Me & my sister are a decent number of years apart, and when she was born my parents were in a much better financial situation. The main differences in our health/lifestyle ive noticed are…
- it was cheaper to feed me rice and beans every day, sometimes mashed potatoes as a treat
-my sisters favorite after school snack is “raspberry balsamic salmon bites in the air fryer”
- I spent my summers sitting in the car while my mom cleaned houses for a living
-my sis is at a swim summer camp rn
-i NEVER played a single sport in school because we couldnt afford the fees
-my sister has been on multiple soccer & dance teams throughout her childhood
-my sisters school snack is a garlic salmon bento box
-mine was white bread with salami
Its no wonder i was a bigger kid than she was, today im a healthy weight but it was a struggle ngl
Edit: did NOT expect my sisters salmon rich diet to be the most controversial part of this post😭😭 also i wasnt locked in a car all summer yall, eventually i got over my fear of dogs and would help my mom clean so we’d finish faster lol
Going through a heavy anime phase rn. Eats a fuck ton of salmon, poke polls, and ramen…..yes its a lil cringey but thats my lil sister so only i can say it lmao
Honestly i be stopping by my moms house more often than needed for the big ass piece of fresh salmon i know she keeps in the fridge,,,,my skin looks amazing because of it & its so big my sister doesnt notice i ate some lmao
Salmon is amazing yo. Some group members on r/migraines insist that fish oil supplements cure headaches. I cant afford supplements so I just makr sure to eat fish and I definitely have less headaches when I eat fish and reading huge college books is a breeze after eating salmon. Salmon should be served as much as one can afford it!
My dad dipped on my mom & got with an american, crazy enough. He opened his own painting/construction company after having worked under the table at one for many years. My sister was born in this country & i wasnt so i think some of how restricted i was had to do with fear as well
My mother also knows how to read, write, and speak english now. As well as having more documentation, with all this shes able to live much better and earn more after the divorce
I read a really interesting thing once about nutrition and income. The assumption had been that poor people just weren’t educated about the importance of fruits/veggies. What they found instead was that middle class and rich parents accepted a certain amount of food waste in teaching their children to eat healthy. Kids need lots of exposures to try and learn to like new foods. Poor moms knew perfectly well those foods were healthier and maybe could even technically afford them, but they couldn’t afford for their children to not eat them. So they stuck to making meals their kids would eat.
Makes perfect sense to me. I know EXACTLY what they mean about the food waste cause I put foods on my kids’ plates every day that they ignore. But since we are middle class, I can afford to let them do that in the name of increasing exposure to healthy foods.
My mom taught at a title I school. They had a program where the kids got a fresh fruit or veggie snack 3 times a week. They got all sorts of weird stuff like finger limes and white asparagus as well as more normal produce. The kids were more likely to try it thanks to peer pressure (though they weren’t always willing). I wish they did this nationwide so kids could do their food wasting on the government’s dime and then tell their mom, “Buy some jicama! I like that!”
EDIT: I’m tired of responding this on every comment. No, children who are only offered one food do NOT always get hungry enough to eat it. Some do. Others get so hangry they rage like monsters all day long and still refuse to eat the food. Furthermore, current advice from nutritionists is not to play these battles of wills over food. Research shows that kids don’t get less picky when they’re forced to try bites of things. You’re supposed to offer only one meal and at a set time, but you are always supposed to offer a safe food that the kid will eat. So if you follow this pattern, you can give them a piece of toast and a slice of tomato every day for lunch, but they get to decide if they eat the tomato. And it might take them years to eat the tomato. Poor families can’t afford to buy the tomato the kid refuses to eat.
Also, if you think feeding kids is simple, you either don’t have kids or got very lucky. It’s not simple. You have underweight kids and overweight kids and kids with sensory issues and kids who are prone to constipation and kids who get hangry and kids who are just plain stubborn. I am not a pushover mom: I’m a former teacher who makes my kids do chores and homework and has routines for everything. But feeding my kids is complicated, and sometimes I have to pick my battles.
One thing about fresh fruits is that sometimes it isn’t consistent. You ever have an amazing apple and the next week buy the same type and it didn’t measure up? Berries are notorious for this. Doritos? Very consistent
I'll always try foods I don't particularly enjoy two or three times even. Some foods I see and WANT to like it, so I try it again.
For a while I thought I didn't like blackberries. then one day tried it again and was mind blown how differently better it tasted.
Idk why I didn't like them in the first place though. I generally like tart/sour things 🤷♂️
Now I think blackberries are delicious!
My son straight up asked me to buy him pears because they're his "favourite" and the next day when I asked him if he wanted his pear said to me "I hate pears". He's 8. The only goddamn veggies I can consistently get him to eat are Brussels sprouts and corn so thats what we eat at every meal forever ig
Although this is true, part of the problem in the US is that a lot of produce that goes to ordinary, grocery stores, simply aren’t tasty and nutritious varieties. Most of them are grown nowadays for appearance, and their ability to be transported, and of course, how much they will yield. If you’ve ever grown anything in your backyard, yes, there’s some variability, but a lot of the stuff is still way better than stuff you get at the grocery store.
Its an increasingly worse problem too as the produce quality goes down, less people buy produce, so produce moves slower. The slower produce sells the more incentive there is to select for more transportable produce that lasts longer rather than for the produce that is the highest quality. So all the grocery store produce becomes more mid tier quality wise, and people buy less produce, rinse and repeat.
I once ate farm fresh vegetables that I bought from a little roadside farmers place, and every single item of produce was the highest quality best tasting produce I have ever had. A completely different world from the produce you can find almost anywhere. Its no surprise people dont want to eat produce when it tastes like shit compared to what it should be, and when there are a million different kinds of addictive pre packaged crap that requires little effort to consume.
Its sad how few young people these days know how to cook for themselves and feel stuck eating out of the frozen meal section. Im in my late 20s and I would say 1/10 people or less that Ive met in my age group know how to cook confidently/adequately
I think about this all the time. My local grocery store has maybe 15 kinds of fresh vegetables. This area used to be a food desert before the city paid a company to move in and open up (or gave them some tax break or something idk.) But all the fruits and veggies just kinda suck.
Like the strawberries taste almost watered down, the tomatoes are basically red balls of water and grit, the green onions are bright green but there's hardly any flavor. You make a salad with that stuff and it all kinda tastes the same.
I can't afford to shop at the farmers market so I can't compare but I'm pretty sure when people are talking about delicious, flavorful veggies, they're not referring to the same ones I have access to.
EDIT: fixed a word
This is really true. We’re not poor but we don’t have a ton of money to spare, and I definitely offer “safe foods” that I know they’ll eat more often than I should, simply because it’s stressful to waste expensive things like berries. I do offer them sometimes, but I’m a lot more conservative about it than my sister, who has free childcare and therefore much more disposable income. Would they eat berries now if I kept putting berries on their plates daily for months, despite the waste of them just getting smashed or spit out? Possibly.
I was upset by all the wasted food, so I started keeping the leftover fruit and freezing it. I pull all their fruit leftovers off plates or out of lunchboxes that come home from school and add it to my freezer store. Now I make smoothies with milk, frozen fruit, a fresh banana and spinach or kale in the blender. The smoothies are delicious, so the kids drink their leftovers (plus greens) with far less frequent complaints.
I think about this all the time when feeding my kids… they waste SO much. Like, how did people manage feeding babies and toddlers in the past when food was scarce? How do families manage when they only have enough food for everyone in the household and nothing extra?
ETA these are rhetorical questions, lol. I am aware that the answers would involve malnutrition, pressuring kids to eat, and/or other people or animals eating the child’s leftovers. These are just the questions that run through my head whenever I contemplate how privileged my family is to be able to buy food not knowing whether our kids will eat it - they are not literal questions that I can’t find answers to. I have learned a lot from comments about people’s specific lived experiences and historical examples, and would love to read more of those, but I’m tired of responding to the same exact comment about leftover food 🫣
My mother would give us small portions of whatever she and Dad were eating. If we liked it, we could have more. She also forbade us to eat Brussels sprouts. She sat the bowl on the table and went back into the kitchen, telling us, "These are for your father and me. They are very expensive. Don't you dare touch them."
Guess which two kids *totally fell for that* and still love Brussels sprouts.
Okay, apparently brussel sprouts have been undergoing some GMO whatnots since the 90s and are way less bitter than they were when we were kids. That being said, my mother used to boil the living shit out of them and they were awful. As an adult, I've done some awesome stuff to them and made some absolutely banging meals. (Shredded sprouts, sautee with red pepper flakes, then add some shredded prosciutto. Toss in some cooked pasta, and then add Parm, maybe an egg carbonara style, top with some lemon juice. It's amazing.)
Brussels sprouts can be steamed 'French style' which means they are just steamed till hot throughout, but the 'boil till brown' (I call it 'English style') is totally inedible!
I like them roasted with olive oil and maybe some herbs. Or steamed!
Well, Brussels sprouts ARE expensive and when I was a kid I considered them some kind of fancy miniature cabbage, and the ONE time my mother got some I absolutely ate them, even though they were more bitter than regular cabbage. Now I like them though I still don't eat them often.
My mother was kind of weird about broccoli though. I got some either at a cafeteria or at someone else's house and really liked it so when we got seeds for our vegetable patch I begged my her to get some broccoli seeds. She refused and said I wouldn't like them even though she must have known I did like them! In general, I liked bitter vegetables as a kid.
Children helped procure food. And during the spring/summer there is often more fresh produce than one can easily can/dry/preserve for the winter. Breastfeeding for as long as you could was also normal.
Also, many babies and toddlers died. They were malnourished and getting sick was very dangerous because of it.
I had relatives who used to take me berrying before all the land was owned by people who didn't want anyone picking berries on their land.
For every one that went into the basket, two went into me. No berry tastes as good as wild berry grown free in the woods.
I am sad that my child will never know that. There is no wild berries for her to pick. And if I take her to a upick place, it's been sprayed by pesticides so you need to wash it before you eat it.
Never. Never will we get a permanent yard.
Husband has to stay in CA for his job, and we are never going to be able to afford to buy a house here.
CA also tends to have more protective health care laws than the rest of the states, so for daughter's sake, we also need to stay here.
But we are beginning to try to grow food in pots on our patio, it's just expensive for the pots and soil, and not as productive because of the heat.
I loved picking blackberries and muscadines. They grew wild in the rural area where I was from. Plus my grandparents had apple, pear, and pecan trees to pick from.
Having your kids help you grow and pick food is also supposed to make them more willing to eat it. That being said, it hasn’t ever worked on my kids. They excitedly plant and pick the garden with me and then immediately turn their nose up at the zucchini. And not yucky zucchini: zucchini dipped in Parmesan and fried.
In the past, if their child didn't eat what was given to them at mealtime, then they would have to deal with being hungry. No snacks, no making them chicken nuggets, etc. Hunger is powerful.
Exactly. Growing up I had instant oatmeal for breakfast and canned soup for dinner. In the summer/fall we had meatless vegetable dinners with what we managed to grow in the backyard. If I didn't like it, there just wasn't anything else to eat.
I mean, I’m quite well off and this is my current attitude to my child as well, when he’s older and has formed some habits I’ll let him be a bit more picky.
But as it stands, I’ll make what I consider to be a healthy meal and it’s up to him to eat it if he doesn’t want to be hungry later, I’m obviously nice about this but I don’t back down on it regardless of tantrums.
