A few articles...
Apr. 20th, 2004 01:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
About hunger in schools
About McDonalds trying to stave off obesity lawsuits
About "food insecurity"
About the "epidemic of obesity"
There is something very wrong here. Yes, I realize that many poor people are overweight because they subsist on unhealthy foods, but these people aren't the ones spending ridiculous amounts of money on slimfast or weight watchers or fancy gyms. It doesn't make any sense to me that we could have enough in this country for everyone to eat at least somewhat well, and yet have children going hungry. We're not living in the third world! We aren't suffering from a national famine either. At the risk of appearing somewhat more to the left than I generally present myself, I think it's fair to say that people in a civilized world have a basic right to eat.
And while I complain about this, there's people in the rest of the world who are actually starving. Things don't get better.
About McDonalds trying to stave off obesity lawsuits
About "food insecurity"
About the "epidemic of obesity"
There is something very wrong here. Yes, I realize that many poor people are overweight because they subsist on unhealthy foods, but these people aren't the ones spending ridiculous amounts of money on slimfast or weight watchers or fancy gyms. It doesn't make any sense to me that we could have enough in this country for everyone to eat at least somewhat well, and yet have children going hungry. We're not living in the third world! We aren't suffering from a national famine either. At the risk of appearing somewhat more to the left than I generally present myself, I think it's fair to say that people in a civilized world have a basic right to eat.
And while I complain about this, there's people in the rest of the world who are actually starving. Things don't get better.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 11:48 pm (UTC)There's also, I've learned the hard way, that a healthy diet often costs so much more that poor people can't afford it. Especially because healthy foods tend to taste good together but are unappealing if apart. (i.e. people don't eat just a chicken breast, but want corn or breading or something *with* it which raises the price -- but they're happy to have a few potato chips.) Or they're so tired after work (being that most are in more taxing, unrewarding, stressful jobs) that they lack the energy to cook a proper meal.
I agree, we should all have a basic right to eat, especially in America. Unfortunately, a lot of people have it so easy that they forget what's really important, or how hard it can be for others; they vote for politicians based on pet topics rather than ones that are vital to society because they're above being immediately affected. As I said to somebody last year, "it's easy for you to feel (pet subject) is a paramount issue, when you aren't the one unable to buy even a half-gallon of milk."
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 12:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 12:23 am (UTC)Image link.
Date: 2004-04-20 12:43 am (UTC)http://ourworld.cs.com/corysmij/av9.gif
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 01:03 am (UTC)It's also disturbing to realize that most people are unaware that there is a huge AIDS epidemic in third-world nations as well. I could be wrong, but I believe that the US Government stopped subsidizing any medical aid to those countries that mentioned anything other than abstinence. There are places the population is so uneducated that they believe that having sex with a vigin will cure AIDS, and to ensure that they get a true virgin, they're resorting to raping (and thus infecting) *infants.*
What I find bizarre (and revolting in light of the above) is that the people that claim war is beneficial for those we attack and therefore ethically must be waged are almost always the same ones that loathe virtually any nonviolent form of helping others. If you want to use government funds to bomb a country back a few hundred years, or send in troops to shoot the villagers, they're cool with it; if you want to use half those funds to teach them how not to pass on HIV or help them establish sustainable farming for their climate, suddenly there's an uproar about "wasting" the money.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 01:36 am (UTC)Honestly, though my convictions scare me, I think we should cut back on anything out of the country until we've fixed our most glaring problems at home. I know it's a bothersome belief, but I generally think that if we can't even take care of ourselves, we have no place interfering with other people (especially as much of our interference seems unwanted and unwarrented, even harmful).
As for the AIDS thing... that makes me sick. There's apparently some sort of antiviral medication you can take after a potential infection which sometimes keeps you from getting infected. Not cheap by any measure, but under $100 (I think), and most people in those countries can't even afford that if they get raped. That's positively disgusting. And you're at least partially right about the abstinance only thing, I don't know the entire facts but I remember reading about it only a little while ago.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 03:59 am (UTC)Although I must say that I feel a distinct difference between my home country, Iceland, and the feel I am getting from the US on this. I think people here are getting fatter, but we do not consume much fast food. But we have changed our eating habits. We no longer eat the pure animal produce we used to eat in centuries past, but have now started eating carbohydrates a lot. IN particular from wheat and candies, and I think that this is what is doing us this disfavour, and it might very well be the same in the US, that the diet of people have changed from what their digestive systems are evolved to handle and that, combined with low mortality rates and lack of exercise is producing more unhealthy people that would in ages past not have survived. I think that the general lack of health is in many ways to be blames on this, we have deplugged natural selection.
