I'm all for giving grocery stores who carry a wide variety of foods tax breaks and incentives for locating in poorer neighborhoods, but it's not going to do a whole lot of good if the people living in those neighborhoods can't afford the fresh/frozen fruits and veggies, all they can afford is the over-processed, cheap, calorie-dense foods.
I'm also all for improving walking/bike paths, and parks in those areas. But it does no good to have them if the area is not safe enough for them to be used. You can have all the space to exercise and walk that you want, but if I'm taking a big risk of being mugged/robbed/raped/whatever if I use those spaces, my safety is going to win out over taking a walk, riding bike, etc.
Just because people have access to a wide variety of food, and have options for exercise and avail themselves of those things doesn't mean they will automatically get thin (or go from "obese" to "overweight" or "overweight" to "normal"). It also doesn't automatically mean they will be healthier. They might be, but health is such an individual thing, that varies widely from person to person, there is no way of predicting who will benefit. None of this takes into consideration genetics or family history, it's just automatically assumed that if a fat person eats "right" and gets the recommended amount of exercise, they will no longer be fat, and therefore will be healthy.
What about the stress they encounter in their daily lives? That has an effect on health also. If peoples' lives aren't going to be made better by reducing the economic stress/stress from biases against POC/fat/poverty/whatever, all the healthy food in the world and no amount of exercise is going to make them truly healthy (since health is just more than physical, it's also mental, emotional, and spiritual). All of these stressors need to be addressed, not just the food and exercise segment of health.
And for these two morons:
Walking into a McDonald's in San Bernardino on Monday morning, Mark Olson, 48, and Linda Miller, 57, said people who are obese shouldn't blame anyone but themselves.
Just because there's a concentration of fast food outlets in a neighborhood doesn't mean residents can't make a sandwich and bring it to work, they said. And it's cheaper, too.
"People are just lazy," Miller said.
Yeah, fat people need to blame themselves because they didn't pick parents with the genes for being thin. They need to blame themselves because they are stuck in poverty (don't let them get a good education, don't make college affordable, and for all the gods' sake, don't end the prejudice that keeps them from getting hired at a company that pays well and has benefits so they can get out of poverty if they happen to luck out and get a good education).
And Ms. Miller and Mr. Olson, why aren't you eating a sandwich you made at home? It's cheaper, according to you. But do you both happen to be thin/average/"normal" and that's why it's ok for you to eat fast food? You're automatically "healthy" because you aren't fat? Give me a break, if fast food is unhealthy for fat people, it isn't any better for thin/average/"normal" people. Does your eating fast food mean you're lazy too? Oh, but if you're not fat, you obviously can't be lazy, only fat people are lazy. Yeah right, and if you believe all that, I have a bridge for sale.
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