I just have to bring this up…
If you’d like a good laugh, you’ve got to check out the comments in an old post of mine.
The post is called: Stop stealing food from the hungry!!
In that post, I first mention an article in which some estimates show that the number of overweight people in the world has surpassed the number of people that don’t get enough food.
Of course, me being me, I make a ridiculous joke that fat people are literally stealing hungry people’s food. I then PURPOSELY feature two photos of kids, one of an actual fat kid, and one photo of two (probably African) children with distended stomachs. The purpose was to mistakenly label both photos as fat kids to make a point. The point is that it’s kind of sad that the real fat kid is being fed a ton by his parents, with no regard for his health, while there are millions of starving children around the world that really are starving.
No, I’m not trying to reiterate the old saying that your mom used to tell you at dinner… “Finish your plate! There’s people starving in Africa!!!”
It’s different than that. It’s more like “DON’T finish your plate because there are people starving”.
I don’t know. I certainly have no idea how to go about getting starving children the nutrients they need, so I’m not going to speculate on that.
HOWEVER, I will speculate on how the real fat kid god fat, and how he can get un-fat.
Anyway, read the comments. Several different people threaten to have my blog shut down because I am an idiot for mistakenly labeling the starving children with big bellies as fat, despite the fact that I say in black and white that one photo features the effects of malnutrition.
It’s just amazing.
The most recent threat was to sue me. It cracked me up.
Aren’t you glad there’s so many people out there willing to state the obvious? So wait…are those kids malnourished?(!)
As someone who read the whole blog (and is fat but working on changing all my bad habits and not be fat anymore), I thought it was great. Differing opinions aren’t an automatic pass for people to act like asses. If my opinion differs, I’ll agree to disagree and move on…keep writing so I can keep reading!
Ironically, the actual fat kid pictured is probably malnourished as well.
It is entirely possible to consume an excess of calories, while consuming inadequate vitamins, minerals, and essential amino and fatty acids. For example, if you were to eat nothing but large quantities of hot pockets and miscellaneous snack foods, you could become obese while simultaneously being malnourished.
I think you just really like controversy and arguments. And personally, I don’t know if it’s a tax or a revamping of our farm bill, but I think it would be great if a banana would be cheaper than a bag of chips, and whole food in general would be cheaper/more accessible, and McDonalds and fast food and packaged junk a bit less so.
Julie, in most places a banana IS cheaper than a bag of chips. I’ve never paid more than 30 cents for a single banana, and a bag of chips, even the small one, is usually in the 1 dollar range…just sayin’
I think it depends on region, but it’s easier to get healthy food for a reasonable price in some areas than it is in others. For instance, I know someone who lives “up North” and it’s harder and more expensive to get fresh fruits and veggies, but I live in the Midwest, so it’s relatively easy for me. Sometimes in inner-city areas it’s harder for people to get to a real grocery store due to transportation issues (can’t afford a car and the nearest supermarket is several train-rides away) so they eat junk. I agree that it should be easier for people everywhere to get to healthy food, but it’s not the only reason people get obese. It’s easy to scapegoat one issue and say that it’s the one thing to blame, but people do sometimes just choose to eat too much, and the wrong stuff, even if they DO have access to healthy food at a reasonable price. I see it here all the time. The Kroger stores here have recently lowered all their prices on their produce, but I still see people loading their cart down with processed junk which is actually more expensive than the whole foods (fresh produce, rice, etc.) and then whipping out their foodstamp card to pay for it…