UPenn study on MBTA

[Patrick]

A healthy diet can be had without much money (fruit and veggies at closing time at Haymarket, e.g.) The root cause of obesity is ignorance, and that can't exactly be blamed on politicians only, if at all.

Surely people who don't avail themselves of all the free info available on line, in public libraries, etc., bear at least a part of the responsability.

Obesity, which is a result of wrong personal choices, will not be helped by infantilizing the poor as the Birkesntock brigade is want to.

As for blaming ADA for obesity, that's bollocks too. Try the fact that in most of this wretched country walking will simply not get you anywhere.

In general, ADA is just a reflection of prevailing, and changing, social standards.

justin

Justin --

All good points. I meant not so much to blame the politicians as to say as the result of their policies obesity is a consequence/side effect....though in no way do I believe they engineered policies specifically targeted at making people more fat.

You said the root cause of obsesity is ignorance, correct? That is essentially what I meant as well, although I substituted 'lack of education' for 'ignorance' and I attributed the lack of education to lower incomes, which I see as the result of political decisions (not individually, but across numbers, as in certain classes are doomed from the start on average). This can be debated, for sure, however if we consider the fact that Kennedy'Johnson tax cuts were aimed at the middle class, and Bush tax cuts are aimed at the wealthy, we can immediately see a different political perspective, aimed at helping different classes, depending on party affiliation. So, with more money and programs going to help the middle and lower classes, I feel as if education would become more attainable for the people who need it the most, thus educating the ignorant and ending obesity, both because people know better not to eat as trashy foods and because they can afford not to eat McDonalds with the higher paying jobs they would secure. This would never happen, however, except for in a fantasy world, so for all of my complaints, I might as well not have written a word of this paragraph...there will always be a large enough percentage of the population who are arrogant and snobby, like dude, who would never allow helping the underclasses to become a reality...

 

[bosdevelopment]

ok how exactly would you help the lower class?


you know, you can help them now instead of reading this. Nobody's stopping you.

 

[Patrick]

ok how exactly would you help the lower class?


you know, you can help them now instead of reading this. Nobody's stopping you.

I don't mean to come across as a complainer who sits on his ass all day. my intention was to call attention to the policies that hurt the poor. I'd like to see those brought to an end and then see the poor help themselves. I have volunteered in soup kitchens before etc and stuff like that doesn't help the poor for more than one night. I'm talking long range policies aimed at equality of opportunity. There will always be people on the bottom, but if we had equality of opportunity in this country then we really could say "its your own fault" to those who don't become successful in life.

To help the poor I would endorse policies that are not just aimed at them in particular, but at everyone in the country. That is, I would like to see less money spent on things like Iraq (I know its impossible to just pull out, but honestly this was not a well thought out war and it is costing tons of money that could be put to use on other things) and more money spent on making sure everyone has a decent education. No Child Left Behind hasn't seem to have done anything much at all. Im not a policy analyst, but something needs to be done that actually works. Conservative or liberal you have to agree with me on this, we must educate our people.