That is the distinction between “fist world poor” and “third world.” We have “fat” homeless people. Being thin and starving aren’t the same thing. Starving and being hungry aren’t either. It’s very easy with cheap, calorie dense foods to reach your daily intake in a single sitting. But there are some problems with that. Firstly, that means you’ve eaten very little food but taken a lot of calories in. This means that you still FEEL hungry even after you’ve eaten. Eat one fast food meal and you be done for a days calories- but try only eating one meal a day and see how miserable you feel. It’s not just “hunger” either...
While cheap calorie high foods may contain your days CALORIES, they seldom contain all the nutrients you need. So to get daily needs for essential macro nutrients (not to mention micro nutrients, vitamins, minerals, etc..) you’ll go over your allotment of calories before hitting your needs. But if ONLY that were it...
You see- you’d think that eating a single meal a day would do the trick if it had all your daily needs. It doesn’t. Things like simple carbs (cheap and in lots of “junk food”) digest faster. Your body absorbs those approves and nutrients. If you don’t need those for energy at that moment- your body stores them. Complex carbs, fiber, long chain protein- more expensive. Slower digesting. So if you eat 2500 calories of breadsticks at 7am and nothing else- most of the day you’ll be hungry and low on energy. You’ll feel lethargic and generally not have good mental or physical performance- and what’s more, if that’s all you eat you’ll be deficient in key nutrients. If only that were it!
Spoiler- it’s not! Your body has responses to food intake. Insulin, blood sugar levels, other hormone levels, bile production, etc etc. so when you eat that one big meal- things spike. Your body response is drastic and sudden, then crashes and flatlines. You feel like shit and perform poorly. Long term you can develop health problems and of course... weight problems. Once you’ve put on the weight- not only is weight easier to gain, not only is it harder to lose, but you’re now in a bad place to be for someone who couldn’t live healthy to start because if you couldn’t do it before- now it’ll be a real pain in the butt.
The poorest Americans don’t have access to kitchens, food storage, transportation to regularly get perishable groceries. They eat packaged food or take out. They may work long or “non standard hours,” maybe multiple jobs. If they have kids it gets worse. 30 minutes of INTENSE exercise a day is around 300 calories for a moderately overweight person- and that’s IF your heart and joints can take it. If you can’t get your food situation dialed in- you’d need to spend 4-6 hours a day of intense exercise to eat a high calorie diet and lose meaningful weight. There are low calorie packaged or take out options, but you’re balancing cost, access, calories, nutritional needs, satiation, energy requirements, schedule, and...
Many of those meals are just plain bad for you. Some worse than others, but you are almost always giving something up- and things like canned goods tend to be high in sodium and other things that can make you look thin but have the heart or internal health of the most unhealthy morbidly obese person. Diet is a lifestyle change. It’s not easy, and knowing what to eat can be hard. I’ve had clients who pay upwards of $500 to be told what to eat and when so they don’t have to do the math and the homework. A less comprehensive plan or Coach can run $100-200, and generic plans can be found online or elsewhere for even free- but you have to have the time to look and then trust the person who’s advice you’re following. Free doesn’t get you much accountability if it doesn’t work or you need adjustments.
There’s no “excuse” for anything in the strictest sense. People always have a choice and if we want to be brutal, we can say that we are all in some way responsible for our choices. However- it’s UNDERSTANDABLE how so many people could have this problem. Despite what people say- feeding a family on less money a day than many people spend on coffee or other incidentals is hard enough without trying to maintain weight. It CAN be done by most people, but it’s a significant burden to many, and none of us are perfect.
We take for granted that we were taught or had the opportunity to learn certain lessons that someone else may not have had. Case in point- I’m sure you know some things I don’t and vice versa- simply because we have different personalities and led different lives. A skilled politician may be a fish out of water on a job site and a tradesman may be an abysmal failure in the board room- different soft skills and traits come into play. Different knowledge bases and experiences. Not being able to balance a diet is t so different from not being able to balance ones finances. I’m sure there are some people out there shaming the overweight who if I looked over their books I could find all sorts of poor health.
TLDR: eat what you want but count your calories.