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The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

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Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#41

Post by supercanuck »

denverkarma wrote: post #29

It’s really hard for me not to be skeptical of a study that starts with the premise of measuring everyone else against “the most privileged group,” aka. white men, and then calling their metric “health justice.” I don’t know the stats off the top of my head but I’ve heard many times that men’s health issues are under-studies relative to women’s — ie breast cancer versus prostate cancer. I’ve also seen that mental hea…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism

>It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#42

Post by wang_li »

dakna wrote: post #33
5trokerac3 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Processed unhealthy foods are cheaper than processed healthy(er) foods. Beans and grains are cheap. Staple fruits and vegetables are cheap. Chicken is cheap (especially dark meat). Eggs are cheap. You can feed a family of 4 a very healthy diet for ~$100 a month if you're willing to put in the work sourcing and cooking. That's the crux of the issue, though. Food deserts combined with a lack of nutritional and culinary…

Lack of knowledge is one prt, but also convenience plays a big role. Cooking is considered a household chore, and life should be easy. The neighborhood store doesn't offer raw ingredients to cook, and you need weekly planning to stock up on this when you drive to the big store outside of town. You get everything processed and sugared up right around the corner every day.

> convenience plays a big role

No government regulation should be imposed on the country as a whole so that some people can find things more convenient. If people can't be bothered to put some effort into being healthy, I'm not sure why I should care if the "gap between rich and poor American's health is widening" or not.

Edited to remove judgement.

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#43

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

5trokerac3 wrote: post #24
hanniabu wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unhealthy foods are cheaper than healthy foods, partially due to sugar subsidies. This is what happens when corporations run the government. They lobby for things that are beneficial to their bottom line rather than what's better for the well being of the population.

Processed unhealthy foods are cheaper than processed healthy(er) foods. Beans and grains are cheap. Staple fruits and vegetables are cheap. Chicken is cheap (especially dark meat). Eggs are cheap. You can feed a family of 4 a very healthy diet for ~$100 a month if you're willing to put in the work sourcing and cooking. That's the crux of the issue, though. Food deserts combined with a lack of nutritional and culinary…

Tastes change with time. Speaking from personal experience, I'm not an extreme of the archetype you think of (always eating chicken nuggets and drinking Coke as a kid), but that was still a large portion of my diet. For some reason, bitter foods are far more palatable to me now, than they were then. Some people find certain green, leafy vegetables, to be bitter, for example. But I love it all now! If you eat enough salads, you kind of get used to eating salad. With enough time, I find myself craving them like I would have wanted McDonald's.

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#44

Post by save_ferris »

denverkarma wrote: post #29

It’s really hard for me not to be skeptical of a study that starts with the premise of measuring everyone else against “the most privileged group,” aka. white men, and then calling their metric “health justice.” I don’t know the stats off the top of my head but I’ve heard many times that men’s health issues are under-studies relative to women’s — ie breast cancer versus prostate cancer. I’ve also seen that mental hea…

Statistically speaking, white men are far and away the highest income earners in America. They are literally the most privileged group. Until 2008, 44 of 44 of US presidents were white men. White men dominate the Fortune 500, Wall Street, and leadership in the government.

The paper also explicitly defined health justice as "a measure of the correlation of health outcomes with income, race/ethnicity and sex; and a summary health equity metric.", which doesn't sound like much of an editorialization to me.

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#45

Post by SolaceQuantum »

denverkarma wrote: post #29

It’s really hard for me not to be skeptical of a study that starts with the premise of measuring everyone else against “the most privileged group,” aka. white men, and then calling their metric “health justice.” I don’t know the stats off the top of my head but I’ve heard many times that men’s health issues are under-studies relative to women’s — ie breast cancer versus prostate cancer. I’ve also seen that mental hea…

"I don’t know the stats off the top of my head but I’ve heard many times that men’s health issues are under-studies relative to women’s — ie breast cancer versus prostate cancer."

I think the actual metric is extremely complicated. By and large, symptoms of diseases and illness are based on male patients. Drug trials often exclude women (due to pregnancy risk) and many exclude pregnant women (forcing pregnant women to go without necessary medication to protect the fetus). Certain women's cancers like breast cancer recieve significant income but other issues like endomeitrosis recieve little to no research. Women are statistically forced to wait longer at ER and have their pain dismissed more regularly as not indicating anything serious.

So in some ways men are considered 'default' for drug trials, clinical health profiles, their pain and health are considered more seriously, etc. On the other hand, there isn't a lot of money for mental health geared towards men in particular, certain cancers that are male specific are ignored, and there isn't as much pressure for thinness and health on men as there are women socially.

So I don't think there's clear lines that by far X gender is oppressed on all levels in the healthcare field. It would be more accurate to presume that there are many different systemic failures correlated with different demographics, and this affects different demographics differently.

