One-sixth of Americans don’t have enough food to eat | Hacker News Reader

One-sixth of Americans don’t have enough food to eat

nationalgeographic.com

43 pointszvanness94 comments

> It can be tempting to ask families receiving food assistance, If you’re really hungry, then how can you be—as many of them are—overweight? The answer is “this paradox that hunger and obesity are two sides of the same coin,” says Melissa Boteach, vice president of the Poverty and Prosperity Program of the Center for American Progress, “people making trade-offs between food that’s filling but not nutritious and may actually contribute to obesity.” For many of the hungry in America, the extra pounds that result from a poor diet are collateral damage—an unintended side effect of hunger itself.

This doesn't make sense to me. Doesn't calorie intake directly correlate with gaining weight?

From earlier in the article:

> Chances are good that if you picture what hunger looks like, you don’t summon an image of someone like Christina Dreier: white, married, clothed, and housed, even a bit overweight. The image of hunger in America today differs markedly from Depression-era images of the gaunt-faced unemployed scavenging for food on urban streets. “This is not your grandmother’s hunger

Is this not because the people in the depression era were actually starving? I'm not intending to downplay the issues here, but I find it hard to follow the disconnect of people being overweight not having enough food to eat.

The mean number of calories they eat is too high, but the variance is also too high. Some days they don't eat at all and other days they gorge.

YMMV

No. Have you ever noticed the "pot-bellies" of undernourished kids from all those poverty photos from Africa?

That's because they get the cheapest crap we can send/buy them - Rice.

It's not as simple as general thermodynamics. Kcal in and out is just half the equation.

We eat too much sugar today. Everything has so much damn sugar in it. All sorts of different varieties of carbs that eventually just become blood sugar and activating your insulin causing you to store it all as fat.

I think the distended stomachs are caused by actual starvation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwashiorkor

Though it's possible you're referencing something else.

Distended stomachs are caused by actual starvation and, no, those kids aren't fat in the slightest. The article is conflating hunger with poor nutrition. They're not three same thing.

It sounds like you're trying to fit the ideology of your diet to observations.

It's quite possible if you understand the sense of the word "hunger" they're using, which does not comport to one's usual understanding of the term.

Pretend I routinely consume 3000 calories a day of pizza and sugary drinks. The last week of the month, I run out of sugary drinks, and substitute water with my 2000 calories a day of pizza. I am, according to every instrument ever used to measure it, "food insecure" due to the persistent circumstances causing me to consume less than I had planned to. I may or may not feel any physiological response to lacking Coke for a week (hunger as natural people understand the term). I'm quite likely obese, much like I would be if I consistently consumed 3000 calories a day of organic orange juice, free range steaks, and arugula.

The refocusing of anti-poverty programs and rhetoric on food insecurity as opposed to our now deprecated understanding of hunger is due to two causes. One is that food insecurity is more conveniently measurable in a (mostly) scientific fashion. The other is that the US has, for all intents and purposes, eliminated Depression-style hunger. (Though it has not eliminated dysfunctional parents who prefer drugs to feeding their children, which complicates the issue, but if you run into "Hasn't eaten in 3 days" your money should be on "child abuse" rather than "lamentable circumstances.")

Incidentally, if you're wondering "How does one define 'food security'?", you administer surveys, score them, and compare the scores to threshholds.

For example, here is a 9 question survey for children: http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/476115/youth2006.pdf

Typical question: "[In the last 30 days, d]id your meals only include a few kinds of cheap foods because your family was running out of money to buy food?"

Choices are "A lot", "Sometimes", "Never." Score 1 point if the answer isn't Never. If you score 2+ points on this out of 9, you're food insecure.

This is how you get headlines like "1 in 6 Americans doesn't know where their next meal is coming from."

Because junk food is cheaper. $1.75 pizza slices will fill you more than a $1.75 worth of Broccoli where I live. Fast food places are also closer to them than grocery stores because they are out in the suburban sprawl so they go to what is accessible, and often those places run promotions for 2 for 1 burgers or whatever. I guess the difference is during the Depression there weren't any food subsidies so everything was expensive.

Avg price for broccoli is $1.06 per pound[1], so you are getting around 1.75 pounds of broccoli. That's more filling than a 0.2 pound slice of pizza.

[1] http://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/fvwretail.pdf

I used my local rates which are $1.50-$3.00/lb for heads of Broccoli depending if organic or not. A pizza by the slice place here is huge NY style

> Doesn't calorie intake directly correlate with gaining weight?

