Food Poverty in America
What is causing America’s obesity epidemic? Why is it so difficult for the majority of people in the U.S.A to eat healthy diets? Compare America to almost any other country and it is painfully clear that we have an overabundance of food: Americans eat 815 billion calories of food each day and throw out 200,000 tons of it daily (“Consumption”). However, it is commonly thought that people should have the self-control and knowledge necessary to winnow through the plenty and make good choices. Nutritional facts are readily available and no one could possibly think fast-food is good for them, could they? And yet, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state that 34.9% of all Americans are clinically obese and that …show more content…
There are many reasons why places like Trader Joe’s succeed in making healthy foods more accessible to the general public, the biggest of which is their smaller selection of products (Co). Not only does Trader Joe's have a smaller selection of goods than most stores, but most of its products are offered under a store-brand label (Co). Fortune Magazine estimates that the typical U.S. grocery store has upwards of 50,000 items, while Trader Joe's has 4,000 — of which 80 percent are store-brand products (Co). By limiting its selection, Trader Joe's will buy larger quantities from its suppliers and it will restock at a faster rate because of the quicker turnaround. Thus, its stores are able to sell more of one type of product when there are not too many choices. This drives down the costs of food and, according to Fortune, although there is not a lot of variety, most customers are content with that because they trust that the quality of the products will be great (Co). Along this same venue, Megan McArdle of The Daily Beast observed that "A Walmart has 140,000 SKUs, which have to be tediously sorted, replaced on shelves, reordered, delivered, and so forth. People tend to radically underestimate the costs imposed by complexity, because the management problems do not simply add up; they multiply” (qtd. in …show more content…
Will corporations and the economy suffer if the government focuses on promoting only healthy or local food sources? And why should the government step in like this? In the United States, it is known that food companies have the right to sell relatively unhealthy foods, especially when no one is forcing people to buy them; and, moreover, in this country, people cannot not be forced to be healthy. Yes, food companies have the right to sell their product, but they are monopolizing citizen’s pantries with unhealthy foods and so fair alternatives should be made more readily available; and, with the issue of food poverty, most American families cannot easily purchase or prepare unprocessed meals; even though people cannot be forced to eat healthy foods, most people would choose to do what is good for them if given a reasonable means to do