Why Are Poor People Sometimes Really Fat?

It's an unfortunate habit, but whenever I'm in line at the grocery store, when I happen to be standing behind someone paying for their goods with an Ohio EBT card (the modern equivalent of food stamps) - I can't help but notice the groceries in their cart. After years of such observations I can conclude that with alarming frequency the people who receive government assistance also don't seem to be eating very healthy food.

Little Debbie, Hostess, and Frito Lay, as well as full-sugar carbonated beverages and some of the fattiest cuts of meat seem to predominate in these grocery carts. Vegetables and fruit, whole grains, and fresh food don't seem to be very popular. And then ... sometimes I notice the girth of the EBT-card user and I can't help but wonder if being poor in America often seems to correlate with being unbelievably overweight and unhealthy.

Admittedly, this is my direct experience. Direct data points may exist on this phenomena - and if anyone sends me something that refutes this observation I will certainly amend my post. But for now, it certainly seems like the "classical" image of the poor in America no longer applies. Those famous, black-and-white pictures of skeletal faces in dust-bowl era - this seems like an outdated picture, in many cases.

It leads to a cascade of questions. Could poverty on our society (not worldwide, to be sure) be explained by behavioral factors? Whose fault is it when people on public assistance are obese? The government has ostensibly decided to take care of the nutritional needs of folks in those circumstances, shouldn't they also be responsible for increased rates of heart disease and adult-onset diabetes? Most importantly, why aren't proponents of social programs suggesting that these trans-fatty, junk food groceries be on the "denied" list for assistance?

Web searches yield a lot of discussion on this topic - suggestions and studies by various panels - and rants like mine about how the ostensibly impoverished seem to be, paradoxically, stocked up on body-fat reserves. Maybe they are overeating terrible food because of some Barbara Ehrenreich-like structural injustice. Some folks respond by quoting the old bible verse about "judging others" - a phrase that , I've noticed, is wildly popular among folks who do not attend church or synagogue, folks who often have open contempt for religion ... a topic for another post.

The harsh reality is simply that you will annoy other people if you ask for help - or demand it - but also demand to be entirely unaccountable, and beyond the constraints of responsibility to others. Sometimes getting "help" should entail facing up to some lousy behavioral problems that may have landed people in terrible situations in the first place. Self-restraint, discipline, and the deferral of immediate gratification are time-tested ways to achieve success by any measure - economic, emotional - even in terms of basic health.

This is a hard truth for everyone.