David Cameron: It is your fault if you are fat and poor.

[FairyMum]

Has anyone commented on the David Cameron-speech on moral neutrality? He is a price-dick, isn't he?

But alot of truly poor people do complain about the struggle to put a hot meal on the table.

This is the reason behind free school dinners.

You could afford potatoes and bread?
You weren't poor then were you?
Why didn't you grow your own veg?
Very irresponsible

agree with you mrs ruffallo. poverty isn't just about having little money. it can be extremely hard to work your way out of the situations you describe. however, you don't have to be fat do you? you could debate all day about the tories smashing the unions..etc etc, but none of that (as bad as it was) excuses people for being fat out of choice.

what shall i have as snack, a packet of crisps or a banana? not rocket science is it.

Grow my own veg now

The fat issue, I believe, stems from being able to afford 'treats' or 'nice food' over better housing, living conditions, education etc so this becomes the focus of treating yourself

I don't know how people afford a whole trolley full of processed stuff It really is so expensive esp if you have a few kids.This is always blamed on education etc but there is so much healthy food info avalable everywhere I just don't buy it anymore.There is a real need for the personal responsibility he is talking about to be encouraged and for some of these 'foods' to be taken off the shelves.A very basic whole food healthy diet is fairly cheap.

Nicholas Soames is fat AND a Tory.

So a "treat" has to be food?

I think there are two kinds of ?poor?.

There are those who are struggling to make ends meet on their limited incomes. Who spend all their money on paying the rent and the bills and feeding their families and who have nothing left at the end of it all so have to rely on second-hand clothes for their children.

And

There are those who cannot afford all the things they would like. Sky tv/computer/foreign holidays but who think they should be entitled to all these things and therefore they buy them anyway and then claim they are poor.

The latter is an insult to the former IMO.

Not everyone who says they are poor, is poor.

If you cannot afford to feed your children or buy them clothes or pay the rent you are poor.

If you cannot afford sky television or a foreign holiday you are not as well off as you would like to be. But you are not necessarily poor.

treating with food as MrsR says is affordable - chips are cheap, choclate can be cheap so can crisps, EVen McD's can be cheap if you stick to offers and burgers rather than drinks. The added advantage is that high fat/sugar foods have a similar affect on the brain to drugs.

being poor in the uk is about cash spending and not having bank accounts and seeing life in short term

No bagsforlife, as someone mentioned earlier, Soames and his ilk are portly.

Fat is what you get if you eat at Iceland. Portly is what you get if you eat at the Carlton Club.

I think he's right to highlight the launguage we use and how it can encourage people to feel like victims. eg. 'Prone to obesity' rather than 'eats too much and execises too little'. This can make people assme there's nothing they can do because they're 'prone' to something so they may as well just have another pie.

no-one is saying that is has to be or even that it should be (food as treat) but it very often is. Like it or not thats part of our norm in society.

How many of us treat pudding as a treat or a bar of choclate - even those who arent; obese treat food as more than nourishment and you're kidding yourself if you think we don;t. (I accept some people may not but society at large does)

No cb, that is not what I meant!
Kew -thanks for understanding my point

Is this thread about poverty or is it about healthy eating?

If I had to skimp along on what a Learning Support Assistant earns, then eating bananas wouldn't turn me into a hedge fund manager.

spidermama

Kewc - you've touched on the huge problem we have as a society with food - it is ll over the place.

We work very hard to not have food as a "treat" or reward.

interesting though - he obviously moves in differnet circles. MN'ers take gleeful joy in telling you that you should stop eating pies and get out for a walk when you mention obesity. I am completely clear from MN that it is entirely my fault I am obese and should be roundly whipped for it. PMSL at the idea I can get away with blaming anything else.

Perhaps membership of MN should be compulsory for all obese people - not good for your comfidence but you aren;t left with many comforting illusions!

I know of at least three people who are basically taking the piss and living off benefits because they see it as a "mug's game" to work. That makes my blood boil.
On the other hand, DH and I were talking last night about Glasgow East (which was on the news because of the election). You really have to work three times as hard to get out of a situation like that, don't you? Even if you're bright and motivated, you go to a school where as much time is spent on crowd control as teaching (if you're lucky), you go home to a damp flat flat that makes you more likely to have health problems, you are pretty isolated and unlikely to have friends that can support you and spur you on during exams, if you get a place at university then you worry about the cost and have to take on a part-time job that leaves you tired and gives you less time to study...

ive done a lot of this looking at food in the supermarket thats cheap and fresh fruit and veg is more expensive than value processed food

and those processed foods have a staggering number of calories in so you do get a lot more calories whether you actually need them or not

lots of people of course hate fruit and veg which is the reason that poor and rich people dont buy them...or the the former might buy them but not worry if they dont eat them

poor people dont tend to buy food no one in the family wants to eat

whereas richer people will put food on plates and throw it out more readily

My mother complained to me the other day that when she stays at my house there is never anything nice to snack on

I pointned out that we have seeds and nuts and smoothie ice lollies and raisins (the devil's food I know) and rice cakes

Allegedly these are not suitable
She wants biscuits

I want to post on this but can't seem to get my arse unstuck - too firmly jammed on the fence.

I think the worst kind of poverty - the one that is killing us - is the poverty of expectation and aspiration.And I think the imediate leap to 'poor things, it is everyone elses fault that you don't know to buy fresh fruit and veg instead of crisps and fags' is actually patronising and damaging.

Those that would argue that the poor just need to get off their arses miss the point. But those who blame everyone ese are just as bad imo because they deny the poor any accountability.
If you tell a swath of the population that nothing is their fault and everything is someone elses fault then you develop an underclass of toddlers who wait for the world to provide for them.

If we are honest we do a certain amount because of our sense of social worth. We broadly try to be educated, in a career, slimish and well dressed because we value how the world views us and we want 'approval'.
When we tell some parts of society that we expect nothing of them then what honestly do we expect.

For all the best of reasons we have deprived a generation of the desrire for those things which create respect.
I think many people who leap so quickly that the poor are helpless actually have very little respect for them.

oh and fruit
and carrots
and cucumber

If you can't afford a holiday, to go swimming (£3.90 in local leisure centre), to look round the shops at stuff you can't buy (never mind the bus fare to get there), the heat for your house

then of course you're going to buy 5 Mars bars for a pound in the local co-op

If you have very little or nothing then cheap food has become the only 'treat' you can afford

Cheap food unfortunately has become the great equaliser - you 'look' as if you can afford to eat in restaurants if you're sat in McDonalds with a happy meal

Kew -

"I am completely clear from MN that it is entirely my fault I am obese"

or

"I accept responsibility for my obesity (I can cite mitigating factors but ultimately I do accept responaibility"