The Obesity-Hunger Paradox

[Saya]

WHEN most people think of hunger in America, the images that leap to mind are of ragged toddlers in Appalachia or rail-thin children in dingy apartments reaching for empty bottles of milk.
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Can’t Afford Food
Once, maybe.

But a recent survey found that the most severe hunger-related problems in the nation are in the South Bronx, long one of the country’s capitals of obesity. Experts say these are not parallel problems persisting in side-by-side neighborhoods, but plagues often seen in the same households, even the same person: the hungriest people in America today, statistically speaking, may well be not sickly skinny, but excessively fat.

Call it the Bronx Paradox.

“Hunger and obesity are often flip sides to the same malnutrition coin,” said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. “Hunger is certainly almost an exclusive symptom of poverty. And extra obesity is one of the symptoms of poverty.”

The Bronx has the city’s highest rate of obesity, with residents facing an estimated 85 percent higher risk of being obese than people in Manhattan, according to Andrew G. Rundle, an epidemiologist at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

But the Bronx also faces stubborn hunger problems. According to a survey released in January by the Food Research and Action Center, an antihunger group, nearly 37 percent of residents in the 16th Congressional District, which encompasses the South Bronx, said they lacked money to buy food at some point in the past 12 months. That is more than any other Congressional district in the country and twice the national average, 18.5 percent, in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Such studies present a different way to look at hunger: not starving, but “food insecure,” as the researchers call it (the Department of Agriculture in 2006 stopped using the word “hunger” in its reports). This might mean simply being unable to afford the basics, unable to get to the grocery or unable to find fresh produce among the pizza shops, doughnut stores and fried-everything restaurants of East Fordham Road.

Precious, the character at the center of the Academy Award-winning movie by the same name, would probably count as food insecure even though she is severely obese (her home, Harlem, ranks 49th on the survey’s list, with 24.1 percent of residents saying they lacked money for food in the previous year). There she is stealing a family-size bucket of fried chicken from a fast-food restaurant. For breakfast.

That it is greasy chicken, and that she vomits it up in a subsequent scene, points to the problem that experts call a key bridge between hunger and obesity: the scarcity of healthful options in low-income neighborhoods and the unlikelihood that poor, food-insecure people like Precious would choose them.

Full-service, reasonably priced supermarkets are rare in impoverished neighborhoods, and the ones that are there tend to carry more processed foods than seasonal fruits and vegetables. A 2008 study by the city government showed that 9 of the Bronx’s 12 community districts had too few supermarkets, forcing huge swaths of the borough to rely largely on unhealthful, but cheap, food.

“When you’re just trying to get your calorie intake, you’re going to get what fills your belly,” said Mr. Berg, the author of “All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America?” “And that may make you heavier even as you’re really struggling to secure enough food.”

For the center’s survey, Gallup asked more than 530,000 people across the nation a single question: “Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?”

The unusually large sample size allowed researchers to zero in on trouble spots like the South Bronx.

New York’s 10th Congressional District, which zigzags across Brooklyn and includes neighborhoods like East New York and Bedford-Stuyvesant, ranked sixth in the survey, and Newark ranked ninth, both with about 31 percent of residents showing food hardship. (At the state level, the South is the hungriest: Mississippi tops the list at 26 percent, followed by Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, the Carolinas and Oklahoma. New York ranks 27th, with 17.4 percent; New Jersey is 41st, with 15.5 percent; and Connecticut is 47th, with 14.6 percent.)

The survey, conducted over the past two years, showed that food hardship peaked at 19.5 percent nationwide in the fourth quarter of 2008, as the economic crisis gripped the nation. It dropped to 17.9 percent by the summer of 2009, then rose to 18.5 percent.

Though this was the first year that the center did such a survey, it used a question similar to one the Department of Agriculture has been asking for years. The most recent survey by the agency, from 2008, found that 14.6 percent of Americans had low to very low food security.

Bloomberg administration officials see hunger and obesity as linked problems that can be addressed in part by making healthful food more affordable.

“It’s a subtle, complicated link, but they’re very much linked, so the strategic response needs to be linked in various ways,” said Linda I. Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services. “We tackle the challenge on three fronts — providing income supports, increasing healthy options and encouraging nutritious behavior.”

