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The best predictor of one’s health is one’s wealth. And no better an illustration of that fact is this week’s NYCDOH’s report about the health of women in New York City. Women in the poorest neighborhoods have a life expectancy 5 years shorter than those who live in the highest income neighborhoods. Hispanic women and women with low incomes are less likely than others to have health care coverage. Low-income women are the most likely to report fair or poor health, regardless of race/ethnicity. Low-income Hispanic women exercise less. Black and Hispanic women are more likely to be obese and low-income black women have the highest rates of obesity. New AIDS diagnoses are highest among black women (likely heavily contributing to the Black community’s widespread belief the HIV virus was concocted in a federal laboratory). AIDS deaths are lowest in high-income neighborhoods in NYC. Black women in NYC have the highest hospitalization rates for mental illness. Alcohol and drug-related hospitalization rates are highest among women living in very low-income neighborhoods. Women with health care coverage are more likely to receive mammograms and Pap tests than those without coverage.
Gothamist Health could go on and on and on. About forty-five million people are uninsured in America. A little over twenty-five percent of the uninsured are children and ninety percent of those children have at least one working parent. But a person's health is not always about having insurance and easy access to medical care. The states that spend the most Medicare dollars per capita often have similar health outcomes indices than those states that use far fewer dollars. Also, countries with a higher per capita number of physicians tend to have higher mortality rates.
Gothamist Health believes there are essentially four factors that contribute to a population’s health -- our genes, our lifestyle, our environment, and the medical care we receive. The government and the public health system can regulate our environment (through the EPA or designing safe roads) and lifestyle (thanks for the smoking ban Mayor Bloomberg!), but the vast majority of money spent on the health of our nation is spent on medical treatment. The investment in medical treatment possibly uses up resources that might otherwise be better spent on the other factors that influence our health such as education, clean housing, or events to ensure a safe neighborhood. We already spend nearly fifteen percent of our GDP on healthcare meanwhile other industrialized countries spend an average of 8.9%. We are spending more and more on medical care and much less on prevention. Maybe this is the reason the U.S. ranks 25th in the world for infant mortality rates and 24th for "Healthy Life Expectancy."
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Compare that map to one with the per-capita number of McDonald's, KFCs, White Castles and other fast food restaurants, and you'll probably see a pattern. These fast-food chains aggressively target low-income neighborhoods with promises of quick, tasty low-cost meals, with no regard to the proven unhealthiness of their products.
That's right. Fast food restaurants "target" crappy neighborhoods the same way pool manufacturers "target" expensive suburbs to sell a product that can lead to skin cancer. What this country needs is a good strong government to make people's purchasing decisions for them. What right do those people have to buy french fries, anyway?
I think the report also missed NYC women's unhealthy obsession with handbags, their excessive levels of insecuritiy and unnecessarily high concern with wearing impractical footwear around the streets of manhattan.
Nola, why do you keep trolling every other Gothamist thread (post flame-baited responses to another's comments), instead of actually commenting on the entry?
(I realize that was a troll in and of itself, but that's the only form of delivery; sorry)
i'm with nola. sarcasm and all. there, i said it.
people are capable of making their own diet choices. if they choose fast food over real food, it's their own fault. yeah, marketing is powerful, but we all know the health facts if we care to listen.
another problem, though, is the cost to us taxpayers for all these people getting fat and then developing medical conditions. we pay for their treatment because of their bad choices and the problem doesn't appear to be declining. what to do, nola?
Because boring entries make for boring posts. Someone needs to liven things up around here. But feel free to comment on the stunning news that people without money are often less healthy than those with money. I can't wait for the NYCDOH's report on men's health. Are poor men less healthy than rich men? The suspense is killing me.
thanks so much for posting this. comment almost seems unncessary, as the stats speak for themselves.
BUT re: the food point: i wish the park slope food coop wasn't the only one of it's kind (in terms of ethic, prices, scale, access, etc.).
and hamburglar's totally right, cuz supply meets demand, an in those areas where education and money are plentiful...McDonald's is gonna be way hard(er) to find.
uh...big up to conspiracy theorists, by the way.
mwah!!
And cigarette companies never targeted kids, right?
That's odd, Flushings kind of stands out
i mean, that area around Flushings (North East Queens) isn't exactly a high income neighborhood, certainly less than parts of Bklyn, but it seems to have low-rates similar to that of Manhattan
it's illegal for kids to buy smokes. it's not illegal for people to eat crappy food, right?
hijiki your point is very fair and I don't know that there is an easy answer. Does taxpayer funded medical treatment give the government a greater say in how people take care of themselves? Maybe so. Of course you have to keep in mind the fact that people who live on fried foods (like people who smoke) tend to die at a younger age and may actually be saving the government money in the long run. Not that we should encourage it, of course.
