elitist?

I listened to this NPR show about a month ago by a food critic who lost his job and had to go on food stamps. Irony.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/talk/2010/06/03/127403480/from-food-critic-to-food-stamps

After recently having x2 conversations with very intelligent people who disagree with me about this topic, I think I will write it out. My written words find clarity or ambiguity, and I'd like to know where I stand...

I propose a counter to the argument that poor people can only afford to eat cheap crap, and that this is OK because it is easy and cheap and they can't do any better than that.. I think this is a flawed argument for many reasons.

#1. crap is crap, no matter what the reason is that you are eating it

#2. Eating something because it is cheap and easy is just as easy and cheap as ignoring your general health... pretty expensive.

#3. i simply do not believe there is this "great divide" that people talk about in the cost of disgustingly bad food and food that is OK.

Take, for example, Subway and McDonald's... It is not much more expensive to go buy a sandwich from subway as it is to buy a Big Mac... "$5 Footlong" and water....compared to a "Value Meal" at McDonald's with a coke. Both fast. Both about the same price. Take it one step further, is it so damned hard to walk into a convenient store or a grocery store and buy a loaf of bread and tuna fish or some turkey? In my calculation, not only is it just as "easy," but it is also cheaper.

That's what bothers me so much about that argument. It's not true. People don't eat crappy food because it's so cheap and easy... people eat that food because it tastes good to them, it's ubiquitously available, and they don't know any better...

I think what we are facing here is more accurately an educational gap. That is an argument I could buy on this topic, and more than that, an argument I could sympathize with.. But I'm kind of sick of the argument that poor people have to eat unhealthy food because they can't afford to do otherwise..

This leads into my next topic, which is the fact that you are allowed to spend food stamps on all sorts of things, including sodas... Sodas! How absurd. There is absolutely no nutritional value to it, and it has known adverse health consequences including obesity and diabetes! It seems brilliant to me to provide a social safety net to provide the fuel on the highway to another expensive problem that needs to be socially funded...

It reminds me of when parents of a self-destructive child insist on buying that child a car.. Then the child wrecks the car. Her insurance increases. Which they are paying for. So the parents buy the child another car, which she wrecks. So her insurance increases again. I have a great idea. Let's buy this child another car...

Here's another idea. Let her figure out what the costs of her actions really are! Because she has no idea..

Now, one friend pointed out that these food decisions are related to "calorie per cost." In other words, people want the value of higher caloric content per cost because they are poor. This is an interesting argument, considering that >20% of our population is OBESE! So tell me, then, why in the hell do we need more destructive calories per buck, at the expense of increasing health costs to remedy the subsequent problems!? I wonder (and I do not know) what percentage of our population is starving?

http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

I don't know. It's a tough thing for me. I was always amongst the lucky yuppies. My mom cooked delicious food. I got a good education. I was in athletics as a kid, so I have some concept about the amount of exercise it takes to get into good shape and to burn a given number of calories. These are all the luxuries of my life. But, I also went to college and learned fast that I got fat quickly eating fast food fried chicken and beer. I was never a "cook." It's not my thing. So, I started experimenting. I found some solutions. Easy and fast stuff to cook that wouldn't make me continue on a path of self-destruction.

http://www.whfoods.com

And still, despite my background and education, I make choices that have adverse consequences to my health. But the difference is that I am responsible for them. I still struggle. I'm not immune to it. Yes, no doubt, I'm still among the lucky class of people, but I'm also a resident who often works 80+ hours per week. I don't make big bucks right now. Most of my income goes toward my debt. I don't always eat healthy or exercise, but I also don't swing through McDonald's drive-through every evening on my way home. Because. it's. really. bad. for. you.

I guess, ultimately, I don't really pity people all that much who "don't care" about their health or care to learn about it, yet who are dependent on others to remedy the consequences. Why? Because I spend most of my life trying to deal with all of their entitled consequences. Sorry, it's true. It gets to me. Everybody deserves everything, but yet there are only a limited supply of resources in this world whether we like it or not.

It's kind of like smokers. I wonder if we can try to make up some argument that poor people need to smoke because it somehow makes sense? Perhaps it makes them feel better... Maybe if we'd put the cost of cigarettes toward the cost of all this "expensively healthy" food, we'd have some more money to play with. I think that the gov't safety net paying for coke is similar to them offering to pay for cigarettes. Dumb. And you know, really, from a very personal standpoint I don't mind people who choose to smoke and who choose not to quit despite knowing better. It is their choice if they are spending the money they earn on it. Smokers who say "no, I won't quit" really don't bother me. But ask me to start paying taxes to buy their cigarettes, and then make me take care of them in clinic for almost free when they develop emphysema.. and the bitterness begins to emerge.

I grew up amongst mostly people and family members who believed that over-taxation is "bad." For example, the over-taxation of cigarettes... To me, it seems like a logical way to deal with a ridiculous problem. In primary care, I feel like these issues are in my face all the time, so as much as I prefer to ignore their existence, I can't.

So what about exercise? Yes, it is expensive to join certain gyms. Prohibitively to many people. What about running around a park? But perhaps we are talking about people who are working 2 or 3 jobs... Yet, one of the women I respected the most where I grew up worked 2 jobs and had 4 kids by the time she was 23, lived in a trailer, and still I always saw her walking laps around the street on my way to school every morning..

It's not as simple as "poor people can't afford to eat better like us lucky yuppies." It's a lack of education about alternatives and the serious consequences we face when we choose to ignore the simple fact our choices have consequences. The fact that McDonald's is disgusting crap which has no nutritional value or added benefit to our diet. So great, we can now access fatty, salty, sugar-laden foods at all hours of the day and night for the price of next-to-nothing... How convenient! In return... we all get to have diabetes, hypertension, obesity, fatty livers, heart disease, osteoarthritis, DJD, and back pain.. That is a cheap alternative, indeed.

I have recently been accused of being an elitist... This bothered me a great deal at first and I have spent a lot of time thinking about it, but perhaps I am headed in that direction. Because I have observed people from all walks of life and opportunity survive and succeed. Or self-destruct. So, to me, it is not about which of us (at least in the US) was given the opportunity to succeed. It is about which of us take advantage of the opportunities presented, whatever they might be. And, yes, in that way, I guess I am an elitist.

So I don't believe we should not have a safety net, because of course we don't know who will succeed and contribute because of it and who won't.. (p.s. both of my friends who argued my point are those who have succeeded to vast extents educationally, socially, and in regards to their health despite all odds with the assistance of social support...) BUT, I do think we have the right and obligation to regulate snowballs of self-destructive behavior... Why not?

That said, primary care may be the wrong job for me... ;-)

Like any argument, I am open to being persuaded otherwise...