National Propaganda Radio has really sunk to a special low

[Elidor]

Can you spot the problem with this article?

For Some Ohioans, Even Meat Is Out Of Reach
by Yuki Noguchi



Nunez and most of her siblings and their spouses are unemployed and rely on government assistance and food stamps. Some have part-time jobs, but working is made more difficult with no car or public transportation.

Nunez, 40, has never worked and has no high school degree. She says a car accident 17 years ago left her depressed and disabled, incapable of getting a job. Instead, she and her daughter, Angelica Hernandez, survive on a $637 Social Security check and $102 in food stamps.

People tell Nunez her daughter could get more money in public assistance if she had a child.

"A lot of people have told me, 'Why don't your daughter have a kid?'"

They both reject that as a plan.

"I'm trying to get a job," Hernandez says. "I just can't get a job."

The rising cost of food means their money gets them about a third fewer bags of groceries — $100 used to buy about 12 bags of groceries, but now it's more like seven or eight. So they cut back on expensive items like meat, and they don't buy extras like ice cream anymore. Instead, they eat a lot of starches like potatoes and noodles.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92592545

Now is this story really about the high price of food? Perhaps you noticed the delicate subtext underlying most of the story. (I'll let someone else sum it up. Just six words will capture it.) Are these two ladies average representatives of the lower class? Or might there be a special piquancy to having them as subjects? I'm not exactly perceptive to subtleties. You have to hit me over the head with things. So I'm pretty amazed by this article, because subtlety clearly was not part of the agenda.

[Muttocracy]

1. I heard this the other day - I don't know where to begin on what's wrong

with both the story (which seemed like a non-story to me) and the chaos of these peoples' lives.

[monmouth]

2. The picture indicates two overweight/obese women who evidently

are made to look as if they both eat well and plenty. Living off the dole means much rice, beans and other starches. It's supposed to make you NOT be empathetic toward their situation. A new low is right and subtlety was NOT part of the agenda. Disgusting.

[slackmaster]

17. I heard the piece on the radio - The picture shifted my viewpoint only a little

Those women need diet counseling in a big way.

It is possible to eat a proper, balanced diet on a tight budget. They clearly don't know how.

Their weight is likely to lead to problems like hypertension and Type II diabetes. This is a serious public health issue.

Being poor does not mean you have to be fat.

[ikojo]

3. They have Hispanic surnames

which reinforces the myth that it's lazy and undeserving minorities who are feeding at the government trough.
So much for the liberal media.

[Elidor]

8. I didn't notice that

Thanks for pointing it out.

[slackmaster]

18. The same kind of thing could be said regardless of who they chose as subjects

Their Hispanic heritage is not the issue.

[SharonAnn]

24. "Nunez has never worked and doesn't have a high school degree." 'Nuff said.

[slackmaster]

26. Would you feel better if NPR had picked thin white male employed high-school graduates?

Should journalists cherry-pick their subjects so as not to raise any possible issues of ethnicity, race, gender, physical appearance, etc.?

What kind of remedy could be applied to the alleged problem that wouldn't result in a reduction of information, the deliberate creation of a puff piece, or nothing at all being produced?

[bbinacan]

4. I'm sorry but I

can't help myself. WTF are they eating that makes them so fat? When I've needed to lose weight, I found my food bill went down.

[Bob Dobbs]

5. It's working.

Thanks for proving the OP's point.

[bbinacan]

6. Please elaborate

That is if you're able.

[justaregularperson]

7. You won't "get it" even if it is explained.

Sorry. You need to think about your response in context to the OP.

[Elidor]

9. Poor people are fat and lazy

Especially people with ethnic surnames. That is the underlying theme of this wretched excuse for journimalism.

[progdonkey]

12. cheap food is calorie-dense food...

If you can only afford to spend $3 on dinner--which is also going to have to be quick so you can make it on time to your third job--what foods are available to you?

Fast food and cheap frozen entrees. It's cheap, quick, and very calorie-dense.

Seeing a fat poor person shouldn't disgust you: seeing a fat rich person should. They have the money and time to pay for healthy, natural (i.e. non-processed) meals and yet they stuff their gullets with food and refuse to go to a gym, while poor people don't have the time or the money to be picky about what they eat. They need cheap food that doesn't take very long to prepare (or is ready-made).

[Night_Nurse]

13. From a student living on ramen noodles...

your post nails it. Thank you.

Another point: In the inner cities (like Detroit), there are few major grocery stores that carry fresh and healthy food. Many of the poor shop at the neighborhood liquor stores, which carry overpriced junk food - or if there is a local market, the food is often found to be substandard (expired meat, etc). Of course, there's a McD's on every corner in the 'hood. :eyes:

It's no wonder that the poor have a higher rate of obesity, hypertension, renal failure, and other health issues than the rest of the population.

[ikojo]

15. Not only do poor people suffer from diseases such

as hypertension and such due to poor food choices but they also suffer from these diseases due to the huge amount of stress put upon one when one is poor. Simply trying to survive every day as a low income American is not easy and is incredibly stressful. There was a New York Times magazine article a few years ago about poor blacks who are dying of diseases usually found in elderly people.

[bbinacan]

23. I ate today for less then $5

Breakfast = Nutri Grain Breakfast bar

Lunch = Vegetable Beef Soup

Dinner = Healthy Choice Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo.

All prepared in a very short time and not loaded with calories.

[progdonkey]

27. yeah, and you're malnourished...

A Kellog's Nutri-grain bar: about 130 cal.

Campbell's low sodium chunky vegetable beef soup: 170 cal.

Healty Choice Chicken Broccoli Alfredo: 300 cal.

Total: 600 cal.

The average recommended daily caloric intake for an average sized person is 2500 calories for men and 1900 for women.

Unless you're an eight-year-old waifish girl, you need to eat a hell of a lot more than 600 calories a day--not to mention being able to have the energy to work two or three jobs for 16 hours a day.

To bring your list to healthy levels (on average, as I of course have no idea whether you may in fact be said eight-year-old waifish girl, though then I'd wonder if the reason you're so thin is because you only eat 600 calories a day), you'd have to triple it if you're a female and quadruple it if you're a male. So, instead of $5 and starving, you're spending $15-20 and getting the daily recommended allowance. The thing is, one of those Hardee's heartkiller burgers plus fries has about 2000 calories and costs $5-$7 without a soda, so if you're only making $7 an hour and need to work every available second just to cover rent, what are you going to buy? A bunch of soup cans that you still need a pot and stove to cook in, or a big tasty burger that's ready-made and lets you get back to work right away?

You know what's an even cheaper eating plan? Starvation--which is just about as healthy as the plan you've laid out. And it doesn't cost a penny!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. Poor people eat a lot of starches, which are cheap

but also very fattening. If your food isn't nutritious or tasty, you tend to eat more of it, odd as that may sound. Also, if you're malnourished, you get a craving for sweets, and sugary foods are relatively inexpensive--but they pack on the pounds faster than anything.

[Tutonic]

11. Thank you. This is an important point. They can't afford the lean protein or

packaged diet meals--so they turn to rice, beans, potatoes, other starches. And yes the subtle racism in the story is unbelievable.

[slackmaster]

20. Inexpensive cuts of meat CAN be prepared in ways that reduce fat content and yield a tasty meal

That's what the concept of barbecue is all about.

There is nothing in a "packaged diet meal" that can't be duplicated by buying appropriate foods and preparing them to be appealing but not fattening.

[Recursion]

29. I'd take meat over starch any day if I wanted to lose weight

We've gone from a finding a long time ago that animal fats can contribute to obesity to ignoring the very obvious and well-known fact that starches and hydrogenated oils do contribute to obesity.

[slackmaster]

19. I know poor people who eat very healthy, non-fattening diets

It's not hard to do.

Those women need some education, and encouragement to eat better food.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. But who is going to provide such education?

Home ec. has been cut back in schools.

The only store I ever knew that provided classes in cheap, nutritious cooking was the New Haven Food Co-op in the 1970s.

[slackmaster]

25. I don't know - If they were my neighbors I'd buy them a wok and teach them stir-fry cooking

Small amounts of seasoned meat for flavor, lots of vegetables, low fat and low carbs. Endless combinations of nutritous, flavorful, filling meals using low-cost, seasonal, fresh ingredients.

Damn, I'm getting hungry now.

Home ec. has been cut back in schools.

True enough, but it was taught when Gloria Nunez was of high school age. (But she didn't finish high school, so there you go.)

[ikojo]

14. NPR and other media outlets need to do a story

on dependent corporations. Why hasn't there been more of a cry about the thousands of names turned over by the bank clerk in Liechtenstein? Thousands of very well off AMERICANS who created shell accounts in order to avoid their responsibility to pay taxes. Taxes which provide for roads, police and fire protection, clean water, "safe" food, and many other things.

Wow! But let a POOR person talk about how difficult it is to get by on the pittance received for welfare then they find overweight non white people to reinforce every stereotype people have of those on welfare.

[pepperbear]

16. AND TO PROVE THE OP's POINT, here's the same story from the land of the unwashed....

http://forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?t=746471&page=2

[slackmaster]

21. Sorry Hardhead, you've got it wrong

It was made for radio. Retrofitting it with that photo for the Web causes a shift in perception because it adds information that cannot easily be communicated in audio. The direction that shift takes you depends on your personal biases and point of view.

I heard it on the radio, then someone brought this thread to my attention. As someone who is working on a weight problem and hypertension, my reaction is to feel more sorry for those women than I did before I saw the photo. They don't just need jobs and finanacial assistance. They need nutrition counseling and some exercise too. Otherwise they are facing major health problems which will cost more public money to treat, and shortened lives.

People on the right will view the piece as unintentionally humorous because they assume a left-wing bias in the media - A tear-jerker story that went awry because the nanny-staters at NPR are blind to the absurdity of a story about overweight people bemoaning the fact that they can no longer afford "ice cream and other extras".

Someone who is inclined to see right-wing bias in the media will see this as an example of that - The poor people that NPR chose to highlight happen to be Hispanic, overweight, and lacking in education, therefore NPR is saying all poor people are that way.

To someone in the middle ( :hi: ), attributing either a far left or far right bias to NPR seems absurd. If I were the editor of the NPR Web site I would not have posted that photo because of the inevitable misunderstandings it would cause. Maybe just their faces, showing sincerity, despair, and hopelessness. That way things would take their natural course. People on the left would feel sympathy for the poor, and people on the right would go on bemoaning the "welfare state" as usual. Nobody would have to think very much.

[yellowcanine]

28. "National Propaganda Radio"??? Why do you repeat the wingnut meme?

Don't repeat rightwing big lies.