But what about the cost of fat asses to society? Think of hours lost to illness and resulting reduced productivity or a cop being outrun by a suspect. Your neighbor's fat ass is your problem.
Would it be such a bad thing to have nutrition education the same way we have anti-smoking/drug programs?
First of all, we already have nutritional education. Ever hear of school? Everyone learns the basic food groups, etc. People who live off fast food are aware of the risks. Just because someone does something stupid doesn't mean they are doing it because they lack education.
And once we say that keeping people from getting fat is the government's job, there is no end to the potential interference. Obesity is just one of many maladies in this world. Should the government regulate all behavior that could impact our health? At some point we just have to accept that people are responsible for their own asses, fat or otherwise.
Nutrition education in school isn't such a simple thing, especially in public schools. Only very recently have there been laws passed stating that schools cannot sell high-sugar/fat food and drinks in vending machines, e.g., replacing sodas with fruit juices or water. A lot of public schools don't get enough government funding, and they rely on contracts with brand-name companies as their source of funds, which is why they offer the (often unhealthy) brand-name products.
So you have teachers teaching you the food group--then when you get outta class, you're facing a soda and chips vending machine. So contradictory.
As for obese people making the choice to eat unhealthy fast food--sure, it's their choice. But when you only have a few bucks in your wallet to last you for the day and you're hungry and on the go, aren't you more likely to buy something off the dollar menu, then buy a healthy and balanced meal that costs maybe 3 times as much? It comes down to money.
Interestingly, thinner people subsidize fatties in many ways. Remember that recent story about airlines charging more because of ?
whoops, the link was:
Remember that recent story about airlines charging more because of increased fuel costs due to fatter passengers?
We probably all went to schools where there was junk food in the vending machines but somehow managed to keep our weights under that of an SUV. You patronize people by saying that the contradictory messages are too much to handle or the education available isn't enough.
And how much does a bag of pasta cost? Less than a happy meal or whatever junk mcdonals has to offer. Again, you just patronize the people who knowingly decide where to eat and how much to spend.
it's a common excuse, but i don't believe it comes down to money. it comes down to bad judgement or people unwilling to take responsibility for their own diet. it's a decision. nobody has to set foot into mcdonald's, poor or otherwise.
it's cheaper and just as fast to make a pb&j before you go. sandwiches, fruit, carrots... these things are as cheap, portable and readily available to anyone. you can order steamed veggies and rice at the cheapest chinese shops for less money than picking dollar menu items. do they give you a pleasure rush of msg and engineered flavor? probably not, but then that's not a decision based on money.
C'mon whitey! You know you don't just hate the fat...you know what else besides "poverty" this map nicely lays-over with! Why can't those people just get a Crunch membership! Gawd!
When the choice in your neighborhood is not whether to go to D'Agastino's or Whole Foods, it goes beyond personal choice. The prevlanence of fast food chains in poorer areas, as opposed to any (and I mean ANY) supermarket, including Key Foods (my God, I can't get Annie's Macaronni and Cheese there though!), is significant and astounding.
I'm glad that Gothamist is covering issues that may not exactly fit the interest of its demographic, but that accurately represents how so many in our wonderful City live. Gotham isnt only about Carrie Bradshaw and SoHo.
I'll retract my statement that it all comes down to money. In saying that, I end up doing the same thing that I'm really arguing against.
I think it's dangerous to assume that just because you don't have problems with obesity, the people that do have problems are like that because they are lazy, irresponsible, have no control, etc. No two people grow up in the same environment or under the same circumstances, so saying that you turned out okay is not a valid argument.
I don't mean to absolve people who are obese of any responsibility. Nor am I saying that the government and our education system should take all the responsibility. I'm just saying that a myriad of factors play into obesity and blaming just any one factor won't get us anywhere.
The high density of Mickey D's, Burger King's, KFC's, etc in poorer neighborhoods is a testament to the markets ability to best serve the interests of the public. Those businesses only exist, and stay solvent because of the people who choose to patronize them, not because people don't have other choices, which hijiki demonstrated excellently. Blaming the business, is an insult to the people who do business with them, when they purchase their meals. What- you think the government is responsible to step in and make the food choices for these people? Sheesh!
