Last week in class, we looked at the growing epidemic of obesity in the US. However, I couldn't help but ponder on the aspect that poverty and income level had as a factor of the growing obesity epidemic.Growing up, I have lived in three different places: Los Altos, CA; Starkville, MS; and Columbia, MO. In Los Altos, the poverty rate is only around 3%. However, in Columbia, the rate rises to 22.9%, and in Starkville, it is even higher, at 30.2%.
Watching the documentary, I reflected on the various environments that I was surrounded by living in these areas with different income and poverty rates. Los Altos, a more affluent area, with an average household income of $208,309, has a lot of higher-priced and healthy foods available. Just take a look at our restaurants downtown: Morsey's Farmhouse, Le Boulanger, Lulus, etc. On the other hand, in Starkville, an area with a median household income of $36,700, there are significantly fewer healthy dining options with fast food places dominating the small town.
These differences are exemplified when comparing obesity rates: 33.1% in Oktibbeha County (County that Starkville, MS is in) and 19.0% in Santa Clara County (County that Los Altos, CA is in). In Starkville, people are more likely to purchase cheaper, unhealthier foods because 1) it's more affordable and 2) it's more accessible. The differences in the poverty rate and median income of the two areas showcase the differences in their obesity rates as well. This means that an area's obesity rate could be an indicator of affluence and economic status.
So the question remains: Is obesity a choice, a result of one's bad dietary decisions? It's hard to say.
Sources:
- https://datausa.io/profile/geo/los-altos-ca
- https://datausa.io/profile/geo/columbia-mo/https://www.opendatanetwork.com/entity/0500000US28105-0500000US13009/Oktibbeha_County_MS-Baldwin_County_GA/health.health_behaviors.adult_obesity_value?year=2015
- http://www.city-data.com/city/Los-Altos-California.html
- https://datausa.io/profile/geo/starkville-ms
- https://patch.com/california/paloalto/palo-alto-children-significantly-less-obese-than-average
I love how you talked about the socioeconomic status of the different places you have lived in and how the amount of options is so varied. When I went to Taiwan and other Asian countries, I saw a lot of relatively cheap options as well. However, many of those options all had meat, vegetables and not much fried food. How can the availability and culture affect food choice?
ReplyDeleteI think this is a very interesting point, people socioeconomic status' definitely affect their method of consumption and what they consume. Living in Los Altos it is hard to understand what people undergo in different areas. We have access to so many options of healthy food. Even our school cafeteria offers students fresh fruit with every meal. However in other parts of the country, schools many have little to no incentives to give students healthy food. Or the government may have no incentives to have grocery stores in their area. They may think of it as a loss of profit and waste of time. We should be lucky that we live in a place that provides us with choices to keep ourselves healthy, whereas other people do not have the same resources as us.
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