Foodbanks! Did I just hear Julia Hartley Brewer correctly?

[fUNNYfACE36]

Am I being unreasonable to be disgusted by Julia Hartley Brewer's comment this morning, tha t in the course of her work she has visited many foodbanks, and the people who use them are not that thin!!
So until you are emaciated you should just not eat?

I don’t know the context and the woman, but it is quite possible to be obese and malnourished due to eating calorie-dense food that has little to no nutrients.

She’s disgusting, vile, don’t know what else you expected from her. She’s a “shock jock”.

It’s what a lot of people think though, isn’t it?

I’ve heard a lot of comments in my time like, “how can they be living in poverty when they are so fat?”

People are thick and ignorant about what it’s like to be living in poverty. Crap food is the cheapest.

And alot of people in cancer hospitals might not look that ill. Just as, many patients in mental health wards don't look that depressed. Perhaps she should spend some time bunking up in the lifers wing of a prison, most people there don't look that dangerous. She'll sell her Granny to make a tenner.

The quickest route to getting fat is to be poor and eat mainly carbohydrates.

However carb heavy or crap your diet its the number of calories in vs calories burnt that determines your weight. Poor and fat is a western phenomenon, the majority of poor people around the world are not overweight.

Aside from this YABVU to give Julia HB's opinions oxygen.

The media don't really help by finding the largest person they can to interview about not being able to afford food.
Although watching a national news item a few years back ( before the cost of living crisis ) they interviewed a young mother of 6 who had to use the food bank because she couldn't afford to feed them.
She looked like she had just stepped out of Harrods, smart leather jacket, expensively style hair, long manicured nails, dripping with old jewellery.
Naturally I had my arse handed to me for pointing this out, apparently she's "allowed to treat herself isn't she?" From the MN wolves 😉

This. You could exist on a horrible diet of virtually no nutritional value and providing you're consuming less calories than you burn, you're still not going to be fat.

The media don't really help by finding the largest person they can to interview about not being able to afford food.

YES. They absolutely do this on purpose - even better if they can find overweight children too

I'm fat and I'm poor. It's cheaper to eat crap than it is to eat healthier. Although I do buy fruit and veg. Even frozen veg is fine. And yes I use a food bank.

It's not right but plenty of voters agree. The number of food banks and their users have rocketed, the best spin they can put on this is that all the users are fat, lazy, benefit claimants who are taking advantage of the system and can't be bothered to work.

She is inflammatory on purpose because it drives ad revenue by clicks.

Its ALL about money.

Lots of obese people are actually malnourished. Just because there's calories going in doesn't mean there's anything of nutritional value. You can get a massive pack of biscuits for 50p. Same cost as two apples. I know what's more filling.

She's a soul-sucking polemist whose views should be starved of oxygen. She's employed to be like that. Give her views zero time.

The problem is that there are people who abuse the system. I often hear people saying things like, 'oh nobody would use the a food bank unless they were absolutely desperate' etc. This is nonsense and incredibly naive.

The sad reality is that there are a lot of grabby people about who have absolutely no shame when it comes to abusing the system, and this is what generates suspicion around food bank users. It's a shame because the majority of users are probably genuine, but equally I think that there's a sizeable proportion who take the piss.

I've seen documentaries and lots of articles like these:

www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk/news/people/fears-raised-people-may-be-trying-abuse-system-doncaster-food-banks-see-demand-soar-3136375

www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/news/grimsby-news/people-2k-month-benefits-abusing-6061521

It is far cheaper to buy a pack of value apple pies than a pack of actual apples.

This woman is talking shite

Ummmm. That's just not true though is it. Most of the third world lives off carbs, and they are generally not obese.

Julia Hartley Brewer is just Katie Hopkins Lite.

She'll say anything for an appearance fee.

I've heard some truly truly disgusting comments about foodbank users, even on Mumsnet.

Basically life is a pool of water, some are bottom feeders, some are scum, some are just trying not to drown and some are filing the pool.
People should take their frustrations out on those with the hoses, ignore the bottom feeders and scum trying to drag you under.

I usually think her opinions are quite sensible, so I was shocked to hear this!

Not necessarily true about the worst food been the cheapest; if you look into it it's surprising what you can create cheaply. A tory MP was lambasted recently for saying that people that use food banks should be invited to learn about how to cook and nutrition etc, as he runs a foodbank and sees these skills missing in it's users. Naturally that caused a furore.

It is entirely possible to eat a low cost nutritious diet if you have the skills to do it and the will power to learn. But it's much easier to shout down anyone suggesting nutrition education and cooking skills are important and should be imparted to those who don't have them.

If someone using a foodbank is overweight and malnourished then they should imo be encouraged to cook and eat more nutritious food. Having hissy fits whenever this is suggested does not help those over weight malnourished people at all yet 70% of replies on here will be those hissy fits.

@Zebedee999 Have you ever used a foodbank? I have. We got things like tinned tomato soup, tinned hotdogs, tinned peas, white pasta, ready made pasta sauce. I know how to cook, my options were very limited.
Lots of foodbanks have no fresh fruit and veg because of the difficulties with storage. The one I used provided very limited fresh fruit and veg - basic apples, onions and potatoes - that was it.
A lot of people who talk about foodbanks have never actually used one.

I volunteer at a foodbank. People of all shapes and sizes come to us.

Anyone with any sense knows that a) people can fall on hard times unexpectedly and while they may have had plenty of money for food previously, they currently do not. But far more likely is b) cheap food is often high in fat/sugar/calories. If you had £3 to feed a family, what would you pick? A couple of 70p pizzas from Aldi and a massive bag of overn chips, or a pack of peppers and some mushrooms?

But then JH-B isn't blessed with a great deal of sense so it's not surprising these points wouldn't occur to her.

Many people who access the foodbank I volunteer at can't afford to put the oven/hob on to cook anything. We give out a lot of microwaved/instant stuff because people have no way of preparing anything else.

Not a 'hissy fit' - fact.

Things often need to be able to be eaten cold. The most useful things we had was bread and cheese.