While I agree with you that class has a massive influence, I would hesitate to agree with you that the country's problems should be considered primarily class based. We are still only a generation past (less than a generation? arguably still ongoing?) purposefully refusing to lend or perform economic deals with people based on their race or gender. This would show up as class stratification but has a racial/sexist cause, so it may be inaccurate to presume that solely economic solution would resolve all other societal stratification issues.

(But I really do agree with you we need to remove barriers of economic class transfer.)

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#46

Post by Amygaz »

xwdv wrote: post #27
hanniabu wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unhealthy foods are cheaper than healthy foods, partially due to sugar subsidies. This is what happens when corporations run the government. They lobby for things that are beneficial to their bottom line rather than what's better for the well being of the population.

Absolutely not. Don’t perpetuate this BS. Calorie for calorie and pound for pound healthy foods are far cheaper and more nutritious than whatever crap people are reaching for on supermarket shelves or drive thru windows these days. People have had their sense of taste hyper-stimulated for so long that they have grown a distaste for most “healthy” foods, to their own detriment. If every bite isn’t orgasmically delicio…

Well, pound for pound, and calories for calories, a pound of vegetables is more expensive than a pound of 85/15 beef. And a 2L of Coke is even cheaper (and heavier and calorific)... So, there’s that as a starting point.

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#47

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

denverkarma wrote: post #29

It’s really hard for me not to be skeptical of a study that starts with the premise of measuring everyone else against “the most privileged group,” aka. white men, and then calling their metric “health justice.” I don’t know the stats off the top of my head but I’ve heard many times that men’s health issues are under-studies relative to women’s — ie breast cancer versus prostate cancer. I’ve also seen that mental hea…

I think income and race/gender are too intertwined to characterize it as ignoring the income issue. I agree that income is strongly correlated to many outcomes, health or otherwise. When it comes to solutions, though, you can't raise income without addressing the racial and gender biases today.

The same resume with a Black sounding name gets far less traction than a stereotypically white name. Income and race are, unfortunately, coupled.

I think economic justice and racial equality and gender equality all come hand-in-hand.

When you hear people talking about racial injustice, while you advocate for economic equality, I think both are ultimately advocating for the same position.

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#48

Post by invalidOrTaken »

save_ferris wrote: post #44
denverkarma wrote: post #29

It’s really hard for me not to be skeptical of a study that starts with the premise of measuring everyone else against “the most privileged group,” aka. white men, and then calling their metric “health justice.” I don’t know the stats off the top of my head but I’ve heard many times that men’s health issues are under-studies relative to women’s — ie breast cancer versus prostate cancer. I’ve also seen that mental hea…

Statistically speaking, white men are far and away the highest income earners in America. They are literally the most privileged group. Until 2008, 44 of 44 of US presidents were white men. White men dominate the Fortune 500, Wall Street, and leadership in the government. The paper also explicitly defined health justice as "a measure of the correlation of health outcomes with income, race/ethnicity and sex; and a sum…

Who are the highest income spenders?

I'm reminded of the Seinfeld reservation bit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2GmGSNvaM).

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#49

Post by standardUser »

wang_li wrote: post #42
dakna wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of knowledge is one prt, but also convenience plays a big role. Cooking is considered a household chore, and life should be easy. The neighborhood store doesn't offer raw ingredients to cook, and you need weekly planning to stock up on this when you drive to the big store outside of town. You get everything processed and sugared up right around the corner every day.

> convenience plays a big role No government regulation should be imposed on the country as a whole so that some people can find things more convenient. If people can't be bothered to put some effort into being healthy, I'm not sure why I should care if the "gap between rich and poor American's health is widening" or not. Edited to remove judgement.

You may have missed other parts of this conversation where people point out how corporate interests have had great success in getting the government to promote and subsidize unhealthy foods (see: corn subsidies, the food pyramid, subpar food labelling, cheap junk food in public schools).

The government (at various levels) should certainly have a role in ensuring a healthy population. But if nothing else, the government (at all levels) should be sure not to promote and fund profoundly unhealthy habits over healthy ones.

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#50

Post by kevinlou »

wang_li wrote: post #42
dakna wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of knowledge is one prt, but also convenience plays a big role. Cooking is considered a household chore, and life should be easy. The neighborhood store doesn't offer raw ingredients to cook, and you need weekly planning to stock up on this when you drive to the big store outside of town. You get everything processed and sugared up right around the corner every day.

> convenience plays a big role No government regulation should be imposed on the country as a whole so that some people can find things more convenient. If people can't be bothered to put some effort into being healthy, I'm not sure why I should care if the "gap between rich and poor American's health is widening" or not. Edited to remove judgement.

Yeah this is the wrong take, buddy.
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