Money and Obesity

It’s easy to see the connection between money and obesity. You get richer; you drive to work and everywhere else; you gore yourself on tasty but unhealthy food and voila! You’re obese! Actually, you don’t even need to be rich to get obese. Even getting to middle class will do the trick.

Ironically, today you need to be better off to be able to fight obesity! As Matt Ridley points out:
“The ultra-rich have already solved it. Most of them are very thin these days, quite unlike in ancient times. That's because they can afford the solutions that work for them, from low-carb diets to personal trainers.”

When he read that, Eugene Wei mused over how times have changed:
“In places of food scarcity, obesity can be a sign of wealth. However, in the U.S. today, it's the reverse: the wealthy can afford to hack the diet and lifestyle issues that lead to obesity in poorer socioeconomic groups.”

So yes, money is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for obesity. Some take it too far when they conclude that the converse, namely that money is a necessary condition to avoid obesity, is also true. Ridley, for example, said:
“It would be nice to find a way for people to lose weight without having to wait for them to get rich first.”

Except that isn’t at all necessary. Remember that old saying about prevention being better that cure? Good old, simple self-control can prevent this problem in the first place. And that’s just a character trait anyone can have or develop, isn’t it?

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarFebruary 17, 2016 at 4:51 PM

    Earlier, your last lines were the usual punch lines. This time you have done even better: your last paragraph said it all! Good.

    As I was reading, this thought was crossing my mind and I was not sure then what was going to be your sum up. I thought, "It's not really about richness and poverty, unless extremes are the issue. For all those who are midway, it is the mind". And you said it.

    How to bring this extraordinary monkey (I am sure you will follow this one - the mind is the monkey!)under control is one question that needs to be taken up sincerely, for the ever-so-many problems that confront us, not just obesity. It is a lot easier to bring almost anything else under control, but this monkey is the mightiest of all things! Anyway, so they say! :-)

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