Obese now outnumber hungry, says Red Cross

Eddie Dane

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Eddie Dane
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NEW DELHI — Obese people now outnumber the hungry globally, but hardship for the undernourished is increasing amid a growing food crisis, the International Federation of the Red Cross warned Thursday.
The Geneva-based humanitarian group focused on nutrition in its annual World Disasters Report, released in New Delhi, seeking to highlight the disparity between rich and poor, as well problems caused by a recent spike in prices.

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Ah, the joys of refined sugar and convenience foods.
 
bjornart said:
Eat the rich.
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Yes! Let the hungry eat the fat! Think what the 24-hour news cycle could do with all their stock footage.

*pictures of the starving, starving*

*pictures of fat people wobbling down the sidewalk*

*skinny zombie mash-up, overweight too heavy to outrun the weak, unfed*
 
Wait, I thought only Americans were obese. (That's what I keep hearing anyway)
 
Rasmus said:
I would not be entirely surprised if those suffering from hunger in the world would love to be poor in the UK.
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It's one of the strangest paradoxes; if you're poor in the developed world, you're more likely to be obese but malnourished; poor in the developing world, thin and malnourished.

footnote: I don't like the terms developed and developing any more than the next person, but right now I'm tucking into my well-balanced and nutritious dinner made out of fresh foodstuffs so can't be bothered to think of something more appropriate.

Psi Baba said:
Wait, I thought only Americans were obese. (That's what I keep hearing anyway)
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I realise this comment was made in the spirit of irony, but here's the latest Daily Mail Outraged at All the Fat People Eating Up Our Taxes story:

£13,000 stretchers and £108,000 'fat-friendly' ambulances: The rising costs of caring for obese patients in Britain
 
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bjornart said:
There's a vast difference between relative poverty in a developed country and absolute poverty.
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All poverty is relative, surely? As a concept, it is always the comparing of the state of one individual / group to that of another. Also, poverty is measured, in terms of access to food, shelter, water, etc. As soon as you measure something, it becomes relative.
 
DrDave said:
It's normally the poor who are fat in the uk
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Same in the U.S. and probably most places, although that is of course a big generalization. It makes as much sense to me as how poorer people tend to have larger families than the richer.
 
bigred said:
Same in the U.S. and probably most places, although that is of course a big generalization. It makes as much sense to me as how poorer people tend to have larger families than the richer.
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The discussion about the poor not finding healthy food to be a cost-effective alternative has been done, so go to that thread.

But why should it be a surprise that the poor have more children?

It doesn't cost anything to screw like bunnies and not use birth control, now does it?
 
bigred said:
Same in the U.S. and probably most places, although that is of course a big generalization. It makes as much sense to me as how poorer people tend to have larger families than the richer.
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Makes sense to me, too lazy to get a job so it stands to reason they would be too lazy to eat healthily/exercise and use birth control.
 
23_Tauri said:
All poverty is relative, surely? As a concept, it is always the comparing of the state of one individual / group to that of another. Also, poverty is measured, in terms of access to food, shelter, water, etc. As soon as you measure something, it becomes relative.
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Absolute poverty is the lack of food, shelter, water etc. There are degrees of absolute poverty, but starving to death is not relative, it's an absolute reference.

Poverty in developed countries is (usually) relative poverty, ie being at the losing end of wealth distribution of your society.

The absolutely poor can also be said to be relatively poor of course, unless their entire country is starving to death, but it makes sense to separate the two concepts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty
 
bjornart said:
Absolute poverty is the lack of food, shelter, water etc. There are degrees of absolute poverty, but starving to death is not relative, it's an absolute reference.

Poverty in developed countries is (usually) relative poverty, ie being at the losing end of wealth distribution of your society.

The absolutely poor can also be said to be relatively poor of course, unless their entire country is starving to death, but it makes sense to separate the two concepts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty
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I'm aware that poverty is classified in this way, and a distinction is made between relative and absolute, but I've never really understood it. I think saying that starving to death = absolute poverty is simplistic. Someone might be completely outside of a money economy but living a hunter-gatherer life (i.e. the last remaining hunter-gatherer people in the Amazon who have no contact with outside world). They have no concept of monetary wealth and yet they are far from poor and definitely not starving.

Even saying that there are "degrees of absolute poverty" is a misnomer in as of itself. How can you have degrees of an absolute? :confused: It's like having degrees of pregnancy; it's impossible, it's an either you are or you aren't situation.

There is no country where all people are at the same level of poverty (however measured) and why use the arbitrary state (country) level anyway?

And finally, there's even degrees of starving to death (sorry if this is a bit morbid). How many calories below your minimum requirement do you need to go and for how long before you're classified as starving to death?

None of this takes away in any way from the reality that the current situation (both the starving and the obese) is a collective shame on us.
 
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