america's health goals!

[hikerchick]

I KNEW that would happen eventually!

oh the sarcasm you pointed out before...take your own advice now OK?



UGH

I deleted alot of my posts
I truly want no association with this thread.
the mind numbing judgements of some just get me to the core.



OUT!

yeah, me too, I think. They can stay and feel superior to the less fortunate if it makes them feel good. I can't watch it anymore.

 

[Wifezilla]

The point remains that health goals are not being met. You can critically exam why or you can put your fingers in your ears, cover your eyes and yell "LA LA LA LA".

 

[FarmerChick]

I KNEW that would happen eventually!

oh the sarcasm you pointed out before...take your own advice now OK?



UGH

I deleted alot of my posts
I truly want no association with this thread.
the mind numbing judgements of some just get me to the core.



OUT!

yeah, me too, I think. They can stay and feel superior to the less fortunate if it makes them feel good. I can't watch it anymore.

No I can't either. It truly made me ill.

 

[Wifezilla]

Weren't you leaving like 2 pages ago?

 

[FarmerChick]

Weren't you leaving like 2 pages ago?

oh the clever wit

 

[Wifezilla]

Just another observation. I do that a lot.

 

[bibliophile birds]

holy moly, guys! i think we all need to take a step back, a deep breath, and remember that this is a discussion of meeting American health goals, not a street fight. ::deep breaths::

Having lived in apartments surrounded by section 8 cases, food stamp recipients and people on disability, I KNOW how they live. They drove nicer cars than I did. They didn't work while I was up till 3 am delivering pizzas. They ate everything from an instant microwave box.

i'm sure you know that this isn't how everyone in poverty lives. in the world of aid work, we call those folks 5th Ave poor. they are living below the poverty line but they obviously have resources. this is the target audience for much of the GREAT work that is going on in the inner city.

unfortunately, many many people don't have even the luxury of food stamps and a car. i'm talking people who are living on almost nothing. when your only source of income in a week is begging (it's not just the homeless that have to beg) and the money you have left over to spend on food is next to nothing, you are going to go for the most instantly gratifying bang for your buck. that's usually going to be jumbo sized processed foods that are cheap and terrible for you, but they meet your caloric needs and keep you alive another day. most of these people can't take a gamble on planting something that may or may not grow and produce. even if it only costs $2 to plant, if it dies, that is $2 worth of very needed food that has been lost.

Perhaps we should simply nuke the inner cities and get rid of all the annoying people who don't live up to your standards.

i know this came out of frustration, but i really don't think that what the others have said is suggesting that they think inner city poor are worthless. they just don't agree with our position that the situation is immensely more complicated than a simple decision to eat better.

This reminds me of a discussion I had with my 7th grader after a tough basketball loss recently.

I coach his team and they lost....the officiating was NOT very good and he was blaming the ref's for the loss.

I told him that when he was blaming the ref's for the loss, it meant he was not taking responsibility upon himself for what HE could do to win that game. I told this to the whole team. That each of them must find it in THEMSELVES...asked what each of them could have done to win that game.

I told him....a man takes responsibility...a child blames others for their problems.

please don't equate 7th grade basketball with someone's life or death situation. it's extremely reductive. i mean, it's a great lesson to teach your child, one that is important, but it is not a blanket lesson for life.

admitting that you are struggling to feed yourself and your family, not even thinking about healthy foods, is not the same as blaming someone for your problems. no matter how much money you have (or don't have, as the case may be) you're first priority is keeping yourself and your family alive. "alive" does not come with any illusions of health, but alive nonetheless. if growing food means reclaiming the empty lot from a gang who would just as soon as shoot you, you don't do it. if growing food means that you get to spend even less time with your children because you can't risk them getting shot in a drive-by while you are gardening, you don't do it.

is it fair to people living in those conditions who say "i can't garden because of the violence in my neighborhood" to say they aren't taking responsibility or doing enough? i would say NO, it's not fair. and i wouldn't see it as them blaming others because they don't want to take responsibility. they just don't want to get shot.

 

[hikerchick]

Bibliophile Birds- thank you for being one of the intelligent and reasonable people on this forum. You keep a cool head and explain my thoughts better than I ever could.

Thanks!!!

 

[Wifezilla]

is it fair to people living in those conditions who say "i can't garden because of the violence in my neighborhood" to say they aren't taking responsibility or doing enough? i would say NO, it's not fair.

Neither would I. I simply pointed out many examples of places where they ARE gardening in the inner city. There was even an example of one specifically for the homeless. It was not meant as a solution to every single problem in the inner city. It was a reply to "people in inner cities can't get fresh vegetables".

Not everyone in the inner city is getting shot at. Because it can't happen in one neighborhood doesn't mean it can't happen in another. As my examples showed, it is already happening.

 

[abifae]

holy moly, guys! i think we all need to take a step back, a deep breath, and remember that this is a discussion of meeting American health goals, not a street fight. ::deep breaths::

No doubt. Wow. The amount of can't do and negativity spewed makes me want to just close this thread.

Hikerchick, if you wanna start making lemonade, you need to see things in a more positive light. Farmerchick, thank you for backing out of the thread and pulling posts instead of keeping a fight going.

Auntie Zilla, thank you for limiting yourself to sarcasm

Bibliophile Birds, it actually started as "do people want to change their diet for health reasons". And, "no I'm too damned busy struggling to feed my family to care because I just want them eating" is a viable answer to that question. Not quite sure why it had to dissolve into a huge fight about whether or not they have a choice. Sure they do. Their choice is to take any food because that's the easiest available. It isn't right or wrong, but it's their choice.

The whole argument seems to be "everyone has a choice and if communities work together