yes you can be overweight and in poverty

[Mumof4worriedfor]

Just saw this story on ITV twitter.com/itvnews/status/614128648585617408

Most of the comments are about her weight. Don't people understand the cheaper food is more unhealthy and you can very quickly get into poverty! Really annoyed by the response.

[SaucyJack]

Link hopefully.

[formerbabe]

It is more expensive to eat healthily.

I live in London and in poorer parts of town people are noticably fatter than in more affluent areas.

[springsprang]

I bought a pack of 5 jam donuts for 47p in Morrisons. It's too easy.

[LaurieFairyCake]

It's MUCH more expensive to eat healthily

I'm doing slimming world and its all healthy foods (non processed) - our food bill has gone up more than a third

It's much cheaper to be fat. An apple costs 20 pence, you can get an entire packet of biscuits for that.

Who's going to divide an apple between 3 kids if you're poor rather than give them 4 custard creams each?

We are very undernourished as a society and growing increasingly overweight. Malnutrition in Britain is higher than its ever been.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

The National Geographic had an article about this. Sugar, white carbs and processed crap make you fat. They are also cheap and they are also what the food bank tends to have.

Gwyneth Paltrow tried the $29 food stamp challenge and failed miserably, because she tried to buy fresh, good food.

[UglyBugaz]

They are ignorant

[TheHouseOnBellSt]

YANBU....and there will be someone along in a mo to say "Well she could buy lentils, carrots, onions and oats for thruppence"

Won't there?

What these people fail to see is what George Orwell pointed out...People in poverty lead miserable lives and want a little something tasty now and then...so the poor woman who has only a few pence left for the week will buy some chips or fish...rather than a potato and some meat scraps.

[CatMilkMan]

"Malnutrition in Britain is higher than its ever been."
Higher than during the poverty and rassioning during world wars?

[SaucyJack]

Hmmm. Yes, cheaper food can be less nutritious if you don't know how to cook (or can't face yet another bloody pan of lentil stew) but she's morbidly obese. No one gets to that size without significantly over-eating. Eating one biscuit instead of a punnet of strawberries won't make you 6st overweight, just less nourished.

The relationship between poverty and obesity is more complex that the mere price of food IMO. Food is a cheap and readily available source of pleasure and comfort- things that are often lacking when you live in deprivation.

[crustsaway]

Totally agree with you OP. Of course it is.

[elderflowerlemonade]

Vile comments.

And yes, absolutely, although I'm not sure I'd use the word poverty - I understand that is the literal definition though.

[LaurieFairyCake]

Yes, we were healthier during rationing catmilk

[Raveismyera]

The people who have posted those comments sound really Thick. Surely everyone knows fattening food is the cheapest available? There are people who don't realise that eating healthily is expensive and inconvenient? Do they live in a cave?

[Mumof4worriedfor]

Actually I've read reports that the British diet peaked during the second world war - no white bread, limited sugar and home grown seasonal fruit and veg. Calorie intake and longevity some say have a link.

[wankerchief]

Yanbu, winds me right up
Massive frozen bag of chips 60p
2 pizzas for A pound
6 burgers for a pound
Massive bottle of coke 50p

Bought in my supermarket today.

Fruit and veg is more expensive and you still need to buy the rest of the meal. Plus alot of people can't afford the leccy to keep the oven on for hours to slow cook lentils or make their own artisinal bread for 4p a loaf

Yes there's aldi and the market but you still have to get there and get the shopping back. All our town centre small supermarkets don't have the cheaper fruits and veg and if little tummys need feeding then I get why quantity wins

[MamaLazarou]

I think the people making the nasty comments on that link have no idea about nutrition or budgeting because their mums make all their food for them.

[elderflowerlemonade]

Is it just me who always wants to throw up at 'little/hungry tummies'?

[crustsaway]

Might be a few of you but I can't see anything wrong with saying little hungry tummies myself.

[Cornettoninja]

Traditionally 'poor' food is fattening because the calories were needed cheaply. Potatoes, bread, dripping, ghee, rice, cheese all bulky stuff that would keep you going.

It's a good thing that civilisation has developed and envolved to a point where people have enough to eat and generally three meals a day is seen as a good thing. Relatively speaking though the pricing is still the same hence cheap is usually fattening given we all do much less physically than we used to - but that's a digression... As is that culturally we tend to learn food from our families and not everyone has the inclination, talent or palate to learn different ways to provide themselves with nutrition.

Evolution is a slow process and denying it doesn't help any one neither does the refusal to acknowledge that cheap, quick, easy, filling food has far more selling points than a homemade ratatouille and wholemeal loaf that made badly is going to be rank and leave a person hungry.

Smugness and scorn has never been a great marketing tool to change things for the better.

[elderflowerlemonade]

It's a badly presented article, mind you.

[LadyDeadpool]

The thing is when you're poor you can't go out with friends to relieve boredom and you're at home all day with nothing to do it gets easy to eat the boredom away. Aldi do a bag of toffee for 22p easily eaten in front of daytime soaps while you wait for another day to pass.

It's like groundhog day, every day is the same and sometimes the only thing you have to look forward to is a big bar of 30p chocolate and jeremy kyle combine that with sitting on your arse all day and the weight soon piles on.

[PHANTOMnamechanger]

good post MrsDV

I taught in a very deprived area of the midlands, rough primary school, many children officially classed as living in poverty, yet many of them and their parents overweight. It is a very complex thing.

[Trooperslane]

Yep.

Few hundred mile trip south from Scotland.

Dd was asleep so we went into the service station separately. Had Costa, M&S, McD's.

Me: cheeseburger, chips and water £2.50 ish.

DH: coffee, sandwich and flapjack. £8.90.