So would the ivory tower anti-personal-choice advocates please shut the f-k up?
it's a whole lot easier to be racist when you can couch it as a discussion of poverty, eh?
all of this talk of "those people" and what they're doing "to us" is creeping me out.
No, "C," you're the only one trying to turn this into a race debate. Yes, I'll admit, race and class are so intertwined that it is difficult to talk about one without talking about the other. But it's PEOPLE LIKE YOU, you know, lefties who think they're above everyone else, who enjoy shouting "RACISM" at every point possible, effectively shutting down an argument. Grow up.
don't get me wrong, i think fast food carries some responsibility too. they can easily be made to look like drug dealers preying on weak people who apparently have no self-control. they mass-produce highly engineered substances that are arguably addictive and harmful to people's health. they sponsor animal abuse, environmental destruction and the demise of traditional farming while hiding their evil deeds from their customers. there are steps that they should take and i don't think they are serving the public interest very well at all. but in the end, it's like coffee, cigarettes or alcohol... we all know the harm and nobody is being forced to consume their garbage. perhaps a 'truth' style campaign (the anti-tobacco ads) against them would be effective.
get over it C, i haven't seen a single racist comment here. 'those people' are the people in the demographic study we're talking about. it's the fat people that are causing public health issues. how would you prefer to discuss the issue, oh hyper-sensitive one?
jen has made some good points. about the choice thing. I live in fort greene, and you know what, the chinese take out places charge more for the health or diet options of steamed veggies than they do for a quart of fried rice. Also, paying more for steamed veggies is hard enough, then you gotta have some protein on top of that, so you have to pay even more. There are no decent grocery stores in my neighborhood. A couple of really crappy, moldy-vegetable bodegas and then a couple of very high priced green markets. My familiy eats healthy because we can afford to spen the time and money making sure we have healthy food in our home--by paing to join the food coop and driving over there every weekend to shop. We can also afford to pick up some stuffat the high priced grocery stores near where we work. The only thing we spend more on each month than groceries is rent. Healthy food is expensive, even if you don't eat the fancy stuff.
another reason a lot of families have a hard time eating healthy is that many, many poor families are actually living double dup with friends or relatives. Studies have shown that families in this situation often do not have access to refrigerator space and often are not allowed to use the stove. Thousands of families are living this way right now. The City has data on this, too.
Iceberg, I am not anti-personal choice. I do think people are responsible for making their own choices and the consequences that follow. But I also believe that a lot of different things influence the choice a person makes, and this is true for everyone. Saying that obese people choose to eat a certain way "just because" of any one thing is most likely not true. Education, income, and convenience are only some of those factors, and I'm asking people to just consider them. It's not as if I hope to radically change anyone's notions, because you must have your own reasoning for believing in it.
I saw some merit in your argument until you told people you don't agree with to shut the f--k up. Really, what a great argument tactic!
add tofu. an egg. a glass of milk. pb&j. cook rice and beans. soup. buy bulk dry mixes. seriously, it's tough to be poor, i know, but eating out is an unnecessary luxury even if it's cheap.
as for the steamed veggies... of course fried rice is cheaper than an entree! when you order steamed veggies & tofu with rice you get enough for 2 people for around 3 bucks. it's been the same for nearly every chinese joint i've visited and the price compares well to mcdonald's.
don't ignore the fact that we're talking about people getting fat. if they are fat, they are eating more than their bodies want and thus buying more food than they need.
seaweed: thousands of poor families in NYC do not have access to cooking facilities because they are doubled up with another family , sleep in the living room on the floor and sofas and try to be out of the house as much as possible so that their hosts will not get sick of them and kick them out. So they cannot buy in bulk, cook up a big mess of rice and beans to keep in the fridge to eat all week--they really cannot. Talk to shelter providers, the families themselves, and to community service organizations who run programs in these neighborhoods.
Also, a lot of overweight people do not necessarily stuff their faces and eat huge amounts of food. The problem is that if you are eating cheap, fast food, even one serving of it, it often has so many more calories and so much more fat than tofu and steamed veggies that you will gain weight even if you are eating only single servings at a time.