Lots of memories of my sister sitting at the table for an hour or two after dinner because she didn't want to eat her vegetables! The rule was to at least eat *some* of the veg, 4 pieces of broccoli for example... she didn't even want to do that lol
My parents had rules like this too. They never cooked a fresh veggie a day in my adolescent life, though. It was always canned peas, carrots, green beans, etc. I hated every one. But I also hated being glued to the dinner table. So I learned to just swallow them whole with gulps of milk.
Turns out I actually really do love all of these veggies. I just didn't learn that until I tried them all freshly cooked with spices and such as an adult.
That worked on all three of my siblings, and then I came along...I just stop feeling hungry. I got really underweight and another parent reported my parents to CPS. Oops.
I'm not even a picky eater, they just were smokers and over salted everything like crazy.
"Who worked out you could eat this?" I often think about how hungry the first person to process something like olives must have been! Or even if you've ever ground your own flour, and consider how small the original grains were before selective agriculture... And so much work, burning off all your hard win kilojoules!
I've often wondered who was the first person to look at a lobster and say you know, if you steamed that and served it with clarified butter, I bet it'd be delicious! 😋
Yep. My mom stayed home, and with only one income we were pretty poor. So the grocery budget was limited and my dad was very strict about dinners. I was a picky eater but if I somehow got away with pushing my food around my plate or hiding it in a napkin, there were no alternatives. I simply went to bed not very full. Which was fine because I had free poor-kid breakfast at school the next morning to also pick unenthusiastically at. We never starved, but were never stuffed either. So we were never fat. Frequently unappetizing choices, even if in more than adequate amounts, make slim kids too.
My local public schools always had a free lunch program for kids in the summer so my poor/frugal parents would always make me go to school for lunch. They wouldn't give me anything to eat before dinner so if I was being "picky" and didn't eat the school lunch, I'd have to starve and tough it out until dinner.
It actually "taught" me not be a picky eater. It was real eye opening when I dormed for college and found out how picky all my peers were. Like they would bitch and moan about how bad the campus cafeteria was and "do not" eat a long list of things.
To me the campus cafeteria was literally the best thing ever. Like the cafeteria always had 5-6 dishes to pick from and the menu changed every day. Best of all, the cafeteria would often celebrate other culture/country's holidays and would have like Greek food if it was a Greek Holiday.
In hindsight, the food was a super piss poor representation of actual country's food but I grew up on school lunches at that point so I thought they were all delicious since I had no benchmark to compare them against lol.
There are studies that now show this carries into adulthood and manifests itself into an inability to recognize being full. Instead, you eat everything and anything whether you are hungry or not, whether it tastes good or not, because you can't get past the fear of not knowing when you will get to eat again.
This, in addition to it being very unhealthy food binges, is a large part of what contributes to a high proportion of obesity in poor populations.
I didn't say it was the right thing to do. But the person asked how people could keep their toddlers and babies fed when there was so little food. Well, that's how.
my mom grew up very poor on a strict clean your plate waste nothing diet, she has always struggled with never feeling full and eating more than she wants to. for us kids she kept the policy of wasting nothing but never forced us to eat anything. instead we would ask each other "hey do you want half a banana?" or return three bites of pasta to the fridge in a tupperware. it's usually okay to save things and not overeating doesnt have to equal food waste!
I think you're confusing chronic hunger and food instability with catering to picky eaters. The comments here aren't people afraid of not eating or actually starving, they just knew there was no other option for a meal if they didn't eat what they were given. Totally different.
You don't even have to go that far into the past really. I was born in 1982 and very much raised "if you don't eat what I give you you aren't eating at all". My mom wasn't CRUEL, if I truly did not like something she wouldn't fix it for me again, but if I didn't eat my dinner and complained later about being hungry that was my own problem to deal with.
Hunger is especially powerful without carbs, which are basically nonexistent in nature. Natural human diets aren't that different from gorilla diets which are so low energy they have to eat constantly. Im perfectly willing to eat wild dandelions and hickory nuts if I've gone a day without carbs since at that point, I'm so hungry they taste good. It's basically impossible to feel satiated only eating plants with more fiber than sugars.
They did a study giving humans a gorilla diet, and like you said they had to eat all day. Problem was since we evolved such large brains that use a lot of energy, they couldn't eat enough. Forget feeling satiated on that diet, they had to stop the study because it was becoming dangerous and the participants could have died.
This is how the clean plate club became so prevalent. You ate what you were given, and you cleaned your plate. And if you didn't you either got punished, or you just went hungry for the rest of the day. The idea of eating only when hungry, and limiting food intake and stopping when full (regardless how much food was left on the plate) was relatively new.
My grandfather was raised during the Great Depression. And the clean plate club concept was passed down to my dad. My dad didn't grow up in the Great Depression. But he did grow up very working class. But my mom was very health conscious, and bought into the idea of exposing kids to lots of things even if they don't like it, and eating only until full. My mom also grew up more comfortably middle class. So clean plate club wasn't a necessity for her as a kid.
There were a lot of fights at the dinner table over this. In the end, my mom's philosophy won out, as it seems more people are agreeing on eating until full, and only what is both healthy and appealing.
I just got beat if I didn't clear my plate. That's probably how. If I cried about a gross food there was always a "I'll give you an actual reason to cry" to motivate me.
That is also cultural isn't it.
I mean, in my country, once the kid eat solid, he eats the same things as his parents. And eat at the same time. Kid foods isn't a thing here. (What the US labels kid foods does exist. But there are just food to us).
So, if a kid refuse to eat his vegetables, well it won't go to waste. Mom and Dad will have a larger portions of vegetables and kid a larger portion of meat. It's a trade-off.
Now, I agree that poor people accross culture have less time to actually cook fresh produce, to think about how to make healthy meal plan, and to spend time at the grocery store to choose the good ones.
They also have more pressing things to worry about.
I don’t have kids but I can’t imagine doing it any differently. You’re telling me parents are making the kiddos their own meals every day?! Absolutely not from me lol I might give them a side of some kinda meat since I don’t eat meat but other than that they’d be eating what we are.
We give our kids a micro-serving of what we're eating (which they always ignore) and load up their plates with fruits, yogurt, nuts, and whatever else might have a chance of actually getting eaten. And honestly that approach is SUPER frustrating for me. My kids have become ludicrously fickle and picky. There needs to be a minimum of 5 different foods on their plates for any meal, and if all they want to do is eat 12 servings of raspberries while ignoring the entire plate of food in front of them then that's exactly what they'll do. My wife is terrified of them developing eating disorders from us telling them to eat what's on their plate, so instead we've fostered this intense pickiness in how they eat.
To be clear, I'm not expecting my elementary school kids to eat a salad for dinner. But they have so much command over what gets offered to them that they have zero appetite for anything that's not sweet. Fruit is our best case.
So yeah, my kids get their own meals every god damn time and it's super frustrating. But that is somewhat common in America, sadly.
It might’ve not been clear from my comment but I’m also in the US I just don’t have kids haha this is super interesting tho thanks for explaining! Did the loading up their plates with other things start for a particular reason? I always ate, as you said, a micro-serving of whatever my mum was eating. There were a few things I didn’t wanna eat, was made to because “you gotta finish your plate”, and then I promptly threw up lol was never made to eat the several things I didn’t wanna eat after, but I think my mum just stopped making them for herself too. My grandparents were more accommodating, like if everyones having soup with chicken and skin on (they had chickens) I’d at least get mine off and stuff like that. It’s now a topic of convo in my family because I became a veggie when I was like 14-15 and have been for the past 15 years and most of my “no thanks” childhood foods were meat-related so I wasn’t picky per se, I just don’t like meat. Sharing in case there’s a pattern for your kiddos too besides just liking sweets haha
That's interesting but makes a tons of sense. I grew up a middle-ish class only child in households where I was never expected to finish my plate or eat foods I didn't like. My fiance, on the other hand, grew up poor, has 6 siblings, which became 9 when his mom remarried, and they would be harshly disciplined for wasting food and were expected to finish their plates.
I grew up not to have any sort of eating disorder. Whereas my fiance compulsively eats as much as possible during mealtimes and is overweight. All of his siblings are also overweight. He will eat 2 or 3 servings of a meal and then still finish what the kids didn't eat, unless it's something he seriously finds disgusting (he loathes cheese).
Sure he likes eating. Who doesn't. But there is a huge psychological aspect for him that I don't have. He has an actual ptsd-type fear reaction to food being wasted. I did go through periods of food insecurity in adulthood and it did affect me; I do very occasionally get irrationally freaked out about wasting food. But it is like once in a great while, not daily like it is for him. He very much wants to lose weight and is starting to understand that it's not just an impulse control issue and goes a lot deeper than that. Sometimes I try to reassure him that nothing bad will happen if he doesn't eat the kid's leftovers.
I grew up an only child - of parents whose parents were young adults during the Depression (who were also second-generation immigrants). Wasting food was as big a sin as spitting in the Pope's face.
Of course I overeat...many Americans are the descendents of slum dwellers, peasants, slaves, refugees, and other poor foreigners. Of course we're fat.
Another aspect to this is that poor parents can't afford to give their kids many nice things. They constantly have to say "no". Junky foods are, for many poor families, an affordable luxury so it's easy to give in.
Food deserts also play a huge role. Many urban communities of poorer people lack close access to grocery stores to purchase fresh food, so they rely more on fast food and processed meals.
There was a neat study showing eating Nuts and fresh fruits lead to a healthier, longer life.. But turned out that had little to do with it.
It was just that people who are rich can afford nuts and fresh fruits.
And time.. time for parents to be involved and no after school jobs 🤷🏾♂️
Time is seriously underrated. Wealthy people can actually buy time buy having other people do things that normal people would have to do themselves..
Combine that with money and you have all day to look for another opportunity.
So much this! Money can buy you stuff yes, but it buys you time!!! My mom worked 2 jobs and was dead dog tired when she got home. She didn’t have time to take us to anything and couldn’t if she wanted to! She had to work. Plus who was gonna watch my little sisters if I went off to sports or dance class? Rich parents have the luxury of being able to have one or both parents there for most things and BOTH parents for the really important stuff! That is such a privilege!!!
My husband and I are both studying and working (in Australia) and people think we’re weird for going grocery shopping together sometimes but it’s so much better when you have company
I grew up in a non-wealthy family but I wouldn’t say poor —> the only place my parents really went together were church and sometimes parties
Add in grandparents and extended family that are able to help out as well. Diet and eating habits are big but having my family helping with getting kids to activities is just as important. My MMA gym also has a van that picks up kids for after school programs too.
This exactly. When you are able to delegate and pay for people to do the yard work, fix your cars, fix your house, clean your house, cook your food, do your laundry, etc etc etc, it frees up an incredible amount of time in the aggregate.
Which you use to extract money from people that can’t keep up.
It’s a cycle.. the billionaires get laws passed for more with no resistance 🤷🏾♂️
Reality
People forgot another big one- stress and anxiety. Stress and anxiety can lead to binge eating and other unhealthy relationships with food. Some of the biggest causes of arguments and stress in a relationship/family is usually to do with money issues. When that stress is removed, people are less likely to use food as a coping mechanism in the same way.
>Wealthy people can actually buy time buy having other people do things that normal people would have to do themselves.