No, calories surplus does. Poor nutritional balance can lead to low energy and make maintaining activity difficult (leading to a calorie surplus where with a more balanced diet the same person would act in a way which would produce calorie balance or deficit), and trigger a desire to eat driven by the body seeking to address deficits in particular nutrients even with a calorie surplus.

> I'm not intending to downplay the issues here, but I find it hard to follow the disconnect of people being overweight not having enough food to eat.

Nutrition is multidimensional and more than just calorie intake -- that seems to be the thing that you are missing.

True but people forget (or don't know) that calories from fat, protein and carbohydrate are not the same! The metabolic fate of these components explains why this is a fact and not, as stated on many links, a 'suggestion'.

I agree wholeheartedly.

The anecdotes they cite don't encourage much sympathy from me either. Three declined credit cards and a loan from a relative for $8.11 in fried chicken. Or the home health-aide who buys ready made food from the grocery store, because "You can’t go all the way home and cook." I'm pretty sure you could have packed a PB&J or Ham and cheese sandwich; for less than the grocery store would have charged. Heck, you could eat a cold slice of pizza.

Or notice, "When the food stamps come in, she splurges on her monthly supply of produce, including a bag of organic grapes and a bag of apples." The organic fruits and vegetables are more expensive around here. Regular golden delicious apples are something like $1.49/lb, whereas the organic are $1.99/lb. If you were watching every penny, you would have not picked the bag of organic grapes; you would have gotten a regular bag of grapes.

I also don't buy that the, (paraphrased) "Oh we can't eat cheaply and healthy, because all that are available are processed foods." You won't go hungry if you eat processed foods, and they are not actually expensive if you are living in a home with electricity. If you're homeless, there are greater logistical challenges like finding a way to refrigerate food or even heat it up; but those are not the people described in this article.

I exactly agree. But the reality of our free market laissez-faire policies mixed with increasingly effective, data driven marketing, results in a portion of the population who we are essentially leaving hung out to dry. They do not have your intellect and understanding of expenses as well as the prior knowledge to avoid and deal with addictive food additives and sophisticated merchandizing techniques. Just to name a few of the issues at play here. Its a shame that you cannot understand and have some sympathy for them.

When are the smart people of this country going to start taking some responsibility for the rest of the US?

> When are the smart people of this country going to start taking some responsibility for the rest of the US?

When the country starts listening to them.

I should have stated that a bit better. I meant that many of these situations involving people making poor financial choices have to do with very smart people using their intelligence and hard work to influence them into those choices.

So in effect, the country is listening to them and that is what is causing them to do things like take out payday loans and buy drive through meals when they can't afford it.

People may not be homo economicus, but in general I believe them to be mostly rational actors who know what their own best interest is. When you exclude the drugged out parents that other posters have mentioned, and focus on the parents in this story who are generally trying to take care of their kids; I expect they are making mostly rational decisions about how they value their time and resources [e.g., it is worth the extra money to save time and go to a grocery store, because they won't actually be starving].

This goes back to changing the definition of what you're trying to fight from "hunger" to "food insecurity". If these people were truly "hungry" vs. "food insecure", I expect they would make markedly different choices to ensure their children weren't actually hungry.

The children, also being maybe not rational actors, but not stupid; would also make different choices. If the boy were starving he probably wouldn't have skipped the free breakfast to hold out for chicken nuggets, tater tots, and hot dogs.

> People may not be homo economicus, but in general I believe them to be mostly rational actors who know what their own best interest is.

Could you provide some more thoughts on this (or supporting research)? I'm truly curious, because to me it seems so... alien to be able to hold such a view in light of reality, and I'd like to assume you've thought this through.

What I mean is, my experience (and knowledge) overwhelmingly support the idea that humans are largely not rational actors, and in fact the degree to which one is a 'rational' actor is mostly a result of an upbringing that emphasizes this.

I do pretty well in life, and I consider myself far from rational.

But to get where I am, I see it as essential that I had wonderful parents, a safe environment to experiment and explore in, the ability to conform to common norms (hell, to even be aware of them), the ability to keep my impulses from controlling me too much, and the friends I found largely through college who can help me when I make my less rational choices or when I am in my less rational 'moods'. I also had parents who were raised with a good sense of health and the time to think and read about this.

I guess fundamentally I don't see why you would separate 'drugged up' parents from the rest of them, when in reality there's a continuum of 'fucked up' along which lives are lived and in which lives are created. Parents who were not raised to eat well or exercise are likely to not raise their children to eat well or exercise.

To use an extreme example that I think applies to varying to degrees to all of us: if humans were rational beings, we wouldn't have children of alcoholics become alcoholics and subject their own kids to the suffering they themselves suffered through! Either that, or those children-of-alcoholics are just assholes. And I find that hard to believe.