To that end, the city offers a Health Bucks program that encourages people to spend their food stamps at farmers’ markets by giving them an extra $2 coupon for every $5 spent there.

The city has also created initiatives to send carts selling fresh fruits and vegetables to poor neighborhoods, and to draw grocery stores carrying fresh fruit and produce to low-income areas by offering them tax credits and other incentives. The city last month announced the first recipients of those incentives: a Foodtown store that burned down last year will be rebuilt and expanded in the Norwood section of the Bronx, and a Western Beef store near the Tremont subway station will be expanded.

But the Bronx’s hunger and obesity problems are not simply related to the lack of fresh food. Experts point to a swirling combination of factors that are tied to, and exacerbated by, poverty.

Poor people “often work longer hours and work multiple jobs, so they tend to eat on the run,” said Dr. Rundle of Columbia. “They have less time to work out or exercise, so the deck is really stacked against them.”

Indeed, the food insecurity study is hardly the first statistical measure in which the Bronx lands on the top — or, in reality, the bottom. The borough’s 14.1 percent unemployment rate is the highest in the state. It is one of the poorest counties in the nation. And it was recently ranked the unhealthiest of New York’s 62 counties.

“If you look at rates of obesity, diabetes, poor access to grocery stores, poverty rates, unemployment and hunger measures, the Bronx lights up on all of those,” said Triada Stampas of the Food Bank for New York City. “They’re all very much interconnected.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/ny...hunger.html?hp

[Despanan]

Yep. That about sums it up. I'll tell you, chain-stores may be evil, but if it wasn't for the BJs Wholesale which moved in up by Yankee stadium, I wouldn't be able to afford food. Most of the corner grocery stores and bodegas here in NYC are at least twice as expensive, and their selection is sparse. Considering how hard it can be to get into an apartment here, I'd probably pick rent over food, if it came to it.

My neighbors in Harlem aren't really all that fat, but those folks across the river are pretty damn big.

[Pineapple_Juice]

This thread makes me hungry.

[HumanePain]

Southern California's cornucopia of grocery stores stocking organic grown fruits and vegetables helps me keep my BMI to 25; even the Starbucks sells bananas for me to grab on the run. It's a California thing I suppose.

But we have our share of the obese. You can see them in any Wal-Mart. I think I read somewhere that if you are poor and don't eat as often it is as counter productive as going on a diet: your body begins stockpiling fat in preparation for "lean times" (pun intended).

Any truth to that?

[CptSternn]

Originally Posted by HumanePain

I think I read somewhere that if you are poor and don't eat as often it is as counter productive as going on a diet: your body begins stockpiling fat in preparation for "lean times" (pun intended).

Any truth to that?

Some. For example, lots of immigrants from say Africa or Asia would blimp up because their metabolism is not used to the high intake of carbs, sugar, etc.

That being said, it doesn't effect second generation onwards as by then their bodies are usually adjusted.

The larger reason is the high concentration of sugar and salt in preprocessed foods. The sugar and salt lobbies are some of the largest in America. Google about them - back in the 1950's the sugar industry cozied up with the big food manufactures to work out deals to allow them to pump their sugar into pretty much every product. It allowed them to make billions a year and made the food literally addictive, a trait the food manufactures love to this day. Same goes with salt. Salt is addictive. If you try and take salt out of a product that has high amounts, people will stop buying the product.

Both sugar (as we know) and salt add weight to your body. The more salt you intake, the more water your body retains. Add that to a high sugar content and you now are holding all sorts of fat and water.

Tis why I get my meats from the local butcher, bread from our local baker, and my veg from the local farmers market. I keep no preprocessed foods in the house.

[Delkaetre]

I'm not sure how this issue translates in the entire UK, but the problem doesn't seem as bad. This may be in part because it's a smaller country- it's easier to get fresh food to any shop, there are fewer transport costs, and people are generally going to be nearer shops or the countryside than in the sprawling US cities. Hell, our whole country is smaller than some states.