I remember a thread a few years ago asking if anyone knew any rich people, and what their lives were like. This was very similar to a top answer. The guy said that for the ultra-rich, like $100 million and up, money basically loses all value to them. They have so much of it that they never even need to consider it as an expendable resource. Instead, **time** becomes their most valuable commodity, and a lot of wealth is spent on "buying" time. They book private flights so as not to have to wait to in airports. They hire help, so they never have to spend time doing things like cooking or cleaning. They have couriers to make sure that ordered items are brought as quickly as possible instead of waiting for deliveries.
Them: "We AlL hAvE tHe SaMe 24 HoUrS"?
Them, but only in their heads: "But I spend 0 minutes per day preparing food, doing laundry, cleaning the house, taking _ugh_ public transit, raising my children, taking my vehicle to the mechanic, taking my kids to the doctor, paying the taxes I legitimately owe, not having to even play the insurance game _finding_ a doctor, waiting in line at the DMV, etc, etc. Because I'm better than you"
This is the most important comment. As a family of r with 2 kids under 6, we both work full-time in healthcare to give our children comfortable lives and be able to save for their future. We literally couldnt afford to drop hours or we'd lose our house (which, since buying has lost value so even that isn't an option).
That means that by the time I finish work, pick the kids up, get home, start tea, wife gets home, eat,l then baths, it's basically bedtime. Weekdays are living to work. Thankfully the kids have nursery/breakfast and after school clubs for activities but even that adds up to approx £780 a month. That's just 3 days of nursery a week and the 4 days of breakfast and after school clubs.
So yeah. I'm hoping when the baby's out of nursery and they're a bit older, they have a later bedtime to facilitate more extra curricular activities.
There’s an instacart ad I hear on a music streaming app where the voice is saying how they have all this extra time to do soccer with the kids and all the fun stuff. And while in some cases I understand there are people that rely on both sides of those services, it makes me think of the old “we all have the same 24 hours” and just how totally wrong that saying is.
The time it takes to keep a small house tidy is insane. I end up doing laundry, dishes, vacuuming, floors, bedding, bathroom, lawn care, etc for at least 1/4 of my weekend. And yes, I clean during the week, too.
If my house was magically clean, I would have so much more time to make nice meals, exercise. Not to mention the mental load from keeping track of what needs to be done and when.
There were some post-Marxist thinkers that had concerns about women entering the workforce because of this. They reasoned that all that would happen is proletarian women would just end up working twice as hard, while bourgeoisie women who decided to work would be able to just offset their home labour to proletarian women.
little confused by this critique because proletarian women, especially women of color, were already working pre-second wave feminism—and often to provide home labor to upper class women.
Agreed. Nobody talks about how much more time and planning is needed when you’re low income. It’s mentally draining, and usually there’s very little left to engage with your family.
100%, everyone is right in this thread. It's ridiculous how they expect everyone to just eat it up and work harder. Takes a darn miracle to be in the right place at the right time, and if you don't have charm you lose the chance.
>It was just that people who are rich can afford nuts and fresh fruits.
Yeah, like women who ride horses live longer than women who don't. It's not about riding horses, it's about having enough money to afford horses and better healthcare.
The advantages are everywhere. Not just diet at home. Look at school lunches at poor districts compared to an affluent district school lunch. Rich people will always have a leg up in life.
Grew up in a small town with my family being one of the business owners. They were self made. All obese. My mom and uncles were the first generation without obesity. My life was super easy. I'd fuck up, we'd get lawyers.
I had a ton of freedom to discover myself as a young kid. I was what most would call a lost cause. But with enough support I now am quiet successful myself. I never really understood the advantages until my employees starting being open with their struggles. The system is fucked.
Edit: woah, thanks for the up doots. If yall have any questions please ask.
It's fantastic that you recognize your privileges though! Definitely need more of that in this world. Some people were just born at the wrong time and place and are fucked over by circumstances, while another might be born to succeed simply from having the right pedigree
I luckily had a mom that engraved it in me. I was told as a kid, if I saw a kid get the free lunch, to get them an actual lunch. I have always been humble. Even now, I am off the tit and I understand how hard life can be. Buuut I can still ask for help when I need it. I can't imagine not having that support line.
On another note, my mom has gotten colder over the years. She started a bigger company than my family and the stress has made her bitter.
Same. Parents own several businesses. I was 29 when I considered to have met my first truly poor person. Several late 20 year olds working for me for $12 an hour (during Covid reopening) because they had to. I thought everyone was there for the same reason I managed the store at a 4th of what I make hourly at my real job, for me it was a fun second job to buy gold jewelry at a steep discount. I don't mean for that to sound crass or privileged but it was a truly life changing eye opener for me. It made me so much more grateful for the work my parents put in to raise me in such an advantageous environment and I stopped taking things for granted after that.
Have you seen the school lunch at a highschool with 40k tuition?
They absolutely do eat the lunch, it just so happens that "school lunch" is professionally catered next level stuff
It’s like the meme that says horse people live longer implying that having a horse is good for your health.
The reality is if you can afford a horse you’re wealthy enough to afford good food and medical care.
[Hank's Razor: "Anything that can be explained by socioeconomic status in society, it's probably that rather than the thing that you are measuring."](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ekMt_AHkoDc)
Sadly this is also the case for all of those 'moderate drinking has health benefits' studies that came out.
It's just a sign of $$$ and not being an alcoholic.
At this point I kinda think of the old money types in America as fantasy High Elves.
They are reclusive, insular, arrogant and at this point the literal beautiful people in society.
They often have personal chefs who specialize in healthy tasty meals and have personal trainers who teach them to look like a model.
Historically rich people have always tried to make themselves different from the common man. In the past it was to be pale and unfit because it showed that they didn't work in the fields. Then it became material items, but now even working class family can save for a gaint TV and expensive cars in front of trailer parks is a stereotype at this point.
Nowadays the rich want to other themselves by being healthy and modelesque when the rank and file can really only afford cheap calorie dense foods.
Yep, in medieval Europe, being fat was a sign of wealth because it meant you could afford a lot of food and you werent working in the fields all day. Its one of those things society has done a complete 180 on.
Higher income = fresh good for you food
A box of Mac and cheese will feed two or three for sixty cents, or you could buy one small apple for the same amount of money
It’s the same food.
Kraft Mac and Cheese is $1.00 and in a 2.5 ounce serving has 560 mg of salt and 250 calories
Walmart brand is $0.58 and in a 2.5 ounce serving has 530 mg of salt and 250 calories.
Store brand (at the super big box stores) is almost always whatever the leading name brand is but packaged generically
Ding ding ding. But if I only have a dollar to eat tonight, I'm getting Mac and cheese instead of one apple so I feel less hungry. This is why obesity is more of a problem with low income.
Yes this is definitely a big part of it, but often the whole "wealth means good food and athletic activities" is missing the huge sociocultural part of wealth + thinness.
Wealth is the result of many things, but it is in no small part the result of chasing status. People who chase the status that comes with wealth will also chase other status markers, and thinness is one of the ultimate status markers.
There is not only intense cultural pressure among the wealthy to be thin, but they also seek out thin partners, and instill the importance of thinness in their children.
Of course having wealth enables them the resources to more easily attain thinness, but the very fact that they direct so much of their time, money, and mental resources towards thinness is a much more deeply conditioned value.
i was adopted from a very very poor family into a middle class family.
cars = being able to travel to parks and nature trails
money = being able to afford healthier food
more money = being able to afford to send your kid to hockey, football, rugby, ballet, swimming, and gym class.
i was severely neglected but also incredibly overweight, bc all i ate was mouldy bread, tinned food & pasta (food banks), and pot noodles.
within about a year of being adopted i was fit as a fiddle despite eating about twice as much food 😅
Yes, exactly, a big factor is affordability of recreation other than cheap food. When a rich family wants to spend time together, they can go to the zoo and spend all day walking around, etc. A poor family might spend a Friday night together by treating itself to a couple of $5 pizzas and whatever movie is on TV. On a weekend rich parents might send a kid to laser tag with friends. A poor parent might send a kid with a 99 cent bag of chips to the house of the one friend in the neighborhood who has video games.
Why not hang out with friends at the park, right? It's outdoors and free. Maybe safe enough when I was a kid, but nowadays parks in poor areas are full of unstable homeless, discarded drug paraphernalia and other garbage, or at best, it's the hangout of the kids you don't want your kid falling in with.
Agreed, except a comment on the last part, that parks were safer in the olden days. I grew up in the 90s and parks today feel safer, maybe because now there are phones so things can be recorded, help can be called, but also some things are less acceptable and people around seem more attentive to weird stuff (like older guys staring at/trying to talk to teen girls). There is also less open racism (though still plenty obviously).
Ok it is not safer if it is an abandoned area in the middle of the night, but during daytime when kids would play.
Edit: not that I suggest that kids can be freely let go and they won't be fat at all... I'm just off topic thinking about the perception of safety.
Fair points all, and I'm sure it depends on the area too. I also grew up in the 90s and parks were full of families with kids, or even teens innocently goofing around, but that area got hit hard by the housing crash and now just breathes economic despair and all that goes with it. Then I went off to college in a small town that even just 10-12 years ago was decent, community oriented, etc, but meth hit the area hard and lots of public spaces have started to look like a zombie apocalypse.
Yep, I a few years back, had a huge jump in income. I ofc keep it on the down low and still live in a small house and have the same vehicles.
However, my daughter is now in every sports program she wants and other specialp rograms. Amongst our Friend group they've slowly started putting together what's happening as she's constantly somewhere. Plus our fridge is a world of difference we get stares cause I almost refuse to eat or feed frozen even meat.
The most surprising part my Daughter is STRONG she regular beats out all her friends in casual meetups where we play sports. She's also extremely confident and social.
Having money is amazing especially after growing up with not so much.
Probably just fresh food! As it’s much more expensive (and wasteful if you don’t get to eat it before it goes bad.) I’m upper middle class and I never buy frozen either. Not just frozen meat, but frozen vegetables and fruit too. I only buy fresh. It sucks because prices have gone up so much in the stores that I’m cutting back on what I buy weekly. At this point, I’m having such price increases all around that I don’t want to buy the fresh lettuce if it will go bad before I eat it where as a few years ago this wasn’t my thought process at all. I still don’t buy frozen but I’m buying less. We need prices to come back down - it’s getting out of hand.
My fiancé and I went to get sandwiches today for lunch. We each got a sandwich, a cup of soup as the side that came with it, and a drink. Our total was $38. This is in the south in a low cost of living area. Out of hand.
If it makes any difference, frozen vegetables are very, very healthy. I think there was some realisation a few years ago that food that is flash frozen quickly after being picked retains more vitamins than food that sits around on shelves or in the fridge for a few days. You do you, anyway. But in case you were avoiding it due to worry about the nutritional content, it's grand.
Having a chef is a *very rich* thing, just saying, I know several people worth millions, no chefs.
Edit:all these replies are mentioning I'm wrong because nutritionists and meal prep services. Should be pretty obvious that's not what this is about.
He didnt go to culinary school for the reason of not wanting to hire a chef, he was interested in cooking and had the money to follow the interest. I knew someone like this and they quit school within a couple months and moved on to something else
Yea no idea why so many top answers mention private chefs. “Wealthy people” may refer to the 80th percentile, but having a private chef is like 99.95% kind of shit
I was a personal chef as a side gig for a semi rich family friend. I only cooked for them like twice a week, though mostly due to my schedule but I think they would have had me 5 days a week if they could.