> People may not be homo economicus, but in general I believe them to be mostly rational actors who know what their own best interest is.

You do know that what you just said is "People may not be homo economicus, but in general I believe them to be mostly <definition of homo economicus>", right?

In any case, research in the social sciences (economics, sure, but also psychology and a number of other related fields) has established quite clearly that people are not rational actors and that, in particular, even with all of the information presented to rationally analyze and unambiguously determine their best interest, in simple, clear-cut cases -- a much easier situation than most people find themselves in in their day to day lives -- they very often fail to correctly determine that interest, and even when they intellectually determine it fail to act on it, contrary to the rational actor model.

Rational choice theory may often be a useful baseline to start from when explaining human behavior, but people, in general, are clearly not rational actors.

So maybe it would be better phrased as, people will act rationally given their own optimization function that I may or may not agree with. There is the concept of Bounded rationality, in that I am going to make rational decisions given the information I have, and how much cognitive resources I am willing to spend on it. I may not make an optimal decision, but I can make one that is good enough.

Also, someone can rationally choose to do something that I don't agree with, because they have very different preferences than I do; and thus would optimize for those.

Even the same person can make very different decisions at different points. When I was younger, I was more likely to drink a lot. My preference was to have a social lubricant, even if that was bad for brain cells and my liver. You could say that it wasn't a rational decision, but I wouldn't have engaged in the behavior if there was zero benefit.

This ignores marketing and other pricing and sales techniques specifically designed to trick someone into thinking a choice is in their best interest when it is not. One could simple look at politics for plenty of easy to understand examples.

Also, many products are shaped and designed over time to be as addictive as possible. Video games, television, soda, fast food, facebook, tobacco etc etc. All of these things are generally outside of a persons best interest beyond light moderate use. The are specifically designed and adjusted over time to cause people to go well beyond that threshold of moderate use.

By simplifying the situation to "rational actors" you are doing exactly as I described. Refusing to take responsibility for those who are less able to deal with the forces and influences I described above.

> By simplifying the situation to "rational actors" you are doing exactly as I described. Refusing to take responsibility for those who are less able to deal with the forces and influences I described above.

I think that it is condescending to assume that people are unable to make their own choices. Why should you impose upon people that Facebook or soda is not "in their best interests." If I want to drink 6 cans of Coke Zero a day (and I actually do), it isn't your place to tell me that I should switch to water.

Thinking it is condescending is once again refusing to take responsibility. Its one thing to allow someone to drink 6 cans of Coke Zero a day, its another to actively manipulate someone into doing so. By saying, "Everyone is just as smart as me" what you are actually doing is removing the responsibility of being more capable.

There are 10 people trapped on an island. You are the only one who knows how to make a boat. Are you responsible to help the other 9 people get off the island? Or are they just "rational actors" that should have know to learn to make a boat and therefore none of your responsibility?

You are letting a mental trick you use in your head to deal with the inequality in the world to control your entire view of the world.

The organic grapes struck me as odd, too, until I remembered that organic grapes were actually cheaper than regular last time I was at the store.

Is the "paradox" explainable by the fact that satiety is not a true signal about nutritional needs being met? If you are forced to eat foods which provide more than enough calories/nutrients, but don't tell your body "Hey, that's enough!", then you could theoretically be gaining weight while remaining hungry.

It's a disconnect that's not unique to the families NG interviewed. Take the Pima native Americans in 1905, where the women, who were quite physically active, basically treated like beasts of burden, had a distressingly high obesity rate, though these families were given a limited ration from the government, mostly white flour and sugar, and not more than 2000 calories per person per day. You can find the same trend in 1928 with Sioux on a South Dakota Crow Creek Reservation--very high levels of obesity in coincidence with extreme poverty. In the early 1960s, MIT nutritionists calculated that Trinidadians were getting no more than 2000 calories per day, yet they were seeing an extreme obesity problem among the females.

Your (calories in = calories stored + calories used) basis for judging other human beings fails because these are not independent variables. Metabolic rate is not constant. If you feed your body few calories, your metabolism adjusts so as to use fewer calories and store more. If you skip some meals, your metabolism is receiving a signal that it had better use the absolute minimum and store the rest to be used in future food crises.

A high-carbohydrate meal causes insulin to be released, and insulin causes sugars in the bloodstream to be stored as fat. And then your blood sugar is low, and you're hungry again. Have you ever noticed the intense hunger that follows an hour or two after a carb binge?