Also, people who didn't grow up eating tofu or didn't get exposed to it later in life as a choice are not going to even think of eating it as an option to go with thier expensive steamed rice and veggies. Also, if you are on a tight budget and your kids are hungry, you are not going to waste your money buying your kids (who have never touched tofu before) an order of steamed broccoli and brown rice with a side of tofu just to watch your kids gag and then refuse to eat it. That would be stupid and that is not the way to introduce healthy foods to children.
hey there
just wanted to point out that i think (i hope) that no one here is equating fast food consumption with stupidity.
this, even though our culture tries to stigmatize obesity in a million different ways, i tend to think the folks who e-hang here don't buy into the hype.
but, i think there is a connection between education and eating MickyD burgers and stuff.
cuz education >>>
better jobs >>>
higher income >>>
greater purchasing power/more leisure time >>>
more competitive (food) establishements in the neighborhoods in which you can afford to live >>>
better, fresher produce made available to you vis a vis free market system >>>
fewer hamburgers and all that biznatch
just to clarify where i am coming from, at least.
Iceberg et al,
It's easy to talk about choice when you have that choice. And as I alluded to earlier, it is not a question of shopping at one supermarket over another, or organic over genetically modified foods. "Choice" is in large part a myth. That is not to say people shouldn't be educated that some of the "choices" they make lead to an unhealthy lifestyle and that incentives shouldn't be made. But you are imposing your own sense of choice, freedom and consumer voice to a population that frankly is probably not as fortunate as you.
That, and the idea that fast food is a pressing problem when you see and hear daily reports of crime, communicable diseases, poverty, financial strain, etc., is dubious at best. What choice of a healthy lifestyle is there when the environment that surrounds you is anything but healthy?
I personally grew up overweight in the projects before going off to college, getting a job with a gym membership, and getting skinny. I will tell you right out, healthier food is more expensive. It's not just fast food. You can buy your family 8 packs of ramen (a staple growing up and still a comfort food) for $2, and have something to feed your 4 kids. They would get roughly 10 grams of fat per serving and very little else. Get pasta instead? Well that's about $3 for the sauce and $1 for the pasta. Yup $4. But then you'd be $2 short and you've got to get to work. I know these sort of decisions are being made, because I watched my mother make them when I was growing up.
...AND on thop of that, health be damned, food is an affordable indulgence in a life with few indulgences. face it cheetos taste good. even Britney likes them. This stuff is way more complicated than "Why don't the fatties just whip up some gazpacho (sp?).
liquid sugar: paint the picture as bleak as you want but the options, as i've listed them, are always there and available to EVERYONE. you keep harping on cost... the steamed veggie dish is not expensive... it is cheaper than mcd's so why do you persist? don't like tofu, choose chicken... is it really that difficult to make these substitutions?
fine, there are a few thousand out of millions who can't cook (and poo-poo the steamed veggies). there are still plenty of options... there's always pb&j, fast healthy, balanced, shelf-stable and one of the cheapest foods around. a 5 gallon bucket of bulk dry mixes takes little room... dried fruit, nuts, hummus, refried beans... there are many mixes that don't require cooking. i speak from experience. as i'm sure you are aware, a single serving of fast food is not, in reality, just a single serving and there are many things you can do to dress up veggies for kids that are in budget. melt government cheese over the top and get some protien in the bargain. most kids like tuna.
janine, pasta sauce can come from a $.75 can of tomato paste. you can feed those 4 people for $2. but your real point is that the crappy food tastes good and makes you feel better. it's not that you can't afford or locate healthy food, it's that you choose not to.
you're just jumping all around the subject making excuses for people getting obese. as Hilton is saying, it may be very psychologically exhausting to the point where it's hard to give a damn, but it is not logistically impossible (or even that difficult) for poor people to eat healthy balanced meals as you're arguing.
i admit it's not as easy or pleasurable, but the bottom line is that if you're getting fat, you're eating more calories than your body needs. if you're also poor, that is also an inefficient use of money. it is not that people can't afford the right food, they choose not to eat it.
sorry janine, those last 2 paragraphs were in response to Honey.
I don't choose not to eat healthy. I'm skinny now (or at least slim). I've just seen both sides of the story.
You're using selective information in your argument, in my opinion. In order to make pasta sauce from a $0.75 can of tomato sauce, you might want ingredients other than water and those cost money. I don't really know why I'm arguing with you that poor people should live on pasta, anyway.
All the same, thanks for telling me what my real point is, though you're wrong. My real point is that it's complicated. That there are many factors involved. I'm not arguing against responsibility, I'm in favor of a complex view of the issue.
If feeling like you're right in a black/white situation makes you feel better, more power to you. But there is a brewing health epidemic, and as the sensitive folks here have pointed out, we're all gonna pay for it. I'm personally not comfortable with letting it all ride on a 1980's throwback, Just Say No approach.
