Can Only the Rich Afford to Be Thin?

It's Saturday and you're trying to stretch your food budget to make it till next Friday, when you'll get paid again. You start at the produce section because it's the most accessible once you enter the store but you barely stop. Bagged salads, tomatoes, and oranges all look tempting but they aren't on your list. Bags of potatoes and onions make it into your cart. You list is all about starch, flavor and fat. You're not poor to the point of being on food stamps, but stretching money is an all important issue.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the produce section, a woman is tossing veggies in her cart like they're buy 1 get 2 free. Even fresh asparagus when it's - gasp! - not in season! She's trim and marginally better coiffed than you. You sigh slightly when passing her cart on the way to the bulk beans. Would be nice to fill a grocery cart that full with just perishable veggies again.

Maybe you haven't had exactly that experience, but if you count yourself as middle class, blue collar, working poor, or anything other than affluent (and often childless) chances are you run into a typical scenario. The foods that are the healthiest for you aren't those that are nutritionally dense. Ounce for ounce, a pound of cauliflower or eggplant gives less calories and protein than a box of tuna helper and tuna at roughly the same price. The tuna helper easily provides a full meal for more than one person or leftovers as well. And bagged salads? They're a great convenience and do make it easier to eat salad everyday, but you may as well tear your cash up and toss it with ranch at dinner. No, on second thought, the dollars probably have more bulk so you'll feel full longer. From a poor person's point of view, it would be better to eat your money outright than to spend it on bagged salads. And I'm just picturing the mixed greens here, the stuff that's actually green. The iceberg lettuce mixes with the carrot slivers are beyond pointless if you're trying to stay fed, stay satisfied, and make it through another day

What does this have to do with weight and class? I'll put it into a simple generalization. Most poor people intuitively choose cheap but high calories foods. There's not a whole lot of variety from fruits and veggies because they have to bought in such high quantities while rarely making a complete meal, and often can't be stocked up on when there's a sale. Rich people can afford to pick and choose.

Weight is a class issue because the rich can even afford not to eat. Anorexia has long been a disease affecting affluent, mostly white females. The occurrence of the disease in other ethnicities is on the rise but it remains a mostly affluent, or aspirationally affluent (such as gold collar workers) disease. Starving oneself to be beautiful won't help if you're waiting tables all day to make rent. You'll pass out, miss work, and be late on rent. I'm not belittling how crippling any eating disorder is, just pointing out that that different social pressures and backgrounds make some easier or harder to develop than others. The hard realities of making ends meet without a white-collar job make it impractical to starve oneself. And study after study shows that being thin and attractive leads to better job offers, and even discrepancy of pay within the same positions.
Being more affluent means you can make better choices about your convenience foods too. Having less time for food prep, and therefore eating more poorly, is not a contributing factor for low income people choosing high fat, high carb foods. People from all walks of life suffer from too little time to cook and eat at home. The difference is having the financial ability to choose something grilled or green over something fried or cheese-laden as we rush around. Typical fast food choices, especially from the dollar menu, are hugely unhealthy and high in calories. However, most establishments do offer lighter fare (that is almost never on the dollar menu) and many upscale fast food chains give customers a wide range of healthy options. There are also plenty of healthy meals available in the frozen food section at a grocery store, and not all of them are marketed as diet foods.

The rich can afford to spend time and money on exercise that you can't spend when you're struggling. Although this is partly a matter of time, it is mostly a matter of money. Gym memberships and sports equipment take money. It doesn't help that we're barraged with ads for equipment and gizmos at every turn. The truth is that while money makes getting fit a lot easier, there are many ways to exercise that don't require much. We're brainwashed to think that it does, and having the extra money for it makes it easier to give in to those messages.

That leads me to my last point, which is a bit of good news. While the rich can certainly lose weight and get fit more easily, there are ways to eat healthily and exercise on a budget. Educating yourself on ways to cook with less fat and sugar, aggressively cutting the costs of food, and making use of community rec centers (many have fitness equipment too) and parks can bring a healthier lifestyle into everyone's reach. The cards are stacked against everyone but the affluent when trying to lose weight, but only if you try to achieve it through mass market strategies that require little thought. When you're losing weight on a budget you have to plan ahead and be especially careful to shop sales and buy in season. Which, in a way, makes the experience much more meaningful.