Fat cells that are stimulated to grow (by insulin) scream loud for their share of the energy, just as a growing child's appetite is caused by hormonal messaging for growth and not the other way around. Fat cells scream loud, ensuring that they get their needs met even if the rest of you is weak, tired, and resorting to stealing energy from muscle, the brain, and other tissues. Also, preservatives, additives, and high-sodium foods can cause a person to retain water, which can add to weight independent of caloric intake.

In an older discussion on this issue, travisp shared this article: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1199154 >Effects of Dietary Composition on Energy Expenditure During Weight-Loss Maintenance >The results of our study challenge the notion that a calorie is a calorie from a metabolic perspective. During isocaloric feeding following weight loss, REE was 67 kcal/d higher with the very low-carbohydrate diet compared with the low-fat diet. TEE differed by approximately 300 kcal/d between these 2 diets, an effect corresponding with the amount of energy typically expended in 1 hour of moderate-intensity physical activity >In conclusion, our study demonstrates that commonly consumed diets can affect metabolism and components of the metabolic syndrome in markedly different ways during weight-loss maintenance, independent of energy content. The low-fat diet produced changes in energy expenditure and serum leptin42- 44 that would predict weight regain. In addition, this conventionally recommended diet had unfavorable effects on most of the metabolic syndrome components studied herein. In contrast, the very low-carbohydrate diet had the most beneficial effects on energy expenditure and several metabolic syndrome components, but this restrictive regimen may increase cortisol excretion and CRP.

If you consider yourself a scientifically-minded, follow-the-research type, it's time to re-evaluate your (calories in = calories stored + calories used) hypothesis.

The disconnect is the difference between being hungry and actual starvation. We are so rich that most of our poorest can still get fat on the food they can acquire. The worst of our problems is no longer starvation, but bad nutrition. (to an extent, starvation still must exist somewhere but it is very much less common)

Starvation will always get more sympathy, and the dismissal of this is inappropriate.

Starvation is extremely tragic, and no one's dismissing that.

We do have a different problem here in America, but it's not simply that poor people are fat because they're just eating too many calories.

I've offered physiological explanations for the observed phenomenon that people can be obese on low-calorie diets.

It's troubling that America's "poor fat" are misled by the universal and government-touted notion that low fat is healthy and that carbs are a necessary nutrient.

This guy has caclulated cost per calorie for a variety of foods, with pretty pictures: http://www.mymoneyblog.com/what-does-200-calories-cost-the-e...

I've done calculations for some of my favorite foods, and found that no-sugar peanut butter, olive oil, mayo w/o canola or soy, no-nitrate bacon ends, roasted sunflower seeds, canned coconut cream, grass-fed butter, almond flour, and sour cream are all nutritious foods that are less than $.50 per 200 calories. These foods are satisfying, non-fattening, and make veggies taste great. But the poor aren't going to buy them because they've been told by the government to have 11 servings of carbs and to minimize fat intake. It's a problem that could be addressed.

I find it hard to believe that people can get fat on low calorie diets(http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/).

Nutrition research is a mess and yes there does seem to be connections between types of food, insulin spikes and how likely calories will be stored as fat - but to gain weight you still need a calorie surplus.

I'd suspect the 'poor fat' is because of consuming a large amount of calories from unhealthy food combined with nearly zero exercise.

I referred to a JAMA article and you retort with CNN?

My point is that metabolism is quite adaptable, as it has had to be over thousands of years, and if blood sugar levels are not steady (i.e. bad food and/or skipped meals), it is able to minimize energy use to ENSURE there's a calorie surplus, so that some can be stored away.

You seem invested in maintaining your right to judge poor people's choices.

Wasn't meant to discount what you wrote, and obviously the paper you linked carries a lot more weight. There are just issues with self reporting and calorie consumption, plus I just have a hard time believing that someone on an actual low calorie diet can be extremely overweight, but this may just be my own bias. I don't have much outside of personal anecdotes.

Nutrition is complex and from what I've read (and what you linked) there is large variation among types of calories, but I haven't read anything suggesting this is more important than the number of calories themselves. My impression is that it does have an impact, but the volume of calories consumed is the determining factor.

As a visiting New Zealander, the one thing I've noticed about the American price structure is that food is reasonably expensive, while superfluous goods aren't. A decent-ish pair of shoes is $50USD; a board game off Amazon $35, (which I'll admit to blitzing while visiting!). Both would probably set you back a minimum of $120NZD back home. Comparatively, our food is cheaper, and generally healthier (Whole Foods feels the closest to a New Zealand supermarket; lots of fresh fruit, vegetables, bulk bins).