Mmmmm. I'm in the mood for a hot, delicious Big Mac with crisp, golden fries and a refreshing, ice-cold Sprite. Mmmmm!
brinygreens: briny, you come off as someone with some sort of higher education interms of your grammar and spelling and snobbish attittudes, but your arguments are just not based on facts.
Can you get someone to help you do the math? Feed a family of four off the dollar menu at mcdonalds or feed a family of four off the "health food" menu of the local chinese takeout place. It is gonna cost more to do the latter.
when was the last time you saw a bodega with a bulk food section?
dried fruit and nuts cost way more than nutter butters.
dried mixes of refried beans
A. tastes nasty and
B. you still have to have somewhere to mix it up. or should the poor just eat it dry and chase it down with a glass of water?
as fo the PB and J--uh, if the poor are to eat up to your standards, they better not buy regular peanut butter, which has hydrogenated fats and added salt. they need to buy the natural peanut butter--and that stuff ain't cheap.
same with the jelly--cheapo jelly is full of added sugar. the 100 friut spread costs way more.
The single serving issue-- that was to address your contention that the obese are that all that way because they are stuffing their faces. That is not necessarily the case if they are eating single servings of cheap, unhealthy foods rather than single servings of more expensive healthy foods.
Hijiki, saying someone is poor only because of inefficient use of money is insulting to those who try so hard to make their less-than-minimum wage salary last.
And again, you say obese people are obese just because they "choose" to eat unhealthy, under the assumption that this choice is just based on laziness or stupidity. When are things ever always just black and white?
Wait...I have a BRILLIANT idea...stop having kids if you can't afford to provide for them! Now I know that all of you who patronize poor people as not having brains will probably patronize them further by saying that they're not educated enough to use protection. Come on people, this is a matter of personal responsiblity, 'nuff said.
I was born 6 years AFTER my mother had her tubes tied, smartass.
...and condoms break and people can get pregnant on the pill...
inevitable argument: then poor people should just be abstinent. sex is not a right. it's a privilege, like healthcare.
I feel a little surprised at the amount of resistance to attaching any great importance to the connections between food habits, poverty and the way *all* of us are affected if only *some* of us suffer.
and i'm also disappointed that this study, which addresses the health of women in particular, has been knocked by posters who want to play a blame game. i think this is part of what perpetuates the cycle of poverty.
i have a feeling most folks want to sign off on this issue (fat least with respect to the post).
but allow me to leave you with this, which i just found in the journal _Nature_, and i thought some of you might be interested:
...that lack of proper nutrients is also a phenomenon in wealthy countries where food insecurity if not starvation is surprisingly common. in the US, for example. 12.6 million households (about 11%) fall short of basic food needs at some point during the year, in about a quarter of those cases, people fail to get government food food aid or find private charities to make up the difference and so go hungry.
W. Nord et al Food Assistance and Nutrition Reasearch Report No. 42(USDA Economic research service)
I'm with you, Hijiki. How's that for a first?
Is it that hard to recognize the fact that some people make poor decisions in life, and that all of the well-intended programs in the world cannot change that? These scenarios are incredible - single parents living in flophouses, working minimum wage jobs, unable to cook, etc. Can't you see that someone in that position has been making bad decisions for years and buying a bag of fries is actually pretty far down their list of mistakes? I'm not saying someone in that situation deserves to suffer. I'm just pointing out the reality that in a free society people fail as well as succeed.
The decisions people make in their lives are influenced by many things, most of all what they learn at home. There is no magic wand we can wave at someone who is obese, semi-homeless, semi-employed and unmarried with children. If you want to minimize the number of people living these kinds of lives, think about what gets them in trouble in the first place - dropping out of school, getting pregnant at 15, etc. - and support organizations that deal with those larger issues. Organic food stands for people with these problems is the equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
only as selective as your info, janine. i don't want to quibble about the specific costs either because there are still many more options and those are just examples, but it is important to accept that the food you eat is a choice and there are healthier alternatives to ramen and fast food for every budget.
despite Honey's inaccurate speculation on who i am, i too have been poor (often well below poverty) and i too used to be fat (i remember you from the fat report card debate). i fully understand that it is complicated and difficult to change. when you're depressed, tastey food picks you up quickly. i am not saying it's black and white (read my previous comments in this thread) but i don't think that paralyzing the issue by overcomplicating it with rare exceptions like Honey's helps either. i do agree with you that the problem is an epidemic. i also think education is more effective than pushing the blame off on businesses.