I'm in the fifth poorest borough in the UK, and the poorest in the Greater London area, but I can get reasonably priced fruit, veg, and meat-without-too-much-junk-in-it from my corner shop. Or from the very large supermarket nearby. Or from the Lidl or Tesco or Sainsbury's shops just one bus away. Even with major poverty taken into account, there's really good access to fresh foods. Most big supermarkets have free magazines with recipes in them for healthy or hearty food on a budget, to encourage customers to come back and try new things.

Some of that may be a location bias because I'm in the capital, though- further north, in the old industrial towns, the big shops are more likely to be on the outskirts and public transport much harder to access reliably, making it harder to get to any source of healthy food on a regular basis.

[Saya]

Yeah I live in a pretty poor area but we do okay, we have a Sobey's thats a ten minute walk away (its called the ghetto Sobey's for a reason, though, not the greatest selection or the freshest of veggies but could be a lot worse) and a better grocery store a little further away.

But where I'm from originally there's one small store that sells food in the entire community. It does have some fruits and veggies, but mostly its freezer foods and canned food. Combined with the fact that the standard Newfie diet is very high in fat and sodium (much like the standard American diet), no wonder so many people in rural Newfoundland are overweight or obese.

[Delkaetre]

Freezer food- what about frozen peas, frozen carrots, frozen sweetcorn? Frozen veggies don't lose any of their vitamins or nutritional value, it's only overcooking that does that. Easier to buy in bulk and store, assuming any kind of access to a freezer. Not sure how things are for canned veg, though.

[Mariner]

Where I live in Pennsylvania there are still a lot of small farms (mostly because of the large Amish community), and there is a market open every week filled with wonderful fresh fruit, vegetables, bread, and meat. I always have lots of vegetables in the house. It really all depends on where you live in the US. My sister is currently going to college in Tennessee and I feel bad for her, she always complains about the poor quality of food and unhealthy eating habits of her friends there.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Delkaetre

Freezer food- what about frozen peas, frozen carrots, frozen sweetcorn? Frozen veggies don't lose any of their vitamins or nutritional value, it's only overcooking that does that. Easier to buy in bulk and store, assuming any kind of access to a freezer. Not sure how things are for canned veg, though.

Think microwave dinners, french fries, pizzas, that sort of thing.

[Delkaetre]

Originally Posted by Saya

Think microwave dinners, french fries, pizzas, that sort of thing.

Ahh, gotcha. That's mostly what's in the freezers of my nearest little corner shop, to be honest. Lots of chips, microwave curries, pizzas, burgers, bags of ice, etc. The veggies are usually fresh or tinned. Have to go to the big supermarket for a range of frozen veg, but I dislike that particular chain for ethical reasons.

[PortraitOfSanity]

You've got access to everything in the city. Yea there's corner stores all around with junk food, but you're not going to travel more than 10 minutes to get to a decent market with fresh food either.

[CptSternn]

Originally Posted by Delkaetre

I'm not sure how this issue translates in the entire UK, but the problem doesn't seem as bad. This may be in part because it's a smaller country- it's easier to get fresh food to any shop, there are fewer transport costs, and people are generally going to be nearer shops or the countryside than in the sprawling US cities. Hell, our whole country is smaller than some states.

Not to go off on a tangent but in most parts of America they have wacky zoning laws. Homes cannot be built within many miles of shops. This is done to avoid parking issues and give people big gardens with lots of privacy at their homes. It also was done because back in the 1950, 1960, 1970 petrol (gas) was cheap (still is compared to the rest of the world) and driving 5-10 miles to the shop was just something people did without asking questions, as they drive everywhere.

When I lived in Virginia the estate (neighborhood as they call it) was 3 miles away from the nearest shop (convenience store). You couldn't just pop down to get milk, you had to drive. On top of this the corner shops (convenience stores as they call them there) have a HUGE mark-up compared to proper super markets, meaning you will pay an additional 30% on basic items. If you want to pay a normal price for milk, then you are driving 10-15 minutes to a proper super market.

Thats just how America is laid out. With the exception of so cities where things are a bit easier to come by, a majority of the states has this model. No one walks anywhere, there is nowhere to walk to. Everything you need you have to drive to get to. Add those two things together accompanied by the fact fresh foods from specialty markets are even farther away and cost even more, and you can begin to see why people eat crap, get less exercise, and stay at home unless they are driving somewhere.