The other surprising thing is that debit cards are new-ish here; credit cards are prevalent. Couple the accompanying fees (?) with pricing structures that are less declarative (food advertised sans tax; tipping expected), and it's more difficult to budget. Further, having/using credit means it's always tempting to dip further into it. In comparison, we've had EFTPOS (debit) for decades, sales tax is included in the advertised price, and there isn't a tipping culture.

NZ has its own problems with growing inequality which need addressing, and this is anecdata at best, but I can see why avoiding temptation and sticking to a good budget might be more troublesome.

Where are you shopping? While the average american supermarket (Kroger, Gerbes, Safeway, Wal-Mart) has a lot of unhealthy food available, there are also a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables.

Whole foods is a REALLY bad example of the average cost of food in the US--it's well known for being expensive and catering to the organic/locally grown/whatever crowd. You're not going to get an accurate idea of US food prices shopping there.

Sure, I'm aware that costs are higher at Whole Foods :). Sorry, I shouldn't have left that unqualified. I've been elsewhere too; they just had a selection which reminded me the most of a supermarket at home (partly because this particular one wasn't massively oversized like the Wal-Mart I visited -- everything here is bigger!).

I'm also staying in an area (Downtown in an nice city) where food would be more expensive anyway, which may be influencing my perception. So, again -- it's just an anecdote, but the area I'm in back home is generally regarded as an expensive one too.

> Whole foods is a REALLY bad example of the average cost of food in the US--it's well known for being expensive ...

Thus the nickname "Whole Paycheck". :)

Unprepared food like fruits, vegetables, meat, etc. is tax free in most states. Prepared food is usually taxed. Tipping is only expected at a sit-down restaurant, and those are generally expensive enough that if you are genuinely starving you should probably be allocating the money spent on that one meal on several cheaper meals.

Credit cards vs. debit cards typically have no difference in fees for the end consumer; the one notable exception in suburban NY being gas stations.

> Credit cards vs. debit cards typically have no difference in fees for the end consumer; the one notable exception in suburban NY being gas stations.

Thanks for clearing that up; I'd wondered if that was the case.

> Tipping is only expected at a sit-down restaurant

It's interesting; that's what I was led to believe. However, even takeaway/fast food places have tip jars at the front, and I feel pretty rude not biffing a dollar or so in. Which is probably a perception thing; I'm in a position that I can do so freely, and I'm more than willing to accept that those who aren't may be less obliged.

It depends on where you are in the country. For example, I grew up in Illinois outside Chicago. I had never seen a tip jar at a freaking subway until I moved to California. I don't tip for that kind of service and I don't feel bad about it on the slightest.

Using a credit card in the US is cheaper and more convenient than using a debit card, especially for poor people who may not have enough cash until payday for what they need to buy today.

Of course, it requires the discipline not to spend more than you can pay back at the end of the month which some people seem to have difficulty with.

How is using a credit card "cheaper" exactly? Very, very few places charge a fee for using a debit card.

My credit card has 1% cash back, extended warranty protection, theft/breakage insurance, and gives me an interest-free loan for a month.

I'm not denying that there are relevant problems that should be addressed, but why are all these families having kids, multiple even, if they're not fit to raise them? I'm not saying they deserve it, but is it really all that surprising that one or two low-wage adults aren't able to provide for themselves on top of growing children? I'm sure there are families with no kids also facing difficulties, but damn, people!

Also, I'd like to see the breakdown of these families' budgets. Where is their money going? If they're like most Americans, they're likely pissing money away needlessly.

The cynic in me is showing again.

They usually don't choose to conceive. Another factor is poor planning. Many people don't budget in the fact that one parent could be unemployed for months on end.

I think this deserves extra attention. America has a weird cultural thing at play here; the religious right seem to be strongly anti-contraception (the recent Hobby Lobby decision being a good example). Yet, when the inevitable happens and a child is unexpectedly conceived, there doesn't appear to be much in way of a support structure.

I'd be happy to be wrong on the second part.

My politically incorrect opinion: the same factors that cause them to be poor influence how many children they have, poor decision making and low impulse control.

That and the fact that having children makes them poor by robbing them of the time to improve themselves and earn a higher salary.

And they are also likely to be happier than you are ;) Primarily because of the same factors that you've mentioned.

If that's true, which is doubtful, then their problems should become a 2nd priority, since our 1st priorities should be improving the happiness of the least happy.

I'm not sure if that in itself is a politically incorrect opinion. The link between success and impulse control is, as far as I know, pretty well established and agreed upon.