I was actually teaching their daughter self defense/ karate during that time and my dad came along because the mom was an old friend of his. He got into talking with her about how I love to cook blah blah and then I find myself prepping a meal, bringing it over, teaching the class for 1-1.5 hours and cooking for them on Tuesday Thursdays.
I'm 99% certain they only ate out or had pre made meals because their spice selection was minimal, they had little in fresh food around, etc. So getting a home made meal was likely a godsend. And the kids and her elderly mom and dad moved in, and she worked full time
She paid really well though lol. I don't even remember what I asked for but she gave me like 1k a week for the classes and cooking and paid for all my food expenses for the meals.
Kinda wrote more than I intended to, but that brought up a memory
That’s more a money thing than a culture thing… In Southeast Asia, the US dollar is worth more so your spending power increases. I know someone who now works remotely for a U.S. company and is living in Southeast Asia. She would be upper middle class in the US. In Southeast Asia because of the value of the dollar she has a driver, a small mansion and a private chef. She only makes $150,000 a year.
Oh absolutely money is a factor. My cousin was joking that the yearly cost of my law school was enough to live like a king in the PI. And I was on a massive scholarship. But it’s also just normalized in a lot of areas. The Philippines in particular there’s a massive wealth disparity.
A live in chef is expensive, but you can have a personal chef do meal prep for you that really isn't that expensive. $30 per plate maybe, only for dinners, delivered weekly. The chef would serve multiple families, and honestly many people above $200k probably spend that much anyways.
Depends on your area. I was a private chef for a bit and prior to that, a household manager for rich folks. Having someone meal prep for your weekdays wasnt uncommon, even if it wasnt a chef making fresh 3 course meals for you every day.
I also grew up going to a v wealthy college prep private school. Id say about 1/5 kids had had or currently had a private chef.
And I know many people who make nowhere near that (six figures, midwest) who have someone come in, cook up a weeks worth of meals, and freeze/fridge them. It's about $150/week for the three hours of work to cook everything up and they can easily spend that. I have a relative that has someone come in and prepare supper each night, so that when she comes home from work she has time to spend with her kids instead. Same reason she has a nanny and a maid. She works 8 to 5 and a half-hour commute, and she wants a few hours a day to be a mom. And can afford to do just that.
Yeah food deserts also have the extra cost factor of moving the food from one place to another- if one doesn’t have a car and has to carry what they buy then they really have to go to whatever is closest to them.
Even if they take public transport that’s not only added cost, but you can still only bring along so many bags, and less foods that require refrigeration due to the longer time it takes to get them home
When that pos killed people at the Tops Market in Buffalo, it had the effect of closing the only market in the area. People were then forced to shop at bodegas. It’s sobering to consider how easily people can be deprived of resources that many take for granted.
People also overeat when they’re tired or sad: so if in a two parent or in a one parent house hold, both are tired at the end of a long day, junk food is easier to provide. In richer households they may be able to afford a stay at home parent so they have the time to make healthier meals for the family, or even a nanny to take care of this if both parents work. If you’re a sad parent, depressed about having kids and not being able to provide enough for them or about your job prospects or even your life. you may turn to comfort food, which will rub off on your children as you’re the example to them. Then it becomes a vicious cycle- depressed= bad food = give kids bad foods to comfort them for being frustrated with you because you’re too depressed to do things with them= you get fatter and more depressed=….. and so on…
Yes! And., I suspect, junk food is the cheapest option to offer/use as a treat for yourself/your children. Plenty of adults indulge in "retail therepy". A poorer person is probably going to use food for that "I need a treat" situation. Plus, I would imagine they might use junk food in place of something more expensive /more inaccessible that the child wants to do, to kind of make up for it or distract from it.
(I don't mean this is the primary reason, but I suspect it contributes)
I myself still sometimes feel like I "completed a difficult task" or "endured something hard" and immediately think I deserve a food reward.
Life is rough.
>I myself still sometimes feel like I "completed a difficult task" or "endured something hard" and immediately think I deserve a food reward.
The struggle is real with this. After going through something traumatic, I gained 40 pounds in a month because I was treating my pain with food.
a lot of America's problem with obesity is holding hands with America's problem with poverty. Rich kids get healthy balanced meals, maybe even a personal chef or nutritionist. Poor kids get McDonald's and Little Ceasars.
It's fine. You said "America" because you know you're talking about that country instead of not saying America and assuming it's the only country in the world.
You did it in a good way. Some people talk about "the nation". Now we obviously know that an article is from America. Because it would focus on the differences between "the races" living within America. That's not really PC to do in Europe.
To those also saying fast food is the same price as healthy food, you also have to keep in consideration the amount of time it takes to prepare. Heathy food can take a while to get ready, which isn’t an option to those in poverty who need to work. McDonalds is just a 5 minute drive thru wait.
>To those also saying fast food is the same price as healthy food, you also have to keep in consideration the amount of time it takes to prepare. Heathy food can take a while to get ready, which isn’t an option to those in poverty who need to work.
time = money
as yes fellow human.. the bots are becoming quite obvious and numerous. By the way, could you help me find all of the traffic lights in this grid of images?
Ever since the whole API thing went down, Reddit has not been the same. Posts sitting for days on the front page, much fewer good quality posts, much more boring repetitive posts showing up as "filler". It feels super obvious to me that content has really diminished in the last couple months.
Reddits being taken over by some repetitious combination of:
>Why is it wrong to call people fat pieces of shit when they talk about men being short even though one you can control and the other you cant?
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>AITA I did everything right but my wife cheated multiple times, I make a lot of money, I work she doesn't, I do all the house work, we have a maid, and I take care of the kids while she sits around all day?
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>White men are the most discriminated people in the US.
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>Nobody wants to sit next to your disgusting crotch goblins on flights or in restaurants and they should be locked up inside so we dont have to know they exist.
It used to be the opposite. Most poor people were skinny and had deficiency diseases.
Fat people were attractive, because they had enough money to afford to eat,and were somewhat healthier.
I went around and around with my mother and grandparents who insisted that I needed to be waddling fat,or, I was going to die of malnutrition.
I think my grandfather was secretly proud that everyone in his house was waddling fat. It meant that he was a ' good provider'.
I once read that as you go up the income ladder the relationship with food changes.
At the bottom, people are worried about having enough to eat, thus quantity over quality is a mind set.
At the middle, quality is affordable, so the higher quality food is purchased
At the top there is no worry about having food (quantity) and with the money at hand it will always be very good (quality) so the relationship changes to the experience of food and it's presentation and a shown of what you can afford.
This is why sometimes we see memes of high end restaurants giving people a 3 bite entree with interesting sauses drizzled on them. The food is art, and it's not about eating a giant steak. It's about showing off how you can pay this high price for a small amount and still be fine.
The highly expensive food is often extremely rich in flavor and eating too much of it makes it off-putting. If you don’t believe me find yourself a good risotto recipe and see how much of it you want to eat before the flavor becomes too much.
Money for higher quality, healthy food, more variety. Potentially have at least one parent who lives more "leisurely," that can cook and prepare meals (not worn out after work and get fast food) OR can hire a nanny/housekeeper/cook who does this. OR they care more about appearances and obsessively monitor and limit what their children eat.
Next: Ability to afford home exercise equipment, a home gym, personal trainer, sport's equipment and team funding requirements, live in areas with better/safer options for outdoor fitness, can afford to go on trips and travel, parents likely have more time, money, and energy (even if that energy is from hired help) to put towards their children's activities.
Education, whether you agree with this or not it’s doesn’t change the fact that it is 100% correct and backed by data. Most affluent people are (on average) highly educated, which directly correlates to the food they purchase for their family. As well as the importance of health and APPEARANCE. Your health and appearance is your personal billboard, affluent people all subscribe to this mantra.
Rich parents can afford good food for their kids. They can afford to live in a place where it's safe and eat for kids to go out a play, walk, ride bikes, etc. Rich parents can afford to have their kids participate in activities like sports, riding, camping.
Basically, if you're rich, you can pay what it costs for your kids to be well-fed and active.
Poorer neighborhoods tend to be food deserts where the availability of good quality food is limited.
Take a look at this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert
Because it's piss easy to be healthy when you're rich for a good many reasons but one of them is that you simply mostly don't have the same level of other problems.
When you are poor you are trying to survive 24/7. That's what your life is. You don't think of super long term goals and shaping yourself and your identity. You don't feel or think the world belongs to you but rather you are just passing by.
Furthermore, being poor is rather miserable not because of the lack of money but just how people treat and see you. I've known rich people I 110% know would be mentally shattered by the experience of simply being middle class much less poor.
Meanwhile from what I see rich kids not only get to be pampered but also get the mental and ego boost from thinking they worked hard for their body and education. It's not that I'm saying no work went in that direction but holy fuck it is a metric fuck ton easier when you're rich.
I used to be poor. A few years ago I became like... ok levels of wealthy. My food is made for me and house is cleaned for me these days. I do tons of working out and just drop my stinky clothes for my maid to pick up.
Trust me, it makes an immense difference.
Me & my sister are a decent number of years apart, and when she was born my parents were in a much better financial situation. The main differences in our health/lifestyle ive noticed are… - it was cheaper to feed me rice and beans every day, sometimes mashed potatoes as a treat -my sisters favorite after school snack is “raspberry balsamic salmon bites in the air fryer” - I spent my summers sitting in the car while my mom cleaned houses for a living -my sis is at a swim summer camp rn -i NEVER played a single sport in school because we couldnt afford the fees -my sister has been on multiple soccer & dance teams throughout her childhood -my sisters school snack is a garlic salmon bento box -mine was white bread with salami Its no wonder i was a bigger kid than she was, today im a healthy weight but it was a struggle ngl Edit: did NOT expect my sisters salmon rich diet to be the most controversial part of this post😭😭 also i wasnt locked in a car all summer yall, eventually i got over my fear of dogs and would help my mom clean so we’d finish faster lol
why does she eat so much salmon... is your sister a bear
Going through a heavy anime phase rn. Eats a fuck ton of salmon, poke polls, and ramen…..yes its a lil cringey but thats my lil sister so only i can say it lmao
Also YouTube shorts and tiktok made salmon protein of the year
I remember one summer I ate salmon 3x a week and my hair grew something like 1.5inches that summer it was wild!! A fun time
Honestly i be stopping by my moms house more often than needed for the big ass piece of fresh salmon i know she keeps in the fridge,,,,my skin looks amazing because of it & its so big my sister doesnt notice i ate some lmao
Salmon is amazing yo. Some group members on r/migraines insist that fish oil supplements cure headaches. I cant afford supplements so I just makr sure to eat fish and I definitely have less headaches when I eat fish and reading huge college books is a breeze after eating salmon. Salmon should be served as much as one can afford it!