alas Honey, you're starting to admit that one factor is that it's not as fun to eat healthy food. i know this food i'm talking about is cheap and that it works because i lived off of it for many years. you don't have to eat the refried beans but what's the point of rejecting these few examples (do poor people not have cups in which to mix bean flakes with water?... sheesh, you must think poor people are completely helpless.) so they're not as exciting to the taste buds... that's not an excuse to eat garbage food that makes you obese.
as for math, go to mcdonald's and figure out the cost of serving 4 people from the dollar menu... is it over $6? probably. then go to a chinese shop and buy 2 orders (enough for 4 people) of steamed veggies with rice and tofu. about $6-7. you can actually walk or take the train to bulk food sellers even from fort greene where the nuts are cheaper than nutter butters. in fact, you can ask them if they would start selling what you want just as i asked my bodega to start selling skim milk.
as Jen stated, there are many influences, but how healthy we eat is still a choice. btw, i'm surprised you'd misrepresent my comments so drastically. i never said people were poor because of inneficient use of money... that is SO far from what i wrote or intended. i also never said that obesity was only a result of laziness or stupidity. aside from rare exceptions, people get fat because they consume more calories than they burn which IS pretty b&w. they also make a decision to eat those calories. people are not helpless and they're not stupid... i think you're pointing at the wrong person for treating them as if they were.
nola, come out as a social darwinist and save the typing
a peripheral question:
if the health choices of others affect us, how much of a right do we, as payers, have over their dietary concerns? do we have the right to control what they do because in the end we're going to pay for it in the first place.
sort of creeps me out, it does.
an excellent question. :)
I apologize, hijiki. I did misread your comment about the inefficiency. Something with the wording was a little off for me.
Yes, it's true that people get fat when they consume more calories than they burn, but that begs the question of what factors affect how many calories they consume in the first place, which is *not* always black and white.
Some people feel as if my argument is based on patronizing poor people for lacking brains. That is not what I intend to do--I merely want to point out that not everyone grew up in environments that were conducive to learning how to make intelligent health conditions. How can we expect someone to innately know how to eat healthy without having been taught properly or having healthy eaters to model after?
thanks, Jen... i'm no writer.
we've mentioned several influences and i'm sure there are many more.
-bleak living conditions can cause depression which is eased by eating tastey stuff.
-it can be more convenient to buy fast food.
-junk food tastes better.
-you could be raised by bad role models.
-effective marketing by the junk food industry.
-lack of proper health education in schools.
-that incredible smell as you walk past a kfc.
-slim pickings at bodegas
-possibly the lack of safe & inviting green spaces in which to get exercise.
-perhaps too much tv and video games.
-not enough interest in community gardens.
-mayo
I'm not a social darwinist, Janine, but maybe you could tell us more about your Utopia where loving government workers guard people from Cheetos and french fries.
It's about food distrubution.
Neighborhood grocery stores are on the way out--they can't compete with large supermarket chains and superstores like Walm*rt. These large chains exist on the fridges of suburbs and cities, where the new malls are being built up, but getting to are difficult if you are without reliable transportation (car, bus, train, etc), thus creating grocery "dry zones".
If you've worked two or three jobs for the day, you're too exhausted to take a 45 minute bus ride to the outskirts to do your grocery shopping. And on your day off, you only have so many hands to carry bags, so you can't realistically do a weeks worth of shopping.
Poor and working class people relay on easy access food to fill their bellies all the while knowing what they are eating is detrimental to their health and well being.
This isn't a problem in just the city, rural areas of the country are also having "dry zone" issues and more and more people are becoming malnourished.
why would fairly peripheral chain stores affect local groceries, assuming a large enough portion of the population is in the same socio-economic boat?
this presumes a mixed sort of area where enough of the population both shopped at the original small grocery but has the money and ability - due to transportation, having a car, etc - to drag enough of the business away because of the lure of a larger store. which, we must assume, is cheap enough to justify both the gas money and hour+ of travel. the resultant destabilization is sharp enough that the distant chain store manages to put the local grocery out of business, despite the lack of convience and added cost.
i had heard of a proposal a while back to do a statistical rendering of mc donalds to grocery stores across the country, but i haven't seen jack since, unfortunately. it would be interesting to see how different groups with different political agendas would measure things like what counts as a grocery store, etc. (i.e. a fruit stand would be a grocery store under one understanding - because it sells fruit - and not a grocery store under another because it doesn't sell vegetables.
dhex,
Large chains have more buying power with companies that supply the products, thus driving prices down. Small and/or family owned grocery stores cannot compete with the Low LOW LOW! prices of the chains.
Nio