Bronx Neighborhoods Have The Nation's Highest Hunger Rate

really? and the bronx is the fattest borough in nyc.

really, really love how gothamist didn't approve my comment re: being hood rich as opposed to daddy paying your murray hill apartment til youre 30, why people who have not had money to buy food a couple of times during the previous month are obese [the little money they do have, when they have it, goes to fast food], and how eventually the great redevelopment projects happening here in the bronx right now will pay off in a decade or so, making commenters like snoopy who are priced out of every other borough consider taking a hop on the D train north.

Thank you! About time someone points this out.

Don't have enough money for food?

Try earning more money, as in getting a job or working more.

Or stop buying overpriced sneakers and other BS luxury items that you can't afford.

And yet, these neighborhoods also have higher than average rates of obesity, too.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/data/2003nhp-bronxc.pdf

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/dpho/dpho-brooklyn-obesity.pdf

... and plenty of other cites easily available through Google.

Not a pretty picture, eh?

"And yet, these neighborhoods also have higher than average rates of obesity"

That's because their residents eat junk food, i.e. snack food, fast food, candy, etc. Also, junk food is generally cheap, tasty (high salt & fat), filling and easy to find. Hence, its appeal to poor people.

I agree, is this not contradictory? How is it that you can have hunger but also have large percent of obese people?

It makes sense because the cheapest food establishments (i.e Burger King, McDonald's, KFC) tend to have the most unhealthy products.

They aren't fat. They are large boned.

Yes it is very sad. But I hear if they all worked at Whole Foods, they could get extra employee discounts and other incentives!

I hate to say this, but if you are going hungry in the US - especially New York, you have seriously bad survival skills. You might not be getting the best nutrition, but food is cheap and abundant here. It is so abundant it is routinely wasted. I mean a bag of rice costs about a dollar. And there are many ways to get food if you have no money or have nowhere to cook. It's bizarre to even bring this study up when a majority of the world REALLY is hungry and has poor access to clean drinking water.

This is a very misleading study you choose to make a headline of in your normally responsible blog. The study probably should have concluded that people are broke because they spend almost all of their money in NY paying greedy landlords and into the web of real estate brokersand developers, who in turn fund politicians' campaigns (and then the pols make laws to help the Real Estate industry make more money). But certainly the study couldn't conclude that because because Time Warner (NY 1) is one of the biggest political contributors to NY politicians and makes tons of money on those sleazy ads that run back to back come election time.

Instead, it's more probable that NY 1 thought they'd sucker you with a heart string-pulling story that is just simply skewed in its conception and out of context in so many ways (and make them look like they care). I mean, just look at NY 1's website. This is some of the worst journalism in NY. There are routinely spelling and grammar errors and the stories seem like they were written by people in grammar school (maybe they don't pay enough and their reporters are going hungry).

Hey,

Went into my local Met and saw beef chuck ground for $5.79/lb...I almost pooped my pants. This why people in the Bronx go hungry. It is cheaper to buy a Big Mac or a Whopper at that price!

Well said! I really don't believe this story at all, food is relatively very cheap here in the US compare to other countries.

What about all the welfare and Public assistance people?

Really Gothamist, you want to see poor look no further then Haiti and Sub-saharan Africa.

Give me a break.

You guys are wrong. Sorry but you don't live in the Bronx. A bag of rice is not a $1. Have you been to any of the supermarkets in the Bronx? They suffer from incredible inflation because everyone is on foodstamps. A carton of Minute Maid is $4.59. A bar of Sharp cheddar cheese (Queso de Papa, which was .99 a year ago) is $5. A 1lb bag of rice is more like $2.19..and 1lb will not last long. Do some research yourself before making comments like these.

Wow, adpwnage. I did not realize that as I live in Brooklyn, where good, cheap food can be found and various destinations within a 1 or 2 mile bike ride. Looks like you need to fork up the $4.50 to the corrupt MTA , get a big backpack and take a round trip to a good supermarket, coop or market outside the Bronx. Or maybe you can organize some people and start your own food coop. That's the best way to beat the Bloomberg Corporation. And using a bike I don't give money to the thieves that run the city, state or MTA (except when the Empire State extorts 8.3 % for a bike part).

there are plenty of places in the bronx to get fresh, healthy food. the entire borough isn't the barren wasteland that this study and popular perception paints.

there's a food co-op in the south bronx, farmer's markets in the central bronx, etc and so on - the issue is education and mobilization of lower-income families.

At the food coops website..very interesting stuff...

You know it's not very feasible to take a cart and walk to this place for most people right? You also know that most subway stations in the Bronx are not wheelchair accessible, so bringing a cart on the train is also pretty tough. If Food Coop has good prices & food sure, I would love to give it a try. But it's not close whatsoever. One time, I walked to Western Beef 45 mins away, got a lot of food, but ended up almost getting hit by a car twice, pulled my shoulder, and flipped over an unseen rip in the sidewalk (it was also freezing cold). Remember, not all of us have cars. There are retards with huge gold chains & 52in tvs, gigantic suvs and no food, but not everyone is like that. I don't have a car because I try to live within my means.

That's why I live in Queens-food is cheaper here...

god, I still hate the commenters on Gothamist. I linked a story to Facebook recently (after not being here for over year due to the idiocy of the comments on this site), and no one paid attention to the article because the comments were horrendous. Of all the -ists... this one has turned into the biggest comment joke of all.

Thanks, Gothamist, for the article. It sad to know that there is hunger in the midst of so so much in NYC.

Yeah, commenters on Gothamist are mostly idiots. Like most people, they automatically believe that poverty is always easily overcome. Sadly it takes poverty to have capitalism be effective. It's either all for one and one for all (socialism/communism) or dog eat dog (capitalism.) Pick one... OH, and I'm tired of hearing jokes about being "hood rich." Most of the time the people that can't eat are the ones that you don't see. They can't even afford the subway fare to leave the "hood" and I know most of you aren't venturing into the South Bronx or East New York on a regular basis. "SoBro" and "East Williamsburg" doesn't count either.

McDonald's has it's dollar menu thing going on right now, perhaps that will fix the problem.

Burger King is offering 2 Whoppers for $4 bucks! How the hell could anyone go hungry with prices like that? Not sure if they accept WIC or food stamps there though...

Take two chill pills and come back in ten months.

Also, when asked, 14% said they didn't have enough money for new titanium rims, 7% said they didn't have enough money for new tattoos, and 98% said they blamed the government for their hunger.