19/8/11

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karnythia: The image is of a map of the USA with a key that identifies restaurants by color. The map is almost blocked out by McDonald’s restaurants. It only reflects a handful of the major fast food chains, primarily those of the burger persuasion including Wendy’s, Sonic, Burger King, Dairy Queen & Hardee’s. Taco Bell, KFC, Popeye’s, Arby’s & a number of pizza restaurants like Domino’s or Pizza Hut aren’t reflected in the map key. Add in those chains, as well as local chains like Brahm’s or Giordano’s, & I imagine the US would look like it is wall to wall with restaurants. Not grocery stores & certainly not grocery stores with healthy easy to prepare meals at reasonable prices. You’d think this article with its indictment of fast food swamps would talk about all of the ways access to food in the US is a problem for the poor. After all you can’t use food stamps at Wendy’s, & many people who fall into the gap between qualifying for food stamps and actually being able to afford healthy food face other obstacles. Aside from a few lines in the middle it skims past all of those issues in favor of focusing on obesity as the primary sign of ill health. It doesn’t talk about the kind of poverty where refrigeration & cooking equipment isn’t an option, the time investment involved in grocery shopping & cooking from scratch (a serious concern for the working poor who may have multiple jobs), rising gas costs, or the limitations a physical or mental disability might place on someone in terms of buying and preparing food. But all of these things are factors in our population’s less than stellar health outlook. As is lack of access to preventive health care, high rates of stress, pollution, etc. I don’t expect an article to cover every facet of the problem, but why this focus on weight as the be all, end all indicator? We know that there’s more to health than numbers on a scale right? And that shaming people for eating is a great recipe for creating eating disorders right? And of course, the big business of fast food isn’t super concerned with the health of consumers. But, can we try just once getting at the root of the problem instead of taking the fat phobic, body policing, food shaming route? Would that be so hard?

karnythia:

The image is of a map of the USA with a key that identifies restaurants by color. The map is almost blocked out by McDonald’s restaurants. It only reflects a handful of the major fast food chains, primarily those of the burger persuasion including Wendy’s, Sonic, Burger King, Dairy Queen & Hardee’s. Taco Bell, KFC, Popeye’s, Arby’s & a number of pizza restaurants like Domino’s or Pizza Hut aren’t reflected in the map key. Add in those chains, as well as local chains like Brahm’s or Giordano’s, & I imagine the US would look like it is wall to wall with restaurants. Not grocery stores & certainly not grocery stores with healthy easy to prepare meals at reasonable prices.

You’d think this article with its indictment of fast food swamps would talk about all of the ways access to food in the US is a problem for the poor. After all you can’t use food stamps at Wendy’s, & many people who fall into the gap between qualifying for food stamps and actually being able to afford healthy food face other obstacles. Aside from a few lines in the middle it skims past all of those issues in favor of focusing on obesity as the primary sign of ill health. It doesn’t talk about the kind of poverty where refrigeration & cooking equipment isn’t an option, the time investment involved in grocery shopping & cooking from scratch (a serious concern for the working poor who may have multiple jobs), rising gas costs, or the limitations a physical or mental disability might place on someone in terms of buying and preparing food.

But all of these things are factors in our population’s less than stellar health outlook. As is lack of access to preventive health care, high rates of stress, pollution, etc. I don’t expect an article to cover every facet of the problem, but why this focus on weight as the be all, end all indicator? We know that there’s more to health than numbers on a scale right? And that shaming people for eating is a great recipe for creating eating disorders right? And of course, the big business of fast food isn’t super concerned with the health of consumers. But, can we try just once getting at the root of the problem instead of taking the fat phobic, body policing, food shaming route? Would that be so hard?

Notes:

  1. mzhummina reblogged this from robot-heart-politics
  2. geewhathappensnext reblogged this from karnythia
  3. bodiesturntozombies answered: Yes.
  4. allcapsdoom reblogged this from karnythia
  5. absoluterobert reblogged this from eyesinmysoul and added:
    And where the fuck is Checkers?
  6. cloakedartichoke reblogged this from iamlittlei
  7. iamlittlei reblogged this from speakers-corner
  8. speakers-corner reblogged this from robot-heart-politics
  9. newslang77 reblogged this from robot-heart-politics
  10. chauvinistsushi reblogged this from robot-heart-politics
  11. brandnewboxofmatches reblogged this from robot-heart-politics
  12. niachanel reblogged this from crissle
  13. hamburgerjack reblogged this from karnythia
  14. eyesinmysoul reblogged this from crissle and added:
    There is seriously not enough Sonic on this map though.
  15. crissle reblogged this from karnythia and added:
    SHOUT OUT TO SONIC THO. THAT SHIT GOOD AS FUCK.
  16. karnythia posted this
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