Antonio Munoz Molina is a Spanish writer who has been living in the US for almost 20 years. He writes in his recent book:
In the US, the poor seem to belong not so much to a different class as to a different species. I’d see them hanging around the Greyhound bus station where I’d come to catch a bus to or from Washington. Spain’s poor don’t look like this. In the US, the poor are fat, they miss teeth, smoke, and go through plastic garbage containers in search of food.
Clarissa's Blog 
May you explain how poor in Spain are different?
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Thin. And everybody smokes. Smoking is not a marker of social class.
In Spain, everybody gets access to free healthcare. And there isn’t such a gap between what people from different social classes eat.
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Thin because of lack of food?
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American obesity is absolutely horrifying to foreigners. But Americans love to kid themselves and pretend that it’s perfectly normal. There are all kinds of “Fat Acceptance Movements” and “Fat Studies Departments.” Sad, tragic stuff.
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“American obesity is absolutely horrifying to foreigners. But Americans love to kid themselves and pretend that it’s perfectly normal. There are all kinds of “Fat Acceptance Movements” and “Fat Studies Departments.” Sad, tragic stuff.”
I saw a grainy arthouse movie last night, and after a few seconds of viewing some female teenagers I said, “American because overweight.” Actually only one of them was rather pudgy, but there was this kind of overtly natural look about both, which meant they would easily succumb to nature.
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The saddest thing is the intense state of collective denial practiced towards the issue.
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Likely thin because fewer empty calories are eaten. The American diet is meant for people who do physical labor: biscuits-and-gravy for breakfast, McBurger, fries, and shake for lunch, meat and potatoes for dinner, with pie for dessert, and sugar-containing cola in multiple servings over the day. The sugar-added desserts and soft drinks are the real drivers of adiposity in the US (and Mexican) public.
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I suspect something worse: not “minding the store”, so to speak …
During one evening wandering around a moderately safe American city, I came across a non-immigrant American begging for money, but it was what he did with the money that created his health circumstances.
The diagnosis: kwashiorkor and scurvy.
Someone would have to “mind the store” to fix this person’s problems, since you can’t simply throw more protein and ascorbic acid at the problems over the short term in order to remedy them. That will work, but it has to be done gradually to have a positive effect.
Many American foods have vitamin supplements added to them, so this had to have been the result of choosing the wrong foods as a long-term pattern — in this case, I suspected a diet rich in cheap beer, packets of crisps, and anything else that’s cheap.
What was clear with this person was that he probably had enough caloric intake in order to wander around begging for money, but not enough sense to buy food that would actually sustain good health.
You can’t blame the food in this case — there were plenty of places nearby with reasonably decent food, and he could have conceivably kept himself going on Mackey D’s, which was nearby. (They aren’t completely awful.) He could have cured himself with vitamin fortified milk and ascorbic acid in some form.
I suspect the primary difference is that Spanish people haven’t lost a “common sense” attitude toward what represents life-giving food versus what’s simply cheap volume, so they would never allow themselves to remain in such a state even if they do consume occasional “empty calories”.
Spanish people behave in a way that’s consistent with having hope for the future. I have to wonder how American future orientation could become so damaged as to create people like the one I’ve mentioned …
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This is very interesting. It would be great if all of these mushrooming Fat Studies and Fat acceptance movements studied the American obesity in connection with damaged future orientation.
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Hmm, the quote is not based on a representative sample of poor people in the U.S. It’s based on the people the author saw hanging around a bus terminal. Obviously, it presents a stereotype.
To balance the stereotype, let me start by saying that many U.S. poor people are employed and work hard, but are paid little. Poor people in the U.S. sadly do not receive as many social benefits, such as universal health care, as the poor in Europe. (That’s our own fault; too many of our voters and politicians don’t get it.)
Many poor people are thin to the point of emaciation, but usually because of conditions such as alcoholism or drug abuse.
Many poor people in U.S. do NOT smoke. The vast majority of the poor do NOT go through public trash cans looking for food. In fact, scavenging from trash cans is quite rare. Just because you see something on a public street or at a bus station does not mean it is representative of a population.
Food assistance is one of the few social benefits widely available in America. Food stamps, free meals for poor children in schools, food pantries, soup kitchens. Food is relatively cheap in America. For some reason, Americans have a high tolerance for homelessness, but do not tolerate hunger. Americans go to great lengths to make sure food is available to the poor, but it’s not always nutritious food.
Alas, many Americans, rich and poor, are overweight. Obesity is probably more widespread among the poor because it is easier and cheaper to find high-calorie, high-fat junk food than high-quality, nutritious food, which is more expensive.
Finally, poverty disproportionately affects children. And oddly, many poor people somehow manage to have cell phones and televisions.
But most of the poor do not have access to a car. You can see them waiting at bus stops on practically any city or suburban street, waiting to go to work. (Bus stops are totally different from the Greyhound bus station. Each major city has only one, single Greyhound bus station.)
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Very interesting about food vs homelessness. I now wonder what the reason is for this difference in attitude.
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I may have overstated or misstated American attitudes re: homelessness and hunger, but clearly, there is a difference. I think the difference is rooted in economics.
The U.S. and Canada are blessed with plentiful agricultural land. It’s relatively easy for society as a whole to produce enough food. In addition, the U.S. has a “cheap food” policy, meaning farmers are encouraged with government subsidies, insurance, education. So basically, food is relatively cheap and plentiful.
The same is not true of housing. The supply of housing is generally based on supply and demand. Those who produce and manage housing aim for the highest profit, which means they focus on serving people who can afford to pay for luxury and amenities.
There have been many efforts to promote housing for the poor in the U.S., with limited success. Many of our 20th century housing efforts to build public housing led to concentration of the poor in drug and crime infested urban high-rises, most of which eventually had to be demolished. Much effort continues to be put into providing adequate housing for low- and moderate-income people in the U.S., but the answer seems elusive in a market-driven economy.
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“Many of our 20th century housing efforts to build public housing led to concentration of the poor in drug and crime infested urban high-rises, most of which eventually had to be demolished. ”
– In Montreal, huge efforts are being made that social housing is dispersed around the city instead of limiting it into a single area. This is a great idea but, sadly, many people who get this housing don’t in the least deserve any social assistance. I know of several families that have enormously expensive properties in Moscow, yet still get this social housing in Montreal while really deserving people can’t get any assistance. 😦
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I think we have a similar problem in U.S., at least in my area. The poorest of the poor are often disqualified from “affordable housing” because they have a poor credit rating (naturally) or criminal record. A very troubling and persistent problem.
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