The Link Between Poverty, Obesity and Diabetes

In 2008 49 mil­lion Americans–including 16.7 mil­lion children–lived in a home at risk of not hav­ing enough food on the table every day. After work­ing in Haiti, the poor­est coun­try in the Western hemi­sphere, I learned that one in two Haitians wake up every day not know­ing where their next meal will come from. But right here in the wealth­i­est nation in the world, one in five chil­dren live in poverty, one in four chil­dren live on food stamps, and one in 10 peo­ple don’t know where their next meal will come from.

The Census Bureau recently reported that the nation’s poverty rate increased to 14.3 per­cent in 2009—the high­est level we’ve seen since 1994. 43.6 mil­lion Americans lived below the poverty line in 2009, earn­ing less than $21,954 per year for a fam­ily of four or $10,956 for an indi­vid­ual. We now have the high­est num­ber of peo­ple liv­ing on the thresh­old of poverty in the his­tory of gov­ern­ment record keeping.

The poor­est areas of the coun­try are also the sick­est and have the high­est rates of obe­sity, dia­betes, and pre­ma­ture death. These peo­ple are dying younger, and life expectancy is plum­met­ing in the poor­est states. These states also hap­pen to be the fat­test. For exam­ple, Mississippi—the poor­est state in the union—has poverty rates over 20 per­cent, obe­sity rates over 33 per­cent, and extremely high child­hood obe­sity rates. This is no coincidence.

How does not hav­ing enough to eat cause obe­sity, dia­betes, heart dis­ease, can­cer, and early death? Let’s investigate.

Food Insecurity: The Root of Obesity and Disease

The Life Sciences Research Office says food inse­cu­rity exists “when­ever the avail­abil­ity of nutri­tion­ally ade­quate and safe foods or the abil­ity to acquire accept­able foods in socially accept­able ways (e.g., with­out resort­ing to emer­gency food sup­plies, scav­eng­ing, steal­ing, or other cop­ing strate­gies) is lim­ited or uncer­tain.” This may mean going hun­gry for some. But for a large por­tion of Americans float­ing on or sink­ing beneath the poverty line this means binge­ing on cheap, sug­ary, starchy, fatty calo­ries in order to avoid hunger.

Many poor peo­ple in this coun­try are con­sum­ing an excess of nutritionally-depleted, cheap calo­ries from sodas, processed foods, and junk food. These folks scarcely eat whole, fresh foods at all, and for good rea­son: We have made calo­ries cheap, but real food expensive.

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