Interesting article in USA Today this morning. I will try to copy and paste, as I'm not sure how long the link will be functional for.
The question that I kept going back to after reading the article was: are people heavier because they are lower income, or do the same issues that cause them to be heavier also cause them to earn less?
Anywho:
Can only the rich afford to be thin?
By Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY
Like millions of Americans, Christine Davies would like to lose a little weight. The 37-year-old paralegal from Tacoma, Wash., says she's 30 pounds heavier than she should be.
And like millions of Americans, she has experimented with whatever is the diet du jour. But in each case, not for long. It wasn't just the discipline required. It was the price tag. (Related item: Diet plans are budget busters)
"I tried both the Atkins and South Beach diets, but pound for pound, protein is a lot more expensive than carbs," she says. "The South Beach diet recommends fish about three times a week. I'd have to eat canned tuna three times a week to afford it, and I get tired of eating the same foods.
"Plus, you have to cook everything yourself," she says. "Following it on a day-to-day schedule would be completely impossible because of the complexity of the recipes and the cost of the foods."
She'll get little argument from Phil Lempert, one of the nation's leading experts on food prices and grocery-store shopping. Using exclusive data from AC Nielsen and menus from the best-selling diet books, Lempert calculates that strict adherence to the low-carb, meat lovers' Atkins diet would cost about $100 a week (presuming you eat all meals at home). The salmon-rich South Beach diet priced out at almost $90 a week.
Too expensive for you? Make substitutions
Some experts with the Atkins and South Beach diets say there are ways to pare down the cost of following those plans, although it may require eating the same foods more often.
The trick is to make trade-offs.
Marie Almon, a registered dietitian who works with cardiologist Arthur Agatston, author of The South Beach Diet, suggests that cost-conscious dieters:
• Use the recipes with chicken breasts instead of the ones with salmon and orange roughy.
• Buy a deep green lettuce that's on sale instead of endive and mixed greens.
• Use lean boiled ham instead of Canadian bacon.
• Substitute less expensive fresh or frozen vegetables such as green beans for more costly ones.
Colette Heimowitz, a nutritionist for the Atkins companies, says adherents to that plan can trim costs by using lower-cost proteins, such as tofu, eggs, stews and cheaper cuts of chicken and meats.
And no matter what diet you're on, whether one of the trendy plans or a more tradional weight-loss program, it probably will be less expensive if you cook at home. "You can cook for so much less, and you can provide a much better diet for your family," says Marilyn Townsend, a nutrition specialist at the University of California-Davis.
She blames some of Americans' weight problems on lack of cooking ability. Still, she concedes, given the pressures of earning a living and keeping a house, "cooking is not on many people's radar as a valuable skill."
That's far more than the $35 that Davies spends at the grocery store each week to feed herself.
And it's not just fad diets that can be costly. Some traditional weight-loss and good-nutrition diets recommended by major health groups emphasize lean meat, fish and a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, all pretty pricey for Davies, who feeds a family of four, including two children, ages 10 and 4, and a stay-at-home husband, on a pasta-and-hot-dogs food budget.
To help ends meet on a $42,000-a-year salary ($26,000 after taxes and health insurance premiums), she shops at several stores to get the best food prices. But salmon is $4 to $7 a pound, compared with hot dogs for $1 a pound. She sticks to lower-priced fruits such as apples and bananas, rarely splurging on berries, grapes, peaches or plums.
Bottom line: Dieting is too expensive for Davies and millions of Americans like her. Nutrition experts are beginning to worry that America's war on obesity might be lost because, for many people, it costs too much — in time and in money.
"The rich can afford to be thin in America, and the poor can't," says Barry Popkin, a nutrition professor at the school of public health at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
"If you make a decent income and decide to lose some weight, you can eat grilled chicken, salads and fresh mango, and play a little tennis," says Adam Drewnowski, director of the Center for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Washington-Seattle. "But a person in a lower-paying job or working two or three jobs is in no position to do that.
"To suggest to the lower middle class or poor that they eat a diet filled with foods like red snapper, radicchio, fresh tomatoes, baby lamb chops, olive oil and merlot wine is blatant economic elitism."
Lower income, overweight
Federal researchers are studying the relationship between lower incomes and higher percentages of overweight, but some government statistics already show that link:
About 60.5% of people who earn $15,000 to $75,000 are overweight or obese, compared with 56% of people who earn more than $75,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2002 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a large state-based telephone system in which 250,000 participants report their own weight and height. (When adults are actually weighed and measured, about 65% of people overall weigh too much.)
The disparity is even more obvious when it comes to obesity (30 or more pounds overweight), according to the National Health Interview Survey from 1999 to 2001. For people below the poverty level, which was then defined as anyone with an annual household income of less than about $17,000, about 26% were obese, compared with 18% of those with incomes of $67,000 or more.
Drewnowski, who reviewed the latest research and published a review article on the subject in the January issue of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, is not surprised.
"What's really cheap are foods made with refined flour, added sugar and corn syrup and added fat." People with limited income, he says, "buy foods that fill them up, and who's to blame them? They get the most calories for their money."