I have a post about this somewhere on the site, but here is the link again -

www.walkscore.com

Walk Score is a brilliant website that shows the 'walk score' of every address in America. Put in an address and they can immediately rate how close you are to things you need and how 'walkable' your location is. Sad thing is, most Americans are in areas where walking is not an option.

Tis why I am glad I live in Ireland. We have shops next to every estate, super markets always within walking distance (with the exception of the VERY rural farming areas), and cities with pedestrianised streets that have no cars what-so-ever.

I rarely drive - in fact - I prefer to walk to town twice a week (8 minutes each way) to do the family shopping.

One would hope in the future America would build 'neighborhoods' with shopping areas included to help promote activity and save petrol. Then again, there is the Wal-Mart factor...

[Delkaetre]

The thing about zoning laws seems less likely to affect the inner cities where the obesity problem is at the highest, since central areas are more likely to predate modern planning laws- and suburban areas with large gardens and tons of space are more likely to be inhabited by people who can afford to buy such places. Inner cities tend to swing either toward expensive apartments for the rich, or tenement style housing for the poor- and either way, they're in the actual city where there's a reasonable expectation of there being some form of available commerce.

I wasn't wondering about America's frankly stupid dependence on cars in suburban places, but about the inner city neighbourhoods. There may well be a large population of suburban poor (cough*Detroit*cough), but that's a far more recent development than the inner city poor and their food access problems. The comparison I intended was city British/ city Americans, and the difference in availability of food for various reasons.

[Renatus]

I'm noticing a bit of a correlation here, do you think that whether an area developed before or after refridgeration has anything to do with these arrangements? The city I live in is an older city, that has expanded alot in the last century, all the supermarkets here developed in a zone that is outside the downtown area, the part that developed after refridgeration.

[Mariner]

Originally Posted by CptSternn

Not to go off on a tangent but in most parts of America they have wacky zoning laws. Homes cannot be built within many miles of shops. This is done to avoid parking issues and give people big gardens with lots of privacy at their homes. It also was done because back in the 1950, 1960, 1970 petrol (gas) was cheap (still is compared to the rest of the world) and driving 5-10 miles to the shop was just something people did without asking questions, as they drive everywhere.

When I lived in Virginia the estate (neighborhood as they call it) was 3 miles away from the nearest shop (convenience store). You couldn't just pop down to get milk, you had to drive. On top of this the corner shops (convenience stores as they call them there) have a HUGE mark-up compared to proper super markets, meaning you will pay an additional 30% on basic items. If you want to pay a normal price for milk, then you are driving 10-15 minutes to a proper super market.

Thats just how America is laid out. With the exception of so cities where things are a bit easier to come by, a majority of the states has this model. No one walks anywhere, there is nowhere to walk to. Everything you need you have to drive to get to. Add those two things together accompanied by the fact fresh foods from specialty markets are even farther away and cost even more, and you can begin to see why people eat crap, get less exercise, and stay at home unless they are driving somewhere.

I have a post about this somewhere on the site, but here is the link again -

www.walkscore.com

Walk Score is a brilliant website that shows the 'walk score' of every address in America. Put in an address and they can immediately rate how close you are to things you need and how 'walkable' your location is. Sad thing is, most Americans are in areas where walking is not an option.

Tis why I am glad I live in Ireland. We have shops next to every estate, super markets always within walking distance (with the exception of the VERY rural farming areas), and cities with pedestrianised streets that have no cars what-so-ever.

I rarely drive - in fact - I prefer to walk to town twice a week (8 minutes each way) to do the family shopping.

One would hope in the future America would build 'neighborhoods' with shopping areas included to help promote activity and save petrol. Then again, there is the Wal-Mart factor...

You're starting to make me want to move to Ireland...I would love to just walk to stores.