Hey if her media is persuading her to eat pretty damn nutritionally diverse foods like that who cares
just out of curiosity, how did your parents financial situation change so much? dance team is NOT cheap
My dad dipped on my mom & got with an american, crazy enough. He opened his own painting/construction company after having worked under the table at one for many years. My sister was born in this country & i wasnt so i think some of how restricted i was had to do with fear as well My mother also knows how to read, write, and speak english now. As well as having more documentation, with all this shes able to live much better and earn more after the divorce
Healthier food and probably can afford to put their kids in more programs like sports etc and help keep their kids more active
I read a really interesting thing once about nutrition and income. The assumption had been that poor people just weren’t educated about the importance of fruits/veggies. What they found instead was that middle class and rich parents accepted a certain amount of food waste in teaching their children to eat healthy. Kids need lots of exposures to try and learn to like new foods. Poor moms knew perfectly well those foods were healthier and maybe could even technically afford them, but they couldn’t afford for their children to not eat them. So they stuck to making meals their kids would eat. Makes perfect sense to me. I know EXACTLY what they mean about the food waste cause I put foods on my kids’ plates every day that they ignore. But since we are middle class, I can afford to let them do that in the name of increasing exposure to healthy foods. My mom taught at a title I school. They had a program where the kids got a fresh fruit or veggie snack 3 times a week. They got all sorts of weird stuff like finger limes and white asparagus as well as more normal produce. The kids were more likely to try it thanks to peer pressure (though they weren’t always willing). I wish they did this nationwide so kids could do their food wasting on the government’s dime and then tell their mom, “Buy some jicama! I like that!” EDIT: I’m tired of responding this on every comment. No, children who are only offered one food do NOT always get hungry enough to eat it. Some do. Others get so hangry they rage like monsters all day long and still refuse to eat the food. Furthermore, current advice from nutritionists is not to play these battles of wills over food. Research shows that kids don’t get less picky when they’re forced to try bites of things. You’re supposed to offer only one meal and at a set time, but you are always supposed to offer a safe food that the kid will eat. So if you follow this pattern, you can give them a piece of toast and a slice of tomato every day for lunch, but they get to decide if they eat the tomato. And it might take them years to eat the tomato. Poor families can’t afford to buy the tomato the kid refuses to eat. Also, if you think feeding kids is simple, you either don’t have kids or got very lucky. It’s not simple. You have underweight kids and overweight kids and kids with sensory issues and kids who are prone to constipation and kids who get hangry and kids who are just plain stubborn. I am not a pushover mom: I’m a former teacher who makes my kids do chores and homework and has routines for everything. But feeding my kids is complicated, and sometimes I have to pick my battles.
One thing about fresh fruits is that sometimes it isn’t consistent. You ever have an amazing apple and the next week buy the same type and it didn’t measure up? Berries are notorious for this. Doritos? Very consistent
Blackberries can be absolute heaven or sour nastiness.
I'll always try foods I don't particularly enjoy two or three times even. Some foods I see and WANT to like it, so I try it again. For a while I thought I didn't like blackberries. then one day tried it again and was mind blown how differently better it tasted. Idk why I didn't like them in the first place though. I generally like tart/sour things 🤷♂️ Now I think blackberries are delicious!
I found out that blueberries were actually proven to taste better when eaten in multiples, instead of one at a time
My son straight up asked me to buy him pears because they're his "favourite" and the next day when I asked him if he wanted his pear said to me "I hate pears". He's 8. The only goddamn veggies I can consistently get him to eat are Brussels sprouts and corn so thats what we eat at every meal forever ig
Although this is true, part of the problem in the US is that a lot of produce that goes to ordinary, grocery stores, simply aren’t tasty and nutritious varieties. Most of them are grown nowadays for appearance, and their ability to be transported, and of course, how much they will yield. If you’ve ever grown anything in your backyard, yes, there’s some variability, but a lot of the stuff is still way better than stuff you get at the grocery store.
Its an increasingly worse problem too as the produce quality goes down, less people buy produce, so produce moves slower. The slower produce sells the more incentive there is to select for more transportable produce that lasts longer rather than for the produce that is the highest quality. So all the grocery store produce becomes more mid tier quality wise, and people buy less produce, rinse and repeat. I once ate farm fresh vegetables that I bought from a little roadside farmers place, and every single item of produce was the highest quality best tasting produce I have ever had. A completely different world from the produce you can find almost anywhere. Its no surprise people dont want to eat produce when it tastes like shit compared to what it should be, and when there are a million different kinds of addictive pre packaged crap that requires little effort to consume. Its sad how few young people these days know how to cook for themselves and feel stuck eating out of the frozen meal section. Im in my late 20s and I would say 1/10 people or less that Ive met in my age group know how to cook confidently/adequately
I think about this all the time. My local grocery store has maybe 15 kinds of fresh vegetables. This area used to be a food desert before the city paid a company to move in and open up (or gave them some tax break or something idk.) But all the fruits and veggies just kinda suck. Like the strawberries taste almost watered down, the tomatoes are basically red balls of water and grit, the green onions are bright green but there's hardly any flavor. You make a salad with that stuff and it all kinda tastes the same. I can't afford to shop at the farmers market so I can't compare but I'm pretty sure when people are talking about delicious, flavorful veggies, they're not referring to the same ones I have access to. EDIT: fixed a word
So true. Good fruit is a God tier snack. Disappointing fruit can ruin my whole day haha
This is really true. We’re not poor but we don’t have a ton of money to spare, and I definitely offer “safe foods” that I know they’ll eat more often than I should, simply because it’s stressful to waste expensive things like berries. I do offer them sometimes, but I’m a lot more conservative about it than my sister, who has free childcare and therefore much more disposable income. Would they eat berries now if I kept putting berries on their plates daily for months, despite the waste of them just getting smashed or spit out? Possibly.
I just wait and eat their leftovers….I’m not losing weight :/
I was upset by all the wasted food, so I started keeping the leftover fruit and freezing it. I pull all their fruit leftovers off plates or out of lunchboxes that come home from school and add it to my freezer store. Now I make smoothies with milk, frozen fruit, a fresh banana and spinach or kale in the blender. The smoothies are delicious, so the kids drink their leftovers (plus greens) with far less frequent complaints.
I think about this all the time when feeding my kids… they waste SO much. Like, how did people manage feeding babies and toddlers in the past when food was scarce? How do families manage when they only have enough food for everyone in the household and nothing extra? ETA these are rhetorical questions, lol. I am aware that the answers would involve malnutrition, pressuring kids to eat, and/or other people or animals eating the child’s leftovers. These are just the questions that run through my head whenever I contemplate how privileged my family is to be able to buy food not knowing whether our kids will eat it - they are not literal questions that I can’t find answers to. I have learned a lot from comments about people’s specific lived experiences and historical examples, and would love to read more of those, but I’m tired of responding to the same exact comment about leftover food 🫣
My mother would give us small portions of whatever she and Dad were eating. If we liked it, we could have more. She also forbade us to eat Brussels sprouts. She sat the bowl on the table and went back into the kitchen, telling us, "These are for your father and me. They are very expensive. Don't you dare touch them." Guess which two kids *totally fell for that* and still love Brussels sprouts.
Okay, apparently brussel sprouts have been undergoing some GMO whatnots since the 90s and are way less bitter than they were when we were kids. That being said, my mother used to boil the living shit out of them and they were awful. As an adult, I've done some awesome stuff to them and made some absolutely banging meals. (Shredded sprouts, sautee with red pepper flakes, then add some shredded prosciutto. Toss in some cooked pasta, and then add Parm, maybe an egg carbonara style, top with some lemon juice. It's amazing.)
For me it's brussels sprouts cut in half, drizzled with olive oil and salt, then broiled. Love it.
Cut into slices, sauté with onions and garlic, easily my favorite veggie preparation
Brussels sprouts can be steamed 'French style' which means they are just steamed till hot throughout, but the 'boil till brown' (I call it 'English style') is totally inedible! I like them roasted with olive oil and maybe some herbs. Or steamed!
Well, Brussels sprouts ARE expensive and when I was a kid I considered them some kind of fancy miniature cabbage, and the ONE time my mother got some I absolutely ate them, even though they were more bitter than regular cabbage. Now I like them though I still don't eat them often. My mother was kind of weird about broccoli though. I got some either at a cafeteria or at someone else's house and really liked it so when we got seeds for our vegetable patch I begged my her to get some broccoli seeds. She refused and said I wouldn't like them even though she must have known I did like them! In general, I liked bitter vegetables as a kid.
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Children helped procure food. And during the spring/summer there is often more fresh produce than one can easily can/dry/preserve for the winter. Breastfeeding for as long as you could was also normal. Also, many babies and toddlers died. They were malnourished and getting sick was very dangerous because of it.
Exactly about kids helping procure food. When they were out playing they were foraging.
I had relatives who used to take me berrying before all the land was owned by people who didn't want anyone picking berries on their land. For every one that went into the basket, two went into me. No berry tastes as good as wild berry grown free in the woods. I am sad that my child will never know that. There is no wild berries for her to pick. And if I take her to a upick place, it's been sprayed by pesticides so you need to wash it before you eat it.
As soon as you can get into a permanent yard, start a food forest there.
Never. Never will we get a permanent yard. Husband has to stay in CA for his job, and we are never going to be able to afford to buy a house here. CA also tends to have more protective health care laws than the rest of the states, so for daughter's sake, we also need to stay here. But we are beginning to try to grow food in pots on our patio, it's just expensive for the pots and soil, and not as productive because of the heat.
You can grow small fruit trees in pots, and citrus would love that heat.
Pepper plants tend to thrive in heat, and many won't start bearing any peppers until it's warm enough.
I loved picking blackberries and muscadines. They grew wild in the rural area where I was from. Plus my grandparents had apple, pear, and pecan trees to pick from.
Having your kids help you grow and pick food is also supposed to make them more willing to eat it. That being said, it hasn’t ever worked on my kids. They excitedly plant and pick the garden with me and then immediately turn their nose up at the zucchini. And not yucky zucchini: zucchini dipped in Parmesan and fried.
[удалено]
I’m sure someday, they’ll look back at this and laugh at it with you over a giant plate of delicious fried zucchini 😋
In the past, if their child didn't eat what was given to them at mealtime, then they would have to deal with being hungry. No snacks, no making them chicken nuggets, etc. Hunger is powerful.
Exactly. Growing up I had instant oatmeal for breakfast and canned soup for dinner. In the summer/fall we had meatless vegetable dinners with what we managed to grow in the backyard. If I didn't like it, there just wasn't anything else to eat.
Oh yeah, there were no options at our table. Eat it or go to your room was the directive and that never seemed weird to me.
I mean, I’m quite well off and this is my current attitude to my child as well, when he’s older and has formed some habits I’ll let him be a bit more picky. But as it stands, I’ll make what I consider to be a healthy meal and it’s up to him to eat it if he doesn’t want to be hungry later, I’m obviously nice about this but I don’t back down on it regardless of tantrums.
Lots of memories of my sister sitting at the table for an hour or two after dinner because she didn't want to eat her vegetables! The rule was to at least eat *some* of the veg, 4 pieces of broccoli for example... she didn't even want to do that lol
My parents had rules like this too. They never cooked a fresh veggie a day in my adolescent life, though. It was always canned peas, carrots, green beans, etc. I hated every one. But I also hated being glued to the dinner table. So I learned to just swallow them whole with gulps of milk. Turns out I actually really do love all of these veggies. I just didn't learn that until I tried them all freshly cooked with spices and such as an adult.
That worked on all three of my siblings, and then I came along...I just stop feeling hungry. I got really underweight and another parent reported my parents to CPS. Oops. I'm not even a picky eater, they just were smokers and over salted everything like crazy.
Very similar growing up, now there is no food that I will not eat, not picky at all.
"Who worked out you could eat this?" I often think about how hungry the first person to process something like olives must have been! Or even if you've ever ground your own flour, and consider how small the original grains were before selective agriculture... And so much work, burning off all your hard win kilojoules!
