Economic Levels vs. Food Choices
Overtime the ability to make healthy food choices while living in a community of low class Americans has become difficult to do. Poor communities are forced to make unhealthy decisions because they are not offered affordable, organic foods at their neighborhood markets. This causes drastic increases in obesity cases across the country and also sets boundaries between low class and high class.
In order to change this, the government needs to construct more markets with broad choices of healthy meals and also offer help to low class citizens with cheaper alternatives of ood of better quality. Income If a single-parent household of six depends on a minimum wage budget, their food choices are affected. With the goal of stretching their budget in order to feed many mouths, they turn to Junk food as an alternative. Although they can buy an excessive amount of cheap food, that cheap food is often high caloric and unhealthy for young children.
Many parents disregard the quality of the foods because they Just see it as an alimentation they can afford. In other words to many low class families food is scarce and regardless of whether is healthy or not, it keeps they from starvation. Overall, less income leads to more quantities of unhealthy foods and since high class households can afford more pricey organic foods, their food choices increase in quality. Food Availability People start to learn to like foods that are appropriate to their class while they are children. Children’s habits are based are what they are taught to eat. … many poor neighborhoods are, indeed, food deserts (as cited in Miller, 2010 pg. 117) and that causes these families to have Junk food and fattening meals at their reach. As opposed to wealthier communities that have many Safeways and Wholefoods vailable in their neighborhoods where they have access to healthy food. This causes obesity to rise mostly in these low income communities because they are so used to driving five minutes to a McDonalds rather than a market that is half an hour away that has foods they cannot even afford.
They save themselves the time and humiliation they are put through when they see that the money they spend on a healthy meal that will last two days can be switched for unhealthier food that will fill them faster and last longer. Supermarkets have tried to build markets with organic ood but it comes obvious to investors that if they build one of their properties in a neighborhood that will not be able to buy have their products, they are in for a loss. “Without access to healthy foods, a nutritious diet and good health are out of reach.
And without grocery stores and other fresh food retailers, communities are missing the commercial nubs that make neighborhoods livable, and help local economies thrive. ” (The Food Trust Organization, 1992) Expensive Healthy Foods In 2010 CBSNews brought forth an update that explained to Americans the importance of eating healthier for the sake of setting an example for younger enerations and the Journal Health Affairs said that “… if they did that, they would add hundreds more dollars to their annual grocery bill. When informed about this, many low class families dreaded the idea that they would have to do the impossible Just to provide their family with healthier meals. Two children attending the same public school, for example, would differ in the kinds of foods they would be eating for lunch since the child coming from a high class family can afford healthier foods and is used to eating those foods. Some children are exposed to different varieties of meals rowing up and those children mostly grow up in small high class families that have no problem spending more on higher quality meals.
Low Class vs. High Class This separation between low class and high class has become more obvious as a decrease in income around the world has come forth. Healthy foods have become a luxury only wealthy families can afford to enjoy.