This is of course something that is both good and bad, it would be better in a way, if we had simply changed natural selection, so that competent people, to live in this modern world would be on top, but with the way that it is run in the US, when you need all too much money to get properly educated, a lot of people are going to waste in the system, people that could bring great things to the world, but because they were born poor, they are not given a chance. I know f.ex. here, where it costs practically nothing to go to university of brilliant people that were born to poor families, but are now studying at the university alongside me. Even immigrants from the former Soviet Union are studying biology with me.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 06:19 am (UTC)So when it's a choice of spending your WIC for a month supply of food or for a week, it's time to take home the twinkies.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 06:23 am (UTC)What POs me is the fact that we grow enough food to feed the world. Want me to repeat that? Our farmers grow enough food to feed the world! I really want someone to tell me where this is all going.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 11:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 11:48 pm (UTC)There's also, I've learned the hard way, that a healthy diet often costs so much more that poor people can't afford it. Especially because healthy foods tend to taste good together but are unappealing if apart. (i.e. people don't eat just a chicken breast, but want corn or breading or something *with* it which raises the price -- but they're happy to have a few potato chips.) Or they're so tired after work (being that most are in more taxing, unrewarding, stressful jobs) that they lack the energy to cook a proper meal.
I agree, we should all have a basic right to eat, especially in America. Unfortunately, a lot of people have it so easy that they forget what's really important, or how hard it can be for others; they vote for politicians based on pet topics rather than ones that are vital to society because they're above being immediately affected. As I said to somebody last year, "it's easy for you to feel (pet subject) is a paramount issue, when you aren't the one unable to buy even a half-gallon of milk."
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 12:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 12:23 am (UTC)Image link.
Date: 2004-04-20 12:43 am (UTC)http://ourworld.cs.com/corysmij/av9.gif
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 01:03 am (UTC)It's also disturbing to realize that most people are unaware that there is a huge AIDS epidemic in third-world nations as well. I could be wrong, but I believe that the US Government stopped subsidizing any medical aid to those countries that mentioned anything other than abstinence. There are places the population is so uneducated that they believe that having sex with a vigin will cure AIDS, and to ensure that they get a true virgin, they're resorting to raping (and thus infecting) *infants.*
What I find bizarre (and revolting in light of the above) is that the people that claim war is beneficial for those we attack and therefore ethically must be waged are almost always the same ones that loathe virtually any nonviolent form of helping others. If you want to use government funds to bomb a country back a few hundred years, or send in troops to shoot the villagers, they're cool with it; if you want to use half those funds to teach them how not to pass on HIV or help them establish sustainable farming for their climate, suddenly there's an uproar about "wasting" the money.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 01:36 am (UTC)Honestly, though my convictions scare me, I think we should cut back on anything out of the country until we've fixed our most glaring problems at home. I know it's a bothersome belief, but I generally think that if we can't even take care of ourselves, we have no place interfering with other people (especially as much of our interference seems unwanted and unwarrented, even harmful).
As for the AIDS thing... that makes me sick. There's apparently some sort of antiviral medication you can take after a potential infection which sometimes keeps you from getting infected. Not cheap by any measure, but under $100 (I think), and most people in those countries can't even afford that if they get raped. That's positively disgusting. And you're at least partially right about the abstinance only thing, I don't know the entire facts but I remember reading about it only a little while ago.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 03:59 am (UTC)Although I must say that I feel a distinct difference between my home country, Iceland, and the feel I am getting from the US on this. I think people here are getting fatter, but we do not consume much fast food. But we have changed our eating habits. We no longer eat the pure animal produce we used to eat in centuries past, but have now started eating carbohydrates a lot. IN particular from wheat and candies, and I think that this is what is doing us this disfavour, and it might very well be the same in the US, that the diet of people have changed from what their digestive systems are evolved to handle and that, combined with low mortality rates and lack of exercise is producing more unhealthy people that would in ages past not have survived. I think that the general lack of health is in many ways to be blames on this, we have deplugged natural selection.
This is of course something that is both good and bad, it would be better in a way, if we had simply changed natural selection, so that competent people, to live in this modern world would be on top, but with the way that it is run in the US, when you need all too much money to get properly educated, a lot of people are going to waste in the system, people that could bring great things to the world, but because they were born poor, they are not given a chance. I know f.ex. here, where it costs practically nothing to go to university of brilliant people that were born to poor families, but are now studying at the university alongside me. Even immigrants from the former Soviet Union are studying biology with me.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 06:19 am (UTC)So when it's a choice of spending your WIC for a month supply of food or for a week, it's time to take home the twinkies.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 06:23 am (UTC)What POs me is the fact that we grow enough food to feed the world. Want me to repeat that? Our farmers grow enough food to feed the world! I really want someone to tell me where this is all going.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 11:42 am (UTC)