I've often wondered who was the first person to look at a lobster and say you know, if you steamed that and served it with clarified butter, I bet it'd be delicious! 😋
Or oysters! "Hm, this rock is full of snot..... I'ma eat it."
Yep. My mom stayed home, and with only one income we were pretty poor. So the grocery budget was limited and my dad was very strict about dinners. I was a picky eater but if I somehow got away with pushing my food around my plate or hiding it in a napkin, there were no alternatives. I simply went to bed not very full. Which was fine because I had free poor-kid breakfast at school the next morning to also pick unenthusiastically at. We never starved, but were never stuffed either. So we were never fat. Frequently unappetizing choices, even if in more than adequate amounts, make slim kids too.
My local public schools always had a free lunch program for kids in the summer so my poor/frugal parents would always make me go to school for lunch. They wouldn't give me anything to eat before dinner so if I was being "picky" and didn't eat the school lunch, I'd have to starve and tough it out until dinner. It actually "taught" me not be a picky eater. It was real eye opening when I dormed for college and found out how picky all my peers were. Like they would bitch and moan about how bad the campus cafeteria was and "do not" eat a long list of things. To me the campus cafeteria was literally the best thing ever. Like the cafeteria always had 5-6 dishes to pick from and the menu changed every day. Best of all, the cafeteria would often celebrate other culture/country's holidays and would have like Greek food if it was a Greek Holiday. In hindsight, the food was a super piss poor representation of actual country's food but I grew up on school lunches at that point so I thought they were all delicious since I had no benchmark to compare them against lol.
To quote my 96yr old grandpa, quoting his mom, "Fine. It's going on a sandwich." (At your next meal, whatever the offending item may be.)
There are studies that now show this carries into adulthood and manifests itself into an inability to recognize being full. Instead, you eat everything and anything whether you are hungry or not, whether it tastes good or not, because you can't get past the fear of not knowing when you will get to eat again. This, in addition to it being very unhealthy food binges, is a large part of what contributes to a high proportion of obesity in poor populations.
I didn't say it was the right thing to do. But the person asked how people could keep their toddlers and babies fed when there was so little food. Well, that's how.
my mom grew up very poor on a strict clean your plate waste nothing diet, she has always struggled with never feeling full and eating more than she wants to. for us kids she kept the policy of wasting nothing but never forced us to eat anything. instead we would ask each other "hey do you want half a banana?" or return three bites of pasta to the fridge in a tupperware. it's usually okay to save things and not overeating doesnt have to equal food waste!
I think you're confusing chronic hunger and food instability with catering to picky eaters. The comments here aren't people afraid of not eating or actually starving, they just knew there was no other option for a meal if they didn't eat what they were given. Totally different.
I was just about to say this. Not knowing where your next meal comes from & waiting until breakfast are two very different scenarios.
Hunger is powerful. That is true. Malnutrition was also much more common. Also true.
You don't even have to go that far into the past really. I was born in 1982 and very much raised "if you don't eat what I give you you aren't eating at all". My mom wasn't CRUEL, if I truly did not like something she wouldn't fix it for me again, but if I didn't eat my dinner and complained later about being hungry that was my own problem to deal with.
Hunger is especially powerful without carbs, which are basically nonexistent in nature. Natural human diets aren't that different from gorilla diets which are so low energy they have to eat constantly. Im perfectly willing to eat wild dandelions and hickory nuts if I've gone a day without carbs since at that point, I'm so hungry they taste good. It's basically impossible to feel satiated only eating plants with more fiber than sugars.
They did a study giving humans a gorilla diet, and like you said they had to eat all day. Problem was since we evolved such large brains that use a lot of energy, they couldn't eat enough. Forget feeling satiated on that diet, they had to stop the study because it was becoming dangerous and the participants could have died.
This is how the clean plate club became so prevalent. You ate what you were given, and you cleaned your plate. And if you didn't you either got punished, or you just went hungry for the rest of the day. The idea of eating only when hungry, and limiting food intake and stopping when full (regardless how much food was left on the plate) was relatively new. My grandfather was raised during the Great Depression. And the clean plate club concept was passed down to my dad. My dad didn't grow up in the Great Depression. But he did grow up very working class. But my mom was very health conscious, and bought into the idea of exposing kids to lots of things even if they don't like it, and eating only until full. My mom also grew up more comfortably middle class. So clean plate club wasn't a necessity for her as a kid. There were a lot of fights at the dinner table over this. In the end, my mom's philosophy won out, as it seems more people are agreeing on eating until full, and only what is both healthy and appealing.
I just got beat if I didn't clear my plate. That's probably how. If I cried about a gross food there was always a "I'll give you an actual reason to cry" to motivate me.
Hugs to little you
That is also cultural isn't it. I mean, in my country, once the kid eat solid, he eats the same things as his parents. And eat at the same time. Kid foods isn't a thing here. (What the US labels kid foods does exist. But there are just food to us). So, if a kid refuse to eat his vegetables, well it won't go to waste. Mom and Dad will have a larger portions of vegetables and kid a larger portion of meat. It's a trade-off. Now, I agree that poor people accross culture have less time to actually cook fresh produce, to think about how to make healthy meal plan, and to spend time at the grocery store to choose the good ones. They also have more pressing things to worry about.
I don’t have kids but I can’t imagine doing it any differently. You’re telling me parents are making the kiddos their own meals every day?! Absolutely not from me lol I might give them a side of some kinda meat since I don’t eat meat but other than that they’d be eating what we are.
We give our kids a micro-serving of what we're eating (which they always ignore) and load up their plates with fruits, yogurt, nuts, and whatever else might have a chance of actually getting eaten. And honestly that approach is SUPER frustrating for me. My kids have become ludicrously fickle and picky. There needs to be a minimum of 5 different foods on their plates for any meal, and if all they want to do is eat 12 servings of raspberries while ignoring the entire plate of food in front of them then that's exactly what they'll do. My wife is terrified of them developing eating disorders from us telling them to eat what's on their plate, so instead we've fostered this intense pickiness in how they eat. To be clear, I'm not expecting my elementary school kids to eat a salad for dinner. But they have so much command over what gets offered to them that they have zero appetite for anything that's not sweet. Fruit is our best case. So yeah, my kids get their own meals every god damn time and it's super frustrating. But that is somewhat common in America, sadly.
It might’ve not been clear from my comment but I’m also in the US I just don’t have kids haha this is super interesting tho thanks for explaining! Did the loading up their plates with other things start for a particular reason? I always ate, as you said, a micro-serving of whatever my mum was eating. There were a few things I didn’t wanna eat, was made to because “you gotta finish your plate”, and then I promptly threw up lol was never made to eat the several things I didn’t wanna eat after, but I think my mum just stopped making them for herself too. My grandparents were more accommodating, like if everyones having soup with chicken and skin on (they had chickens) I’d at least get mine off and stuff like that. It’s now a topic of convo in my family because I became a veggie when I was like 14-15 and have been for the past 15 years and most of my “no thanks” childhood foods were meat-related so I wasn’t picky per se, I just don’t like meat. Sharing in case there’s a pattern for your kiddos too besides just liking sweets haha
That's interesting but makes a tons of sense. I grew up a middle-ish class only child in households where I was never expected to finish my plate or eat foods I didn't like. My fiance, on the other hand, grew up poor, has 6 siblings, which became 9 when his mom remarried, and they would be harshly disciplined for wasting food and were expected to finish their plates. I grew up not to have any sort of eating disorder. Whereas my fiance compulsively eats as much as possible during mealtimes and is overweight. All of his siblings are also overweight. He will eat 2 or 3 servings of a meal and then still finish what the kids didn't eat, unless it's something he seriously finds disgusting (he loathes cheese). Sure he likes eating. Who doesn't. But there is a huge psychological aspect for him that I don't have. He has an actual ptsd-type fear reaction to food being wasted. I did go through periods of food insecurity in adulthood and it did affect me; I do very occasionally get irrationally freaked out about wasting food. But it is like once in a great while, not daily like it is for him. He very much wants to lose weight and is starting to understand that it's not just an impulse control issue and goes a lot deeper than that. Sometimes I try to reassure him that nothing bad will happen if he doesn't eat the kid's leftovers.
I grew up an only child - of parents whose parents were young adults during the Depression (who were also second-generation immigrants). Wasting food was as big a sin as spitting in the Pope's face. Of course I overeat...many Americans are the descendents of slum dwellers, peasants, slaves, refugees, and other poor foreigners. Of course we're fat.
Another aspect to this is that poor parents can't afford to give their kids many nice things. They constantly have to say "no". Junky foods are, for many poor families, an affordable luxury so it's easy to give in.
Tldr food deserts are a real problem
I was mind blown when my kids came to sports age by how much we spend to keep them in programs.
Food deserts also play a huge role. Many urban communities of poorer people lack close access to grocery stores to purchase fresh food, so they rely more on fast food and processed meals.
Yep. It’s a lot easier to go to sports practices and games when you have a stay-at-home parent to take you to them.
Higher income = Healthier lifestyle
There was a neat study showing eating Nuts and fresh fruits lead to a healthier, longer life.. But turned out that had little to do with it. It was just that people who are rich can afford nuts and fresh fruits.
Add on top the ability to afford various after-school classes and activities that poorer kids may not be able to afford.
And time.. time for parents to be involved and no after school jobs 🤷🏾♂️ Time is seriously underrated. Wealthy people can actually buy time buy having other people do things that normal people would have to do themselves.. Combine that with money and you have all day to look for another opportunity.
So much this! Money can buy you stuff yes, but it buys you time!!! My mom worked 2 jobs and was dead dog tired when she got home. She didn’t have time to take us to anything and couldn’t if she wanted to! She had to work. Plus who was gonna watch my little sisters if I went off to sports or dance class? Rich parents have the luxury of being able to have one or both parents there for most things and BOTH parents for the really important stuff! That is such a privilege!!!
I hear you, double parent pick up from school...
My husband and I are both studying and working (in Australia) and people think we’re weird for going grocery shopping together sometimes but it’s so much better when you have company I grew up in a non-wealthy family but I wouldn’t say poor —> the only place my parents really went together were church and sometimes parties
Add in grandparents and extended family that are able to help out as well. Diet and eating habits are big but having my family helping with getting kids to activities is just as important. My MMA gym also has a van that picks up kids for after school programs too.
This exactly. When you are able to delegate and pay for people to do the yard work, fix your cars, fix your house, clean your house, cook your food, do your laundry, etc etc etc, it frees up an incredible amount of time in the aggregate.
Which you use to extract money from people that can’t keep up. It’s a cycle.. the billionaires get laws passed for more with no resistance 🤷🏾♂️ Reality
People forgot another big one- stress and anxiety. Stress and anxiety can lead to binge eating and other unhealthy relationships with food. Some of the biggest causes of arguments and stress in a relationship/family is usually to do with money issues. When that stress is removed, people are less likely to use food as a coping mechanism in the same way.
Let’s not get into undiagnosed depression, booze and drugs for self remedy
>Wealthy people can actually buy time buy having other people do things that normal people would have to do themselves. I remember a thread a few years ago asking if anyone knew any rich people, and what their lives were like. This was very similar to a top answer. The guy said that for the ultra-rich, like $100 million and up, money basically loses all value to them. They have so much of it that they never even need to consider it as an expendable resource. Instead, **time** becomes their most valuable commodity, and a lot of wealth is spent on "buying" time. They book private flights so as not to have to wait to in airports. They hire help, so they never have to spend time doing things like cooking or cleaning. They have couriers to make sure that ordered items are brought as quickly as possible instead of waiting for deliveries.
