Americans don't choose to be fat. Many live within a 'system they don't control' | Hacker News Reader

Americans don't choose to be fat. Many live within a 'system they don't control'

usatoday.com

10 pointspaulpauper12 comments

> If we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us. —Dr. Marshall Goldsmith

Quote is from "Willpower doesn't work"

McDonald's is way more expensive than lean chicken and other meats, or fruits and vegetables, beans, etc.. Cola is also more expensive than water. I am not buying this notion that healthy food is too expensive or in short supply.

One big problem is time. McDonald's is quite fast. Preparing food at home takes a lot of time.

Anyway, two blocks away I can buy in McDonald's a complete meal for each member of my family, or I can go two blocks in the oposite direction and buy a roasted chicken with fried potatoes that is good enough for two or three meals of my whole family if we add rice or microwaved potatoes, that don't require too much baby siting.

Green salad is difficult, because it must be fresh.

My most recent addition are roasted red peppers, that can be prepared in advance and frozen.

* for the same price [actually chicken is slightly cheaper]

The poor aren’t just fiat poor, they are time poor, and eating healthy takes time and money. Show me somewhere I can get relatively inexpensive healthy food fast.

You'd be shocked how much higher food prices are in poorer neighborhoods. I can hop in the car anytime and go to Giant Eagle, but someone without transportation in the inner city ends up going to "Dave's."

When Dave's is the only place to go, there's no pressure to keep the prices down.

It reminds me a reportage of Arte, about how a significant part of the American population is a victim of their system. Most of them grow up in an underprivileged neighborhood, where access to healthy food is more difficult, where soda ads are ubiquitous

You can eat fast food and not be fat though.

You control how much you eat.

If you don't, then you are not you. You are simply an automaton.

Nonsense.

It is an illusion that we believe we are not automatons. If you think otherwise please explain the neurological and biochemical mechanisms of free will

A lot of people don’t understand how time poor middle and lower class Americans are. Lower class jobs rob people off of their time by forcing long commutes and inefficient child care arrangements. People end up eating junk because they are too tired to cook and haven’t had the time to learn to cook when they were younger.

I dropped about forty pounds during COVID quarantine, pretty much effortlessly. The only real change was that I now eat at home, and eat food that I cook, instead of whatever I can grab at the McDonalds near the train station while I'm running to the office, trying to get there on time for morning standup.

Even victims of an oppressive system have an obligation to resist and challenge it. Being fat may not be a choice, but it is a moral imperative to change.

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