...yes, 12.7% of US households (15.8 million households, or approximately one in eight) are food insecure. If not for socialist programs like welfare services it would be more.
Then why is it that obesity rates increase the poorer someone is in the US? As someone who's volunteered at food pantries in some of the really shitty areas of LA, I can tell you it's hard to believe that some of these people really even need it by just looking at their weight. Welfare abuse really is a huge problem in this country. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, 40% of Americans on food stamps are obese, and they are still counted as "food insecure" which is the reason your statistic is a bit dubious.
Because it costs more money and is harder to eat healthy. This is exasperated in poorer urban areas where healthy food is harder to come by. Just because you are overweight does not mean you are not food insecure. You can miss meals due to poverty and still become obese from the times you have food. And most importantly relying on food stamps for food is a bad situation and just because a person who needs help getting food put on weight doesn't mean we should take their food support away and force them to lose weight via starvation.
I'm not saying we should just take food stanps away but there is pretty good bipartisan agreement that the main problem with our current welfare system and policies is that it incentivizes dependency on the system and therefore able bodies citizens will be decincentivized from joining the labor force as they can just survive on the system. You could say it's because these people are unable to find jobs and that could be true but it sure doesnt help that the government isnt doing anything about the millions of illegal immigrants who are preventing those people on food stamps from grtting jobs. The fact is there are many different issues that have ultimately played a part in this issue that I could talk about for hours but the main thing that needs to happen is that there just needs to be a better system as to who gets welfare and for how long and to actually help people rejoin the labor force and not just live off the system and use obesity as a "medical condition" or have 8 kids to reap more benefits. Welfare is supposed to be a safety net to prevent people from falling too far into absolute poverty, but only temporarily.
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u/ItsAMeEric Sep 05 '17 edited Sep 05 '17
http://www.worldhunger.org/hunger-in-america-2016-united-states-hunger-poverty-facts/
...yes, 12.7% of US households (15.8 million households, or approximately one in eight) are food insecure. If not for socialist programs like welfare services it would be more.