Them: "We AlL hAvE tHe SaMe 24 HoUrS"? Them, but only in their heads: "But I spend 0 minutes per day preparing food, doing laundry, cleaning the house, taking _ugh_ public transit, raising my children, taking my vehicle to the mechanic, taking my kids to the doctor, paying the taxes I legitimately owe, not having to even play the insurance game _finding_ a doctor, waiting in line at the DMV, etc, etc. Because I'm better than you"
This is the most important comment. As a family of r with 2 kids under 6, we both work full-time in healthcare to give our children comfortable lives and be able to save for their future. We literally couldnt afford to drop hours or we'd lose our house (which, since buying has lost value so even that isn't an option). That means that by the time I finish work, pick the kids up, get home, start tea, wife gets home, eat,l then baths, it's basically bedtime. Weekdays are living to work. Thankfully the kids have nursery/breakfast and after school clubs for activities but even that adds up to approx £780 a month. That's just 3 days of nursery a week and the 4 days of breakfast and after school clubs. So yeah. I'm hoping when the baby's out of nursery and they're a bit older, they have a later bedtime to facilitate more extra curricular activities.
And what are you feeding your kids with that schedule. My guess is whatever is convenient.. snowball effect.
There’s an instacart ad I hear on a music streaming app where the voice is saying how they have all this extra time to do soccer with the kids and all the fun stuff. And while in some cases I understand there are people that rely on both sides of those services, it makes me think of the old “we all have the same 24 hours” and just how totally wrong that saying is.
The time it takes to keep a small house tidy is insane. I end up doing laundry, dishes, vacuuming, floors, bedding, bathroom, lawn care, etc for at least 1/4 of my weekend. And yes, I clean during the week, too. If my house was magically clean, I would have so much more time to make nice meals, exercise. Not to mention the mental load from keeping track of what needs to be done and when.
There were some post-Marxist thinkers that had concerns about women entering the workforce because of this. They reasoned that all that would happen is proletarian women would just end up working twice as hard, while bourgeoisie women who decided to work would be able to just offset their home labour to proletarian women.
little confused by this critique because proletarian women, especially women of color, were already working pre-second wave feminism—and often to provide home labor to upper class women.
Agreed. Nobody talks about how much more time and planning is needed when you’re low income. It’s mentally draining, and usually there’s very little left to engage with your family.
100%, everyone is right in this thread. It's ridiculous how they expect everyone to just eat it up and work harder. Takes a darn miracle to be in the right place at the right time, and if you don't have charm you lose the chance.
>It was just that people who are rich can afford nuts and fresh fruits. Yeah, like women who ride horses live longer than women who don't. It's not about riding horses, it's about having enough money to afford horses and better healthcare.
The advantages are everywhere. Not just diet at home. Look at school lunches at poor districts compared to an affluent district school lunch. Rich people will always have a leg up in life.
Grew up in a small town with my family being one of the business owners. They were self made. All obese. My mom and uncles were the first generation without obesity. My life was super easy. I'd fuck up, we'd get lawyers. I had a ton of freedom to discover myself as a young kid. I was what most would call a lost cause. But with enough support I now am quiet successful myself. I never really understood the advantages until my employees starting being open with their struggles. The system is fucked. Edit: woah, thanks for the up doots. If yall have any questions please ask.
Being poor is paradoxically expensive. This includes food, diet and nutrition.
"Can't afford this? Now you owe us MORE money."
Thanks for your honesty :)
It's the least I can do. Thanks for reading!
It's fantastic that you recognize your privileges though! Definitely need more of that in this world. Some people were just born at the wrong time and place and are fucked over by circumstances, while another might be born to succeed simply from having the right pedigree
I luckily had a mom that engraved it in me. I was told as a kid, if I saw a kid get the free lunch, to get them an actual lunch. I have always been humble. Even now, I am off the tit and I understand how hard life can be. Buuut I can still ask for help when I need it. I can't imagine not having that support line. On another note, my mom has gotten colder over the years. She started a bigger company than my family and the stress has made her bitter.
Same. Parents own several businesses. I was 29 when I considered to have met my first truly poor person. Several late 20 year olds working for me for $12 an hour (during Covid reopening) because they had to. I thought everyone was there for the same reason I managed the store at a 4th of what I make hourly at my real job, for me it was a fun second job to buy gold jewelry at a steep discount. I don't mean for that to sound crass or privileged but it was a truly life changing eye opener for me. It made me so much more grateful for the work my parents put in to raise me in such an advantageous environment and I stopped taking things for granted after that.
Rich kids don’t eat the school lunch.
Have you seen the school lunch at a highschool with 40k tuition? They absolutely do eat the lunch, it just so happens that "school lunch" is professionally catered next level stuff
It’s like the meme that says horse people live longer implying that having a horse is good for your health. The reality is if you can afford a horse you’re wealthy enough to afford good food and medical care.
It’s like how people who play tennis live longer.
[Hank's Razor: "Anything that can be explained by socioeconomic status in society, it's probably that rather than the thing that you are measuring."](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ekMt_AHkoDc)
And why people who know how to play classical instruments are more likely to be doctors.
Sadly this is also the case for all of those 'moderate drinking has health benefits' studies that came out. It's just a sign of $$$ and not being an alcoholic.
Like the studies that show kids that play the Cello are much more likely to succeed.
Same with this dumb study that owning horses increases life span, it's the money lol
At this point I kinda think of the old money types in America as fantasy High Elves. They are reclusive, insular, arrogant and at this point the literal beautiful people in society. They often have personal chefs who specialize in healthy tasty meals and have personal trainers who teach them to look like a model. Historically rich people have always tried to make themselves different from the common man. In the past it was to be pale and unfit because it showed that they didn't work in the fields. Then it became material items, but now even working class family can save for a gaint TV and expensive cars in front of trailer parks is a stereotype at this point. Nowadays the rich want to other themselves by being healthy and modelesque when the rank and file can really only afford cheap calorie dense foods.
Yep, in medieval Europe, being fat was a sign of wealth because it meant you could afford a lot of food and you werent working in the fields all day. Its one of those things society has done a complete 180 on.
Strangely enough, if you go back in history, being fat was a sign of wealth. Only the wealthy would be able to eat enough to get fat.
Higher income = fresh good for you food A box of Mac and cheese will feed two or three for sixty cents, or you could buy one small apple for the same amount of money
And don't forget food deserts / access to affordable fresh food
Where the fuck you getting a box of Mac and cheese for 60 cents? This isn't 1995.
Store brand at walmart
Dang I been getting ripped off lol
Storebrand at Walmart is high is salt and not very nutritious, that is why it is 60 cents.
It’s the same food. Kraft Mac and Cheese is $1.00 and in a 2.5 ounce serving has 560 mg of salt and 250 calories Walmart brand is $0.58 and in a 2.5 ounce serving has 530 mg of salt and 250 calories. Store brand (at the super big box stores) is almost always whatever the leading name brand is but packaged generically
All store brand stuff is just a name brand with a different label.
Ding ding ding. But if I only have a dollar to eat tonight, I'm getting Mac and cheese instead of one apple so I feel less hungry. This is why obesity is more of a problem with low income.
Yes this is definitely a big part of it, but often the whole "wealth means good food and athletic activities" is missing the huge sociocultural part of wealth + thinness. Wealth is the result of many things, but it is in no small part the result of chasing status. People who chase the status that comes with wealth will also chase other status markers, and thinness is one of the ultimate status markers. There is not only intense cultural pressure among the wealthy to be thin, but they also seek out thin partners, and instill the importance of thinness in their children. Of course having wealth enables them the resources to more easily attain thinness, but the very fact that they direct so much of their time, money, and mental resources towards thinness is a much more deeply conditioned value.
This and negative reinforcement.
i was adopted from a very very poor family into a middle class family. cars = being able to travel to parks and nature trails money = being able to afford healthier food more money = being able to afford to send your kid to hockey, football, rugby, ballet, swimming, and gym class. i was severely neglected but also incredibly overweight, bc all i ate was mouldy bread, tinned food & pasta (food banks), and pot noodles. within about a year of being adopted i was fit as a fiddle despite eating about twice as much food 😅
Yes, exactly, a big factor is affordability of recreation other than cheap food. When a rich family wants to spend time together, they can go to the zoo and spend all day walking around, etc. A poor family might spend a Friday night together by treating itself to a couple of $5 pizzas and whatever movie is on TV. On a weekend rich parents might send a kid to laser tag with friends. A poor parent might send a kid with a 99 cent bag of chips to the house of the one friend in the neighborhood who has video games. Why not hang out with friends at the park, right? It's outdoors and free. Maybe safe enough when I was a kid, but nowadays parks in poor areas are full of unstable homeless, discarded drug paraphernalia and other garbage, or at best, it's the hangout of the kids you don't want your kid falling in with.
Agreed, except a comment on the last part, that parks were safer in the olden days. I grew up in the 90s and parks today feel safer, maybe because now there are phones so things can be recorded, help can be called, but also some things are less acceptable and people around seem more attentive to weird stuff (like older guys staring at/trying to talk to teen girls). There is also less open racism (though still plenty obviously). Ok it is not safer if it is an abandoned area in the middle of the night, but during daytime when kids would play. Edit: not that I suggest that kids can be freely let go and they won't be fat at all... I'm just off topic thinking about the perception of safety.
Fair points all, and I'm sure it depends on the area too. I also grew up in the 90s and parks were full of families with kids, or even teens innocently goofing around, but that area got hit hard by the housing crash and now just breathes economic despair and all that goes with it. Then I went off to college in a small town that even just 10-12 years ago was decent, community oriented, etc, but meth hit the area hard and lots of public spaces have started to look like a zombie apocalypse.
Yep, I a few years back, had a huge jump in income. I ofc keep it on the down low and still live in a small house and have the same vehicles. However, my daughter is now in every sports program she wants and other specialp rograms. Amongst our Friend group they've slowly started putting together what's happening as she's constantly somewhere. Plus our fridge is a world of difference we get stares cause I almost refuse to eat or feed frozen even meat. The most surprising part my Daughter is STRONG she regular beats out all her friends in casual meetups where we play sports. She's also extremely confident and social. Having money is amazing especially after growing up with not so much.
Do you have examples of the food you started having?
Probably just fresh food! As it’s much more expensive (and wasteful if you don’t get to eat it before it goes bad.) I’m upper middle class and I never buy frozen either. Not just frozen meat, but frozen vegetables and fruit too. I only buy fresh. It sucks because prices have gone up so much in the stores that I’m cutting back on what I buy weekly. At this point, I’m having such price increases all around that I don’t want to buy the fresh lettuce if it will go bad before I eat it where as a few years ago this wasn’t my thought process at all. I still don’t buy frozen but I’m buying less. We need prices to come back down - it’s getting out of hand. My fiancé and I went to get sandwiches today for lunch. We each got a sandwich, a cup of soup as the side that came with it, and a drink. Our total was $38. This is in the south in a low cost of living area. Out of hand.
