Junk Food County

kylawgal, if these people don't have the motivation to walk to the grocery--and burn calories in the process--and avoid poor quality food in the process--then it appears to me is what they need is some education and a healthy dose of self-discipline. What differnce does it make if they live on a farm or not. The only resources they need to walk to the store and by reasonable amounts of quality foods are their legs and their brains. I'm with SCgirl on that one.

I shop in the same supermarket as the fat and morbidly obese. The fruits and vegetables are all there for the taking, but the overweight fill their carts with expensive chips, sugared sodas and foods filled with saturate fat. Simply making healthy foods available to the rural poor isn't necessarily going to change their behavior. People tend to eat what tastes good, not what is healthy. Also, if people arent' getting their needs met in rural areas I don't understand why we as a nation feel that it is so important to subsidize their lifestyle.

We're "rural," I guess. Most young people and families around here don't keep gardens anymore; everyone shops at the local food mart where the 5-10 vegetables sold are rubbery and nearly moldy. Even the bigger groceries have pretty mediocre produce. We're regarded as unusual because we have a large garden, put up our food (that's "can and freeze it" for you city folk) for winter eating, and keep a flock of chickens. The farmers markets are in nearby cities, where the demand is. That said, I know tons of people in cities (especially poor people) don't get the fresh stuff much either: I'd say this is less a rural vs. city problem than an education or class one. I always feel as though the same people who go to the store and buy Chef BoyRDee are the same ones throwing their trash out of car windows. Rural, or city, it's just ignorance. People can change.

We're "rural," I guess. Most young people and families around here don't keep gardens anymore; everyone shops at the local food mart where the 5-10 vegetables sold are rubbery and nearly moldy. Even the bigger groceries have pretty mediocre produce. We're regarded as unusual because we have a large garden, put up our food (that's "can and freeze it" for you city folk) for winter eating, and keep a flock of chickens. The farmers markets are in nearby cities, where the demand is. That said, I know tons of people in cities (especially poor people) don't get the fresh stuff much either: I'd say this is less a rural vs. city problem than an education or class one. I always feel as though the same people who go to the store and buy Chef BoyRDee are the same ones throwing their trash out of car windows. Rural, or city, it's just ignorance. People can change.

This is absolutely the stupidest story I have ever read. I have lived in the rural in both Texas and South Carolina all my 63 years of life and I have never, ever encountered such foolish examples as this story is based on. None of my family or our neighors are fat. We all have little gardens. My family goes to the grocery store about once a week. We are vegetarians. I have never read anything so slanted, so made up, so absolutely stupid in all my life. And it is just so sad that that people are going to read this now and think there's something to it. Now I guess our county governments are going to come out here and start building grocery stores all over the rural.
Stop and think about it. If there were a Whole Foods store on the corner of this poor lady's street, she couldn't afford that either. She is not stereotypical of rural people. She is stereotypical of poor people. And when I am in town (Columbia, S. C.) I see fat, poor people all over the place.
I realize that you are tryping deperately to print something to get people's attention for the sake of selling magazines. But it is so very, very irrespoonsible of you.
Barbara of rural South Carolina