It's the conclusion that you draw from this that matters. Is poor decision making and low impulse control also just a consequence of poverty, of being born in an environment that does not nurture these skills? Or does the buck stop there and do these poor people only have themselves to blame?

The same applies to addiction, whether to a particular substance or obesity-related. It was only when I spent some time in Texas that I realized how much harder it is to eat well and exercise compared to my life in Amsterdam!

Or religion. Having experienced both a very religious life, and a very 'secular' life, the one thing it taught me is how little, in the end, my behavior and beliefs were shaped by my 'individual' thoughts and decisions. Very humbling.

I tend to be on the no-blame side on these issues, as I strongly believe we're much less 'individuals' than we think, and much more a product of our upbringing and our path in life, which is to a large degree out of our hand. The ability to make choices is, in itself, largely not a choice.

I hold that position because I've seen and experienced how fragile and context-dependent people are, and because there are volumes of research that support this.

I also believe it is, regardless of the facts, a more optimistic, constructive, and humble approach to life. It reminds me am not the product of (just) my own willpower and craftiness; I am the product of nurturing parents, a good education, a relatively stable upbringing, and inspiring, like-minded friends and acquaintances.

OK, so maybe you could be clearer. Are you saying that poor people shouldn't have sex?

He's saying a responsible adult should not knowingly bring a child into the world without the means to provide for that child.

Which is a correct opinion that sadly ignores the environment in which these people grew up, the level of education available to them and the medical care they are able to access. Even nicely wealthy with access to everything they could need have accidents.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the level of education available to them." In my state everybody gets the same level of sex education in 7th and 9th grades, and you're legally required to attend until 10th grade. In general, anybody over the age of 15 should understand the consequences of unprotected sex. Yes, even here in the south.

Education quality varies wildly from district to district. I'm not using "level" to refer to formally declared years, but the quality of the classroom and the outcomes achieved within. It's very hard to learn in a poor classroom in which the teacher is interrupted constantly.

Additionally, with all the emphasis people put on being a responsible adult, that's not something that's really taught in school. There isn't much value placed on learning how to budget, keep track on finances, but then when people are unable to do so it's all their fault. That doesn't seem right.

It's not right, but that's the problem of the people saying it's all their fault, ignoring the Fundamental Attribution Error.

Everybody has sex and birth control is imperfect.

Is he? Where is the line drawn at "knowingly," if not at the decision to have sex?

Because we don't take birth control seriously in this country. IUD's and hormonal birth control should be free. The morning after pill should be available for free in schools. Republicans should stop making it more difficult to operate a planned parenthood.

Doing these things would reduce poverty, crime, and quite importantly our environmental impact.

Yeah. And especially, the FDA should get on it and fast-track the reversible, non-invasive male birth control (1 time injection) that has been safely used (in trials) in India for 20 years. Men need birth control too, am I right?

> but is it really all that surprising that one or two low-wage adults aren't able to provide for themselves on top of growing children

In a wealthy society it ought to be.

Raising children is a pretty basic part of the human experience. It's easy to say "just don't have kids!", but rather harder to live that life if you're someone who wants a family.

But 9 kids at 31?

Yeah, in fairness I can see that's kinda insane. I guess I just get aggravated when I perceive people treating the issue as a simple decision, whereas the emotions around having/not having children are anything but.

She's recently come from Gambia, remember, where the cultural values around birth control and family size are very, very different from in your culture. There are cultures where women are shamed, punished, or outcast for "failure to conceive."

I have not heard anyone mention yet that federal aid programs do incentivize having kids, lots of kids. Any compassionate ideas for fixing that?

Nobody is suggesting "just don't have kids". People are saying plan and save appropriately. (Sure, accidents can happen.)

I know a couple who has had 3 kids by age 19 and both parents have dropped out of high school to support them. What's their endgame? They basically are going to live off the state for their rest of their lives and will always struggle with money and food. If they would have continued with their education and waited 5-10 years, their situation could have been drastically different...

> Nobody is suggesting "just don't have kids".

I disagree. I see people suggesting that on a regular basis.

I absolutely agree that it's much better to wait and plan more, and we need to encourage people to do that as much as possible. We still need to collectively realise that our society will always have poor people. That being the case, my opinion is that denying the poor the moral right to reproduce is unfair.

I think the culture of blaming the poor for being that way shows a tremendous lack of understanding about the complex social issues around it. It's more than statistically likely you would not break the generational cycle of poverty if you started life in similar circumstances.

Furthermore, it's a pretty serious judgment to make, which I'd say requires a lot of supporting evidence.

