginable to explain it, no matter how absurd. Like they live in dirt hovels with no running water, electricity, or a pot to pee in. That’s just not true in the US.[/quote]

Oh agreed. That wasn’t me! And to the later commenter who talked about tent cities — yeah, drug addiction is a terrible thing. But let’s be real, in America you have to be severely mentally ill or intensely abusing substances to wind up in a “no really it is literally impossible to cook healthy food” situation. I’m not denying that it’s harder, even much harder, if you’re poor — pretty much everything is harder if you’re poor! But if you refuse to recognize that people are actively making bad choices, whether because they’re focusing on the now or they don’t understand the long term consequences or they simply can’t get their acts together, you’re not going to be able to ameliorate anything. And frankly it’s not any nicer to them. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics