Editor’s Note: This is the second part of a three-part series on the obesity epidemic. Part Three will appear in the Thursday, Oct. 20 edition of The Chronicle and will address what college students can do to fight the obesity trend.
Theresa Martinez, a sociology professor at the U, remembers having to eat the unhealthiest types of foods growing up, as her Mexican family struggled to make ends meet in America.
Martinez said that because her family was poor, they had to eat cheap foods, which were usually high in fat, sugar and carbohydrates. She said that many poor families are forced to eat these types of foods because it’s all they can afford, and this often leads to obesity.
“It’s all about what you can afford at the grocery store,” she said. “And the cheapest foods are usually the worst foods.”
Her older siblings helped to support the family, and Martinez said she feels lucky to have escaped that lifestyle, but for many poor Americans, there is no escape.
In her research on obesity in America, U sociology professor Rebecca Utz found that race and income are strongly connected to obesity.
The “most disadvantaged peoples” in the areas of income and education, especially racial minorities, tend to be the most obese, she said.
According to her research, African-American women are the most obese group, with nearly 50 percent of that adult population being obese. Utz said this makes sense because African-American women are often the most disadvantaged in terms of education and income.
Compared with African-American women, white males are much less likely to be obese. It is clear that race, gender, income and education are playing a significant role in the obesity of some groups, Utz said.
Mexicans are the second-largest group of obese people, followed by Caucasians. The least obese group is Asians.
Asians are a minority group, though, and Utz said the differences between racial groups can be partially tied to cultural traditions, but they are more directly affected by socio-economic status.
The relation isn’t really about race but about class, and minorities just happen to make up the majority of the lower class, Martinez said.
Utz said that people with higher levels of education often know more about how to be healthy and eat right.
Martinez agreed that less educated people might not know how to eat healthily.
“(The) poor don’t always know what’s good for them. They often just get what’s on sale,” she said.
Natalie Corona, a U student majoring in fine arts, said some of the results of the study seem to make sense, but she was unsure about the value of the generalizations created by the study.
“Some of the connections between poverty and race make sense,” Corona said. “But I think it is hard to generalize an entire group of people.”
Utz says that education is becoming less a cause of division than income.
People with higher incomes can afford to buy the nutritious foods and spend time preparing them, while poor people often cannot, she said.
As a child, Martinez said she rarely ate fresh vegetables because they were too expensive and that probably the only way she and her siblings survived was by eating canned chilies from her uncle’s farm.
Martinez added that one can be obese and still be malnourished. This is not because one isn’t getting enough food, but because one isn’t getting the right types of food.
Another attributing factor in obesity among the lower class, Utz said, is that people with higher incomes have more time to exercise and can afford things such as gym memberships and exercise equipment.
Martinez said that people’s ability to afford health care could also impact their health, as the poor don’t have experts to help them manage their weight.
Martinez said that the government and society need to do more to make low-income salaries livable for workers.
“We’re relegating them to sub-human conditions,” she said. “We need to put people in decent-paying jobs and start breaking down barriers.”
