Reality check: what it takes to eat healthfully
July 9, 2008
USA Today has just run a piece on how tough it is to eat healthfully if you are poor. It quotes my University of Washington friend, Adam Drewnowski, giving a brilliantly succinct summary of precisely what it takes. He says: “It takes three things to be well nourished: knowledge, money and time. If you have three out of three, you have no problem. If you have two out of three, you can manage…The problem is when you are zero for three.” And lots of people are, and more to come it seems.
Are you kidding me? Fruits and Vegetables are much less expensive than all that crappy junk food. I work with very low income families who all adopted that mentality that because they are poor they cannot eat healthy. What a load of crap! Well guess what, even when I was way below the poverty line I still ate healthy foods. Granted I had the knowledge but what I feel is really lacking is the motivation and responsibility to eat healthy. And lets be honest, there is no way someone is dumb enough to beleive that a bag of apples for snacks that costs 3 dollars and lasts twice as long is not as healthy as a bag of greasy potatoe chips that costs the same. And if they are not smart enough to know that on their own then its going to take a lot more education than I am willing to pay for to feed the knowledge into them.
So in conclusion (dripping in sarcassim): lets just blame poverty for our unhealthy,fat, poor people in this country instead of maybe expecting some personal accountability and responsibility (but I suppose thats the governments fault).
Comment by Christie — July 10, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
This is exactly why we need to be ADDING health and fitness classes to our schools, not deleting them. Everybody in this country has free access to elementary school and high school. There is no good reason students should graduate from high school without an understanding of how to choose healthy foods and prepare healthy foods. Preparation does not have to be fancy…most fruits and vegetables can be eaten raw, just need to be washed prior to eating. Microwave cooking can suffice for the rest. All students who attend public school should have the benefit of eating role model healthy lunches, and in some cases, breakfasts, if the school has a breakfast program.
We have convinced ourselves that we have to eat meat for protein, at several dollars a pound, when plant sources of protein are much less expensive, but many people still do not know how to make good protein plant food matches. This also could be taught in public school. I think the lack of knowledge is very fixable.
Comment by Sheila — July 10, 2008 @ 4:59 pm
There is indeed personal responsibility involved, but there is also structure - which channels people to certain ends, in this case, lacking the means to get healthy food channels you toward unhealthy eating. To put it all on choice underestimates the sociological and economic forces at work.
What I often find disconcerting is when I read editorials in the New York Times talking about the solution to the nutritional troubles of poor folks is ‘rediscovering the gourmet’ - which is so detached from reality that I don’t know how offended is enough.
Comment by Inoculated Mind — August 1, 2008 @ 1:28 am