Poor people are to blame for their obesity

Poverty is not responsible for it

Many people in public life today believe poor people are obese or overweight beyond the average because they cannot afford a healthy diet. Take these column headings from The Guardian as evidence: ‘Poverty causes obesity: Low-income families need to be better off to eat well’, ‘The primary cause of Britain’s childhood obesity epidemic is clear: poverty’ and ‘Poverty, not gluttony, is the cause of obesity’. Wealth redistribution, subsidising fruit and vegetables and free school meals are then proposed to sort the problem out. Certainly, I’ve heard the ‘poverty causes obesity’ explanation put in everyday conversations. Is it right though?

No. Only view the fact that the bottom ten percent of households by their expenditure spend 27% of their food and drink budget on unhealthy food, or, £10.90 out of £41.60. This is outlined in the first table.

All the obese poor who want to lose weight need do is not purchase these items and eat less other stuff too. Hardly a financial difficulty for those in poverty. The second table outlines those healthy foods which doctors, politicians and mothers are always encouraging us to eat. Its expenditure adds up to £6.10 a week, or, 15% of their food and drink budget. Simple maths shows that by reducing their expenditure on unhealthy foods and drinks by less than half they could use the saved money to double their spending on fruit and vegetables. Or: The poorest could increase their expenditure on fresh fruit by 100% simply by not buying chocolate, sweets and ice cream. Or: They could increase their consumption of fresh vegetables by over 50% by not buying soft drinks.

I suspect Guardian columnists will still claim these measly budgets hardly allow for healthy eating because the absolute level of spending remains too low. This is false. I could outline where else in their household budget spending could be cut, but healthy eating is entirely possible within their existing food and drink budget. Let’s assume a family of four requires five portions of fruit or vegetables every day, so, 400g each day every day. I am going to use Sainsbury’s prices to show this is entirely possible; not even the cheapest supermarket there is.

In total 11.20 kgs of fruit and vegetables are needed (((80g x 5 portions) x 4 people) x 7 days) which must come from five sources of fruit or vegetables. I suggest you could go with the below mix which adds up to 12.13kgs which costs £11.63. So, for just over an hour’s work on minimum wage a man can feed his whole family the fruit and vegetables they need for a whole week.

Frozen Peas £0.93 for 850g x 2 £1.86 for 1.7kg

Carrots 60p for 1000g x 4 £2.40 for 4kg

Red Onions 95p for 1000g x 1 95p for 1kg

Frozen Broccoli £1.07 for 910g £3.21 for 2.73 kg

Frozen Green Beans £1.07 for 900g £3.21 for 2.7 kgs

Should our working man not want to cut into any other area of his expenditure bar food and drink he could reduce his consumption of unhealthy food and drink by 80% to finance this 12.13kgs. The ONS figures from which I have drawn though show the bottom ten percent of households have an average of 1.3 people within them, meaning, the expenditure on fruit and vegetables really recommended by the government for that number is about £3.88. This comes out at less than the £5.20 the poorest households spend on fruit and vegetables currently. Why am I writing all this?

Well, it's claims such as this, by Camilla Kingston, that just irk me beyond belief: ‘At the end of the day, it is cheaper to put chicken nuggets and chips on a plate than to buy fruit and vegetables’. It’s just utter bollocks. The cheapest chicken nuggets at Sainsbury’s cost £3.13 a kg and chips £1.33 a kg. Any of the vegetables above are cheaper, and, per kg, swede and sprouts are too. And this is taking the chips as the baseline. Although I think eating chicken in the vast majority of cases is immoral (Don’t eat chicken), you can still get a whole chicken at a cheaper price per kilo than its processed friend. What Kingston fails to mention is chicken nuggets and chips is far easier to make than a wholesome roast dinner. Why? Well, that would sound far too much like accusing poor people of laziness, wouldn’t it.

The obesity of the poor is not due to their poverty, rather, their obesity is due to their own free choices. This should be obvious. Why though do intelligent people believe the drivel that Guardian columnists produce. I think it is because it is unpopular to blame individuals for their obesity while it is much more comfortable to blame poverty, advertising, food deserts and ultra processed foods instead. And, who wants to be at a dinner party, cite what I have said about poor people’s spending, then be accused of not living in “the real world”, or, of being naivete, which always seems to be taken seriously when you say things are better than most people think.  Plus, all these things give another justification for Leftists to regulate capitalism and redistribute wealth.

I take no issue per se with poor people, or, anyone, being overweight and obese, indeed, I once wrote an article called ‘The government should stop treating obesity as a problem: It isn’t’. I put blame in the title for two reasons, one, those who sincerely do want to lose weight are to blame for their own failings, and, two, it’s attention grabbing. If people eat lots of food and don’t exercise, I don’t think they are necessarily doing anything bad in pursuing those things. What I hate is people coming up with obviously rubbish explanations in public policy discussions simply because it is politically convenient and socially desirable to do so. Whether you are poor or rich, your weight is down to your own choices.