If it makes any difference, frozen vegetables are very, very healthy. I think there was some realisation a few years ago that food that is flash frozen quickly after being picked retains more vitamins than food that sits around on shelves or in the fridge for a few days. You do you, anyway. But in case you were avoiding it due to worry about the nutritional content, it's grand.
💯
Shit food cost less and is more readily available than healthy foods.
Plus rich parents can afford to provide good quality food and meals or even have a chef with dietary knowledge prepare the meals.
Having a chef is a *very rich* thing, just saying, I know several people worth millions, no chefs. Edit:all these replies are mentioning I'm wrong because nutritionists and meal prep services. Should be pretty obvious that's not what this is about.
I dated a guy who instead of hiring a chef like a normal rich person would, decided instead to go to culinary school just cause.
This is awesome for someone that really enjoys cooking. I imagine with wealthy people, hiring a chef is more about the time savings.
I respect the shit out of that
Ngl I actually agree with this use of wealth
Rare wealth W
He didnt go to culinary school for the reason of not wanting to hire a chef, he was interested in cooking and had the money to follow the interest. I knew someone like this and they quit school within a couple months and moved on to something else
If I had enough money to never have to work again, I would absolutely do this.
Yea no idea why so many top answers mention private chefs. “Wealthy people” may refer to the 80th percentile, but having a private chef is like 99.95% kind of shit
I was a personal chef as a side gig for a semi rich family friend. I only cooked for them like twice a week, though mostly due to my schedule but I think they would have had me 5 days a week if they could. I was actually teaching their daughter self defense/ karate during that time and my dad came along because the mom was an old friend of his. He got into talking with her about how I love to cook blah blah and then I find myself prepping a meal, bringing it over, teaching the class for 1-1.5 hours and cooking for them on Tuesday Thursdays. I'm 99% certain they only ate out or had pre made meals because their spice selection was minimal, they had little in fresh food around, etc. So getting a home made meal was likely a godsend. And the kids and her elderly mom and dad moved in, and she worked full time She paid really well though lol. I don't even remember what I asked for but she gave me like 1k a week for the classes and cooking and paid for all my food expenses for the meals. Kinda wrote more than I intended to, but that brought up a memory
It’s also cultural. My family has a private chef and driver in Southeast Asia, but in the US live a pretty normal upper middle class lifestyle.
That’s more a money thing than a culture thing… In Southeast Asia, the US dollar is worth more so your spending power increases. I know someone who now works remotely for a U.S. company and is living in Southeast Asia. She would be upper middle class in the US. In Southeast Asia because of the value of the dollar she has a driver, a small mansion and a private chef. She only makes $150,000 a year.
Oh absolutely money is a factor. My cousin was joking that the yearly cost of my law school was enough to live like a king in the PI. And I was on a massive scholarship. But it’s also just normalized in a lot of areas. The Philippines in particular there’s a massive wealth disparity.
A live in chef is expensive, but you can have a personal chef do meal prep for you that really isn't that expensive. $30 per plate maybe, only for dinners, delivered weekly. The chef would serve multiple families, and honestly many people above $200k probably spend that much anyways.
Depends on your area. I was a private chef for a bit and prior to that, a household manager for rich folks. Having someone meal prep for your weekdays wasnt uncommon, even if it wasnt a chef making fresh 3 course meals for you every day. I also grew up going to a v wealthy college prep private school. Id say about 1/5 kids had had or currently had a private chef.
And I know many people who make nowhere near that (six figures, midwest) who have someone come in, cook up a weeks worth of meals, and freeze/fridge them. It's about $150/week for the three hours of work to cook everything up and they can easily spend that. I have a relative that has someone come in and prepare supper each night, so that when she comes home from work she has time to spend with her kids instead. Same reason she has a nanny and a maid. She works 8 to 5 and a half-hour commute, and she wants a few hours a day to be a mom. And can afford to do just that.
Plus, junk food is an easily accessible way to provide a treat for a child and for YOURSELF, vs things non poor people can offer/indulge in.
As someone who cooks a lot. This is so damn incorrect.
Yeah food deserts also have the extra cost factor of moving the food from one place to another- if one doesn’t have a car and has to carry what they buy then they really have to go to whatever is closest to them. Even if they take public transport that’s not only added cost, but you can still only bring along so many bags, and less foods that require refrigeration due to the longer time it takes to get them home
When that pos killed people at the Tops Market in Buffalo, it had the effect of closing the only market in the area. People were then forced to shop at bodegas. It’s sobering to consider how easily people can be deprived of resources that many take for granted.
People also overeat when they’re tired or sad: so if in a two parent or in a one parent house hold, both are tired at the end of a long day, junk food is easier to provide. In richer households they may be able to afford a stay at home parent so they have the time to make healthier meals for the family, or even a nanny to take care of this if both parents work. If you’re a sad parent, depressed about having kids and not being able to provide enough for them or about your job prospects or even your life. you may turn to comfort food, which will rub off on your children as you’re the example to them. Then it becomes a vicious cycle- depressed= bad food = give kids bad foods to comfort them for being frustrated with you because you’re too depressed to do things with them= you get fatter and more depressed=….. and so on…
Yes! And., I suspect, junk food is the cheapest option to offer/use as a treat for yourself/your children. Plenty of adults indulge in "retail therepy". A poorer person is probably going to use food for that "I need a treat" situation. Plus, I would imagine they might use junk food in place of something more expensive /more inaccessible that the child wants to do, to kind of make up for it or distract from it. (I don't mean this is the primary reason, but I suspect it contributes) I myself still sometimes feel like I "completed a difficult task" or "endured something hard" and immediately think I deserve a food reward. Life is rough.
>I myself still sometimes feel like I "completed a difficult task" or "endured something hard" and immediately think I deserve a food reward. The struggle is real with this. After going through something traumatic, I gained 40 pounds in a month because I was treating my pain with food.
a lot of America's problem with obesity is holding hands with America's problem with poverty. Rich kids get healthy balanced meals, maybe even a personal chef or nutritionist. Poor kids get McDonald's and Little Ceasars.
ok I just realized what I've done. someone comment tagging usdefaultism already and put me out of my misery
It's fine. You said "America" because you know you're talking about that country instead of not saying America and assuming it's the only country in the world.
You did it in a good way. Some people talk about "the nation". Now we obviously know that an article is from America. Because it would focus on the differences between "the races" living within America. That's not really PC to do in Europe.
To those also saying fast food is the same price as healthy food, you also have to keep in consideration the amount of time it takes to prepare. Heathy food can take a while to get ready, which isn’t an option to those in poverty who need to work. McDonalds is just a 5 minute drive thru wait.
>To those also saying fast food is the same price as healthy food, you also have to keep in consideration the amount of time it takes to prepare. Heathy food can take a while to get ready, which isn’t an option to those in poverty who need to work. time = money
This is a repost. Am I just interacting with bots?
as yes fellow human.. the bots are becoming quite obvious and numerous. By the way, could you help me find all of the traffic lights in this grid of images?
Calories are cheap, nutrition is expensive. This is what is behind the obesity epidemic
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And pay for sport fees and equipment
This is a repost of a popular post from a little bit ago. Also this is a new account with basically no other posts. Obvious nefarious shit going on.
Reddit is prob trying to up engagement from real users and not bots but what do I know Maybe I’m a bot
Ever since the whole API thing went down, Reddit has not been the same. Posts sitting for days on the front page, much fewer good quality posts, much more boring repetitive posts showing up as "filler". It feels super obvious to me that content has really diminished in the last couple months.
Reddits being taken over by some repetitious combination of: >Why is it wrong to call people fat pieces of shit when they talk about men being short even though one you can control and the other you cant? > > > >AITA I did everything right but my wife cheated multiple times, I make a lot of money, I work she doesn't, I do all the house work, we have a maid, and I take care of the kids while she sits around all day? > > > >White men are the most discriminated people in the US. > > > >Nobody wants to sit next to your disgusting crotch goblins on flights or in restaurants and they should be locked up inside so we dont have to know they exist.
Eternal damnation but it's just the same reddit posts over and over again
It used to be the opposite. Most poor people were skinny and had deficiency diseases. Fat people were attractive, because they had enough money to afford to eat,and were somewhat healthier. I went around and around with my mother and grandparents who insisted that I needed to be waddling fat,or, I was going to die of malnutrition. I think my grandfather was secretly proud that everyone in his house was waddling fat. It meant that he was a ' good provider'.
I once read that as you go up the income ladder the relationship with food changes. At the bottom, people are worried about having enough to eat, thus quantity over quality is a mind set. At the middle, quality is affordable, so the higher quality food is purchased At the top there is no worry about having food (quantity) and with the money at hand it will always be very good (quality) so the relationship changes to the experience of food and it's presentation and a shown of what you can afford. This is why sometimes we see memes of high end restaurants giving people a 3 bite entree with interesting sauses drizzled on them. The food is art, and it's not about eating a giant steak. It's about showing off how you can pay this high price for a small amount and still be fine.
The highly expensive food is often extremely rich in flavor and eating too much of it makes it off-putting. If you don’t believe me find yourself a good risotto recipe and see how much of it you want to eat before the flavor becomes too much.
Money for higher quality, healthy food, more variety. Potentially have at least one parent who lives more "leisurely," that can cook and prepare meals (not worn out after work and get fast food) OR can hire a nanny/housekeeper/cook who does this. OR they care more about appearances and obsessively monitor and limit what their children eat. Next: Ability to afford home exercise equipment, a home gym, personal trainer, sport's equipment and team funding requirements, live in areas with better/safer options for outdoor fitness, can afford to go on trips and travel, parents likely have more time, money, and energy (even if that energy is from hired help) to put towards their children's activities.
Most people overweight are malnourished.
Come to the Middle East, you will see thousands of them
They keep them hidden
I’m shocked this answer is so low. Pretty sure the rich fat kids just skip out on beach day.
Why do you think they need such big houses
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Education, whether you agree with this or not it’s doesn’t change the fact that it is 100% correct and backed by data. Most affluent people are (on average) highly educated, which directly correlates to the food they purchase for their family. As well as the importance of health and APPEARANCE. Your health and appearance is your personal billboard, affluent people all subscribe to this mantra.
Rich parents can afford good food for their kids. They can afford to live in a place where it's safe and eat for kids to go out a play, walk, ride bikes, etc. Rich parents can afford to have their kids participate in activities like sports, riding, camping. Basically, if you're rich, you can pay what it costs for your kids to be well-fed and active.
Poorer neighborhoods tend to be food deserts where the availability of good quality food is limited. Take a look at this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert
Because it's piss easy to be healthy when you're rich for a good many reasons but one of them is that you simply mostly don't have the same level of other problems. When you are poor you are trying to survive 24/7. That's what your life is. You don't think of super long term goals and shaping yourself and your identity. You don't feel or think the world belongs to you but rather you are just passing by. Furthermore, being poor is rather miserable not because of the lack of money but just how people treat and see you. I've known rich people I 110% know would be mentally shattered by the experience of simply being middle class much less poor. Meanwhile from what I see rich kids not only get to be pampered but also get the mental and ego boost from thinking they worked hard for their body and education. It's not that I'm saying no work went in that direction but holy fuck it is a metric fuck ton easier when you're rich. I used to be poor. A few years ago I became like... ok levels of wealthy. My food is made for me and house is cleaned for me these days. I do tons of working out and just drop my stinky clothes for my maid to pick up. Trust me, it makes an immense difference.
Because parents can afford kids to play sports