Indeed, calorie per calorie, chips are usually cheaper than fresh asparagus; bulk cookies are less expensive than raspberries. Sure, rice and beans are inexpensive, Drewnowski says. "But it's kind of patrician to say, 'The rich can eat a diet high in antioxidants with lots of vegetables and salmon, but for everyone else, rice and beans are good enough.' "
Beyond pricing, access also could be a problem for people who are not as well off. Numerous studies have found that grocery stores in lower-income areas offer far fewer healthful food options.
'Food deserts'
Troy Blanchard, an assistant professor of sociology at Mississippi State University in Starkville, did an analysis that examined where large supermarkets and super-center stores are located in comparison with the U.S. population and found pockets of what he describes as "food deserts" — some in inner-city neighborhoods, but some in more generalized areas. He cites, for example, a large swath from North Dakota down through West Texas as having many major "food deserts."
People who live in these "deserts" typically need to drive or take a bus for a half-hour or more to get to a major store; otherwise they need to rely on small grocery stores, convenience markets and "hybrid gas stations" where they choose from a smaller selection of food items at higher prices, Blanchard says. The stores may have hot dogs, fried chicken, doughnuts, deli meats, frozen pizza, pork rinds, candy and some canned foods, but they don't have many — if any — fresh fruits and vegetables.
Most of the poor in America live in urban areas and have "crummy" grocery stores where they often pay more for poorer-quality food, Popkin says.
What's on the menu?
And that pretty much puts the nation's most popular diets out of reach. One day's menu on the South Beach diet, for example, includes fresh strawberries, Mediterranean chicken salad, spinach-stuffed salmon fillet, tossed salad with olive oil, and chocolate-dipped strawberries.
One day on the Atkins 45-grams-of-carbs-a-day plan includes tomato stuffed with shrimp salad, braised short ribs, Canadian bacon, raspberries and a green salad with vinaigrette. Hardly the kinds of items you'd find in a convenience market.
Still, Davies says, cost may be the biggest hurdle for most people trying to win the battle of the bulge. And no new academic study or government statistics are likely to convince her otherwise.
"There's a perception that people spend their food budget on processed foods such as cans of Spaghettios and boxes of macaroni and cheese because they are too lazy to eat healthy. But I think people would eat a lot healthier if they could afford to purchase fresh foods."
Contributing: Anthony DeBarros
Sidebar article:
Diet plans: Budget busters
By Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY
Taking a few inches off your waist can also take a good chunk out of your pocketbook — especially if you go with the wildly popular Atkins or South Beach diet. "Be prepared to dip into your budget," grocery guru Phil Lempert warns.
Phil Lempert is the author of Being the Shopper: Understanding the Buyer's Choice.
By Bob Riha Jr., USA TODAY
USA TODAY asked Lempert to calculate the cost for a dieter to stick to the meal plans on the low-carb Atkins program and the fish-and-fowl-rich South Beach diet. For comparison purposes, he also analyzed the cost of following the government's Thrifty Food Plan, which was created by the Department of Agriculture not for weight loss but to help budget-conscious consumers meet the nutritional recommendations of the Food Guide Pyramid and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. (Related item: Can only the rich afford to be thin?)
Using national grocery store data provided exclusively by AC Nielsen and his own supermarket research, Lempert analyzed the first three days of meal plans from Atkins for Life by Robert C. Atkins, three days of meals from Phase 2 of The South Beach Diet by Arthur Agatston, and three days of the Thrifty Food Plan. In each case, his calculations were based on the cost for one person to cook all meals at home.
A caveat: Food prices vary among regions and supermarkets, and measurements of ingredients aren't always precise, but Lempert's totals should give dieters a realistic idea of how big a bite their diet will take from their grocery budget.
When a specific brand of a product was not given in the meal plan, Lempert used store and generic brands to keep costs down. He also cut costs by, among other things, using the price of farm-raised salmon instead of wild salmon.
Meet the expert
Phil Lempert is one of the country's leading experts on supermarket shopping. He also is:
• Author of five books on the topic, including Being the Shopper: Understanding the Buyer's Choice.
• Founder of
www.supermarketguru.com
• Food editor of NBC's Today show
• Host of the WOR syndicated radio show Shopping Smart
His findings:
• The Atkins diet's ongoing weight-loss phase (45 grams of carbs a day) averaged $14.27 a day, ranging from $11.04 to $15.97.
• South Beach diet's Phase 2 averaged $12.78 a day, ranging from $11.16 to $14.90.
• The Thrifty Food Plan from the USDA (
www.cnpp.usda.gov/Pubs/Cookbook/thriftym.pdf) averaged $6.22 a day, ranging from $6 to $6.61. (The government's calculation is slightly lower.)
"The more I've worked on this, the more it has really become apparent that our obesity problem in the U.S. is directly linked to the fact that eating foods that are healthy or in this case lower carb costs more," Lempert says. "It's hard for lower-income and middle-income people to be on these diets. We need to help this population eat healthier."
The salmon-based dinners on the Atkins and South Beach menus, for example, are far more expensive than the ground beef and noodle casserole in the government's diet. Also, the olive oil, berries, fresh vegetables and wide variety of other ingredients in the recipes for these programs cost more than the fruits and vegetables used in the government plan, he says.
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