Look at maps showing availability and locality to family planning resources and abortion clinics - plus abortions stopped being fun a few years ago.

Who's to say that these people were in their present state since the choice to follow through with a pregnancy? The one kid looks like 6-8 y.o. That's pre-crash. A lot changes in 7 years. You can have bankruptcy discharged in 7 years.

Are you asking questions to which you actually want answers, or are you just trying to whip HN toward a good ol' eugenics fervor? Your entire comment is nothing more than the expectorant of a right-wing radio host. I guess it's fine to rag on poor people though, since we're all Randian captains of the tech industry in here.

I think greyskull's questions are rhetorical, but his tone is understandable given the tone of TFA, which relentlessly beats on the drum of victimhood at the hands of an unfair system. I think the article could have been could have made the same point with less appeal to sentimentality.

Of course it is possible to eat well cheaply in America, but it takes resources and know-how that many low-income Americans don’t have.

I think that more food education, especially at a young age, could play a big part in addressing this problem and I wish that the article expanded more on this. I don't know if schools currently have any curriculum revolving around cooking, nutrition and reducing food waste but it could go a long way to prepare these children for rising food prices and the abundance of cheap, low-quality food products.

Edit: grammar

"In 2006 the U.S. government replaced “hunger” with the term “food insecure” to describe any household where, sometime during the previous year, people didn’t have enough food to eat. By whatever name, the number of people going hungry has grown dramatically in the U.S., increasing to 48 million by 2012... "

There are lots of people in the US in terrible situations, and we should try to help them, but that does not give reporters a license to make up facts. "Food insecurity" does not mean that people are going hungry. It means people who are "at risk of" going hungry, a much broader group. From the Texas Food Bank Network (http://tfbn.org/food-insecurity/):

"What does “food insecure” NOT mean?

Food insecurity is not “the government’s definition of hunger.” It is a broader term that captures outright hunger and the coping mechanisms that households use to avoid hunger.

Food insecurity is a household situation, not an individual situation. While food insecurity affects everyone in a household, it may affect them differently. Therefore it is not correct to state that specific individuals in a food insecure household (such as children) definitely experience outright hunger or specific coping mechanisms. Rather than describing these individuals as being “food insecure”, they should be referred to as “living in a food insecure home.”

Food insecurity is a year-long measure. Therefore, it is not correct to assert that every food insecure household is experiencing food insecurity “right now,” will experience hunger “tonight” or “does not know where their next meal is coming from.” Research shows that food insecurity tends to be episodic and often cyclical.

Food insecurity does not mean that a household lacks access to grocery stores, lives in a “food desert,” or does not have time to shop/cook. It only refers to lack of food access based on financial and other material resources."

A much better, but less pageview-generating, term for the problem a large number of Americans face is "malnutrition". If you are malnourished, you may not be going hungry (and may actually be overweight), but still don't get the nutrients you need to be healthy.

I saw the chart of "more than half a mile from a supermarket," and I recalled that for as long as I have lived in my current neighborhood (since mid-2001), all my children have known how to walk along with me a mile out and a mile back to shop for groceries and carry them home. I have been doing something more or less like this most of my adult life. Sometimes I would walk for a while before catching a bus home from my grocery shopping, or sometimes share rides with friends who had cars and go on shopping trips together at especially inexpensive discount grocery stores, but whether traveling farther or nearer, I always preferred buying food in grocery stores and preparing it at home to buying fast food. Always. My children have grown up into slim and athletic adults, perhaps because for them eating is something they do after engaging in exercise. Yeah, some places in the United States (and some of those are featured in the article kindly submitted here) are a lot lousier even than the Near North Side of Minneapolis for taking walks outside or for finding any access at all to a grocery store, but for the most part the first thing to change here is the trade-off of how far to travel by what means for what kind of food. That will promote better health, even with very low incomes.

Here's a visual approach to cost per calorie: http://www.mymoneyblog.com/what-does-200-calories-cost-the-e...

When I made my own cost-per-calorie calculations, I found that the much maligned non-synthetic FATS are a wonderfully cheap source of calories. They're nutritious, satisfying, and make veggies taste great.

There's a lot of bias against fat, and most Americans believe that eating fat makes you fat, but what does the evidence say? Look to the research, and you'll see that the opposite is true, provided you're staying away from vegetable oils and trans-fats.

Here's a sample from my calculations, for comparison with the link above (where foods were chosen to make the point that low-cost foods are bad for you). I live where food is pretty cheap. The most economical picks are very unpopular, I suppose because of the popular non-evidence-based, government-touted slander of eating a high-fat diet. Yes, it's bad for rodents. I'll give you that. But when you look at humans who are eating high-fat AND low carb, the research looks pretty awesome. And we could use more of it.