[Tam Li Hua]

This article makes a lot of sense. It also makes me wish that we could do away with fast-food joints altogether, but I don't see that happening any time soon. :/

I would wager to guess that this is one of the contributing factors to why the South is so obese as well. [My city is in the ranking for the second most obese city in America. :/

[Delkaetre]

And while all this obesity and restriction of basic access to real food goes on, there's been a rather nasty fuss because it turned out that some unemployed people were using their food stamps to buy healthy and organic food...

http://www.salon.com/life/pinched/20...hed/index.html

There is no winning. If you have no money, but use your food stamps to buy healthy food, you are condemned for daring to eat better than other people. If you have no money and no access to good food, you are condemned for using your food stamps to buy junk, eating poorly and developing health problems. I just don't understand this ongoing demonisation of the fat, the poor, welfare recipients, the variously disadvantaged...

[CptSternn]

Originally Posted by Tam Li Hua

This article makes a lot of sense. It also makes me wish that we could do away with fast-food joints altogether, but I don't see that happening any time soon. :/

Fast food is not the direct issue per-se. In Ireland, the UK, and most of the EU there are strict laws involving fast food restaurants. For example, here in Ireland they have to source all of their meats and veg from the same county. If you go to a McDonalds here, the burgers you buy and th lettuce, tomatoes, etc. on the burger all come from farms within a few miles.

They have to be able to trace back each cow and vegetable to a local farm. They have certificates up in the shop telling exactly where every item was sourced. No more mass produced meat shipped frozen from a thousand miles away - all ingredients are fresh and local.

It doesn't make it health food, but does make it twice as healthy as what they are allowed to serve in America. And yes, it costs about twice what it costs in America - a Big Mac meal here is about €7.80 - thats around $11.00. But at the end of the day it is healthier and people here eat it in moderation, due to the cost.

[CptSternn]

Originally Posted by Delkaetre

There is no winning. If you have no money, but use your food stamps to buy healthy food, you are condemned for daring to eat better than other people. If you have no money and no access to good food, you are condemned for using your food stamps to buy junk, eating poorly and developing health problems. I just don't understand this ongoing demonisation of the fat, the poor, welfare recipients, the variously disadvantaged...

I read that article the other day sure. It was brilliant. The same attitude that your speaking about is the same one that currently is fighting national healthcare in the states. People think Ireland has begrudgers, America is rampant with them. For some yet to be determined reason people are taught from a young age to hate their neighbors, especially if they are not as successful as themselves.

People in a lower social strata are looked down upon. If someone in a level above them sees them having something they do not, they immediately attack them.

It's sad actually. I blame it on the lack of community combined with the police state tactics they employ to fill prisons. I mean, I lived in the states for 16 years in a few different states. Other than casually waving at my next door neighbor on occasion, that was the extended sense of community I had. People do not get to know the guy next door. People just do not interact like they do in other places. Because of that, its easy to say screw the poor, even if it means the people living around me, because they really do not know them.

This accompanied by the 'war on drugs' where they have encouraged everyone in the country and brainwashed them into thinking the government knows best and you must rat out your neighbors. I mean, they even have TV shows like Americas Most Wanted encouraging people to call up and inform on their fellow countrymen. You rarely see that sort of behaviour anywhere else in the world. I mean, it really destroys the sense of community when you encourage people to go around and intentionally try to ruin the lives of fellow citizens who have done nothing to harm anyone.

But I don't want to go off on a tangent here.

Yes, good article, and it is sad how people in America do attack their fellow countrymen when they should be happy to see someone finding a way to better themselves and their family.

[Tam Li Hua]

Sternn: That's been my experience as well; non-American McD's seem to have WAY higher standards than here in the States.

This is one reason why I like living overseas more than here. That, and I like to travel.

[Solumina]

Originally Posted by CptSternn

I blame it on the lack of community combined with the police state tactics they employ to fill prisons. I mean, I lived in the states for 16 years in a few different states. Other than casually waving at my next door neighbor on occasion, that was the extended sense of community I had. People do not get to know the guy next door. People just do not interact like they do in other places. Because of that, its easy to say screw the poor, even if it means the people living around me, because they really do not know them.

Speak for yourself, I happen to know my neighbors. Sure I don't know every single tenant in the building but I know the ones who work early mornings (like I do), most of the dog owners, and everyone in my age bracket. Growing up I knew everyone in the nearest town (okay village, I admit it was rather small but still I lived a 15 min drive away). I know the people I work with (not just in my department) and I know the people who frequent the same places as well as the people who work in those places.

Originally Posted by CptSternn

I mean, they even have TV shows like Americas Most Wanted encouraging people to call up and inform on their fellow countrymen.

You make it sound like the show is telling you to secretly tap you phone conversations and turn those in to the cops. It isn't like they featured drug users, prostitutes, or even muggers, they literally showed the most wanted people in the US like child killers and serial rapists, not really the type of person that any community would generally defend.


I know both of those were relatively small points that weren't exactly on topic but they both kind of get under my skin so I just had to add in my say.

[CptSternn]

Originally Posted by Solumina

Speak for yourself, I happen to know my neighbors. Sure I don't know every single tenant in the building but I know the ones who work early mornings (like I do), most of the dog owners, and everyone in my age bracket. Growing up I knew everyone in the nearest town (okay village, I admit it was rather small but still I lived a 15 min drive away). I know the people I work with (not just in my department) and I know the people who frequent the same places as well as the people who work in those places.

There are always exceptions to every rule. I am willing to bet if we took a poll here of people living stateside we would see you are the exception. Anyone else here care to comment on this?

You make it sound like the show is telling you to secretly tap you phone conversations and turn those in to the cops. It isn't like they featured drug users, prostitutes, or even muggers, they literally showed the most wanted people in the US like child killers and serial rapists, not really the type of person that any community would generally defend.

Thats just one example sure. When living there you always saw on the news the mention of 'confidential informants', 'crime lines', and you can't go a day without hearing about how some nosy neighbors rang the police over something they thought was wrong. That sort of thing just doesn't happen outside of the US. For example, just a couple days ago a grandmother who was gardening topless in her fenced in back garden was arrested because neighbors rang the police. Then there is the case that comes to mind a few months ago the police arrested the Harvard professor who was attempting to enter his own home, because some random person rang the police. It's that mentality - the ring the police and rat out anyone or anything all the time mentality you only find in America.

It seems like the only time people do pay attention to their neighbors is when they are trying to have them arrested for something.

[Mariner]

Originally Posted by CptSternn

There are always exceptions to every rule. I am willing to bet if we took a poll here of people living stateside we would see you are the exception. Anyone else here care to comment on this?



Thats just one example sure. When living there you always saw on the news the mention of 'confidential informants', 'crime lines', and you can't go a day without hearing about how some nosy neighbors rang the police over something they thought was wrong. That sort of thing just doesn't happen outside of the US. For example, just a couple days ago a grandmother who was gardening topless in her fenced in back garden was arrested because neighbors rang the police. Then there is the case that comes to mind a few months ago the police arrested the Harvard professor who was attempting to enter his own home, because some random person rang the police. It's that mentality - the ring the police and rat out anyone or anything all the time mentality you only find in America.

It seems like the only time people do pay attention to their neighbors is when they are trying to have them arrested for something.

I know my neighbors...in the winter my dad helps them clean snow from their driveways, my little brother plays with their kids, we stop and talk to them when we see them out. We know our neighbors and we help them out when they need it. Your generalizations are irritating.

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by Mariner

You're starting to make me want to move to Ireland...I would love to just walk to stores.

While walking to places is pretty nifty, I feel that it's important to point out that this article is about THE BRONX, and also mentions HARLEM. (my neighborhood). This lower-income obesety is occuring in what is arguably the most walkable city in the country (if not the world).

All the people CAN and DO "Just walk to the Market". There are a total of three markets, and at least ten bodegas within a five-block radius of my apartment.

Yet here, where no one needs a car, we have an obesity problem.

The problem is the high cost of living, coupled with the relatively low wages that these people make. This forces them to work long hours just to be able to pay rent. The cost of property raises the cost of food because the local markets need to turn a higher profit just to offset the cost of their space.

People buy cheaper, easier foods, and drink more alcohol to deal with the stress of the bills, and have less time to excercise, and don't when they do have time because they're tired from working.

Shit, I've gained nearly 15 pounds since moving to NYC.