KULTUR KAMPF – McGriddle Edition
I was going to post this as a comment, but it’s pretty goddamn long.
In comments to this thread, commenter protagony writes:
and even taking insurance out of the picture, obesity effects other people besides the individual, for example that persons children, who will probably grow up to burden the system as well.
If you take the things government does to disburse this effect across many, many pocket books, you’ll notice that being a fat ass only kills you. I might also suggest that learning the difference between affect and effect will help you communicate your unfortunate ideas more clearly. I’m just looking out for you there, mate.
What you’re neglecting is that the same informational problems faced by the poor are faced, in aggregate, by the government. In fact, third-party decision makers have less information than first-party decision makers do so you’re looking at even more informational difficulty. This LA ban is especially ironilicious given that the said same politicians worked hard to keep out Wal-Mart and its large, cheap selection of produce. If South LA is anything like San Antonio, it wouldn’t surprise me if many times the produce quality is actually better at Wal-Mart than it is at the local grocery. About 60% of the time that’s true for me, and I live in a fairly affluent part of town.
That’s not to say that cultural and food access issues are easy to solve for those who are living in poverty.
First, and most obviously, there’s the money issue. Sometimes healthy food can be expensive, it doesn’t have to be, but it can be. Anyone who’s tried to shop at Whole Foods knows this. If you’re living in poverty that’s one barrier, but because vegetables from the local supermarket aren’t ipso facto expensive that’s probably the smallest barrier.
Secondly, a lot of people living in poverty don’t have a clue how to cook with fresh fruits and vegetables, or how to cook outside of their own food culture. Now, we shouldn’t find the latter particularly surprising, but it is one issue to overcome. Using San Antonio as an example again, a lot of the poverty here is in Mexican neighborhoods, and we all know that a lot of traditional Mexican cooking is basically meat, cheese and fat. While delicious, it isn’t particularly good for you, but it is pretty cheap – being, as it is, descended from centuries of peasant food. Think about the first time you tried something alien to your own food culture: if you’re naturally adventurous you probably remember that quite fondly and with great excitement. If, like me, expanding your preferences has taken years of deliberate effort you probably remember that with trepidation. That sort of nervous reaction can happen with any new food stuff that’s alien – for some folks that’s fresh vegetables or salads, or completely delicious healthy foods.
Third, and again I only have one city for reference, is that often grocery stores make a business decision about whether or not they think they can profitably operate in the area. If they can’t, they don’t go in there. If they do go in, they often ship the lower-quality produce to those stores on the assumption that nobody will buy it anyway, so why bother? Med students my girlfriend works with were apalled to find rotting fruit in the bins at HEB on the west side – but from HEB’s perspective, if the fruit isn’t going to sell that makes some sense. But, that reinforces the above and becomes self-perpetuating.
Fourthly, residents of poverty-stricken neighborhoods often cannot afford their own cars (some can, some can’t, but a lot of folks in those neighborhoods in SA don’t drive) and are underserved by public transit. This means that, again, they have limited access to stores that aren’t within walking distance. I know over on the west and south sides of town, it can take two or more hours, one way, to get to a non-walkable grocery on the bus. Add in time for shopping and that’s five hours, I don’t have five hours in my day to grocery shop, and I’m guessing you don’t either. This is especially true for folks who work a lot of minimum-wage jobs where five hours poses a significant portion of their income (presuming they were working during those hours). This is a non-trivial concern.
So, you add that to the other endemic issues like teen pregnancy, crime, and violence – the latter two of which limit the possibility of using the neighborhood for exercise – and pretty soon you’re looking at a pretty tangled web of cultural issues that need to be addressed in order to accomplish the seemingly simple task of getting folks to eat a better diet. I don’t think the same government that’s brought you the post office and the DMV is the best agent to even attempt solving any of those problems.