All prices are per 200 calories. (Grass fed items and etc. included to show the level of health and principle that can be achieved while keeping it cheap):

Trader Joe's PEANUT BUTTER (non-hydrogenated, no sugar added) $.10

OLIVE OIL $.14

Roasted SUNFLOWER SEEDS, $.14,

MAYO (fancy, safflower oil with no canola or soy) $.22

DRY LENTILS $.24

BACON ENDS $.26

ALMOND MEAL $.38

CANNED COCONUT CREAM $.32

Grass fed BUTTER $.36

CREAM $.38

REFRIED BEANS(canned)$.40

SOUR CREAM $.44

SWEET POTATO $.50

WHOLE CHICKEN $.56

COTTAGE CHEESE $.60

EGGS (local) $.70

YOGURT (plain,full fat)$.88

GROUND BEEF grass fed $1.38

Apples $1.40

GREEN BEANS (frozen) $2.00

Chicken Breasts ($5/lb)$2.00

We spend less on food than ever before.

http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1009/50-years-of-...

We spend less on food than any other nation.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/03/daily-c...

It's debatable that food deserts are a thing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/health/research/pairing-of...

Isn't that last article saying that food deserts aren't necessarily correlated with obesity?

Correct.

The questionable correlation in the original article is:

Good food is simply not available in low income neighborhoods >people are forced to make make cheaper choices >they become obese and malnourished.

The times article cites studies that call that into question, citing apparent actual availability in those areas and focusing more on people just making poor choices.

I'm no expert, but sheer economics does not seem to be primary influencer causing current outcomes.

Okay. I just wanted to point out that your original post makes it sound like "Food deserts don't exist". Not "Food deserts aren't necessarily correlated with obesity"

Problems like this make me feel we need two parallel governments and you could subscribe to either.

1. Govt 1: Nanny state. Will support you if you get poor, but you agree to controls on your life.

2. Govt 2: Do whatever. Don't come crying if you crash and burn.

I'd say this is false dichotomy. Version 1 does not have to control your life. They would have to use more reporting on peoples' lives, (so that it's known who is actually poor and whether people are paying into the pool) but that doesn't mean controlling them. At least not in the way this sentence seems to imply.

Taxation is just fungible control. I largely meant paying more taxes. But some amount of control might be needed. E.g., more stricter drug laws, there should be some financial friction on reproduction based on number and age (9 kids at 31 is just amazing).

In 1800-ies the typical American mother bore 7 children. So nothing amazing. Standard human biology.

Um. Yeah. I was not talking about human biology here. The quality of life of the lady mentioned is not that different from an 1800s American middle class person.

I find it interesting, that the article seems to view the fact that the family has to supplement their SNAP assistance with visits to a food pantry as a problem, rather than something to be happy about.

Indeed, poverty, hunger and food insecurity are awful, but why is it more attractive for amelioration of these conditions to come from the Federal government, than from non-governmental actors?

Seems to me a government mandated program might seem more limitless and be less personal and thus you don't feel like your taking advantage of the kindness of caring people or stopping resources going to those who are possibly even more needy.

On a related note: One of the things I somewhat like about taxes for welfare rather than "rely on the largess of charitable billionaires/private entities" argument is that it helps ensure expenses from charitable acts wouldn't be a drain on a business competing. Thus 'asshole' private entities wouldn't have a concrete market advantage over 'nice' private entities.

The U.S. is full of people that can barely make it to the next paycheck, but they'll have an iPhone, a car, cable tv, cigarettes, etc. Unless you are taking public transportation to your 2 jobs without all the consumer goods I've mentioned, then you aren't poor.

The other five-sixths of us have too much.

Several of the people pictured in the story are overweight. The cruel irony is that if the price support for wheat/corn/soybean processed food was removed these people would get to feel what physical starvation was like.

Yeah, because corn, wheat, and soybean are inelastic goods, am I right?

I can't go 3 days without that sweet sweet soybean oil, or I will literally starve to death.

I'd actually draw the supply and demand curve and what would happen to the various suppliers and buyers if the subsidies were removed, but I'm afraid I would get labeled a dirty Randian and branded a heretic.

bullshit

Are the rest obese?

Mrs. Dreier looks to be at least 20kg overweight. She could quite healthily fast for at least 3 months living of of those reserves plus some magnesium supplements. It has been done before with great success:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/pdf/post...

Hmm. Do you want to pay for the medical supervision she'll need for that fast? Healthy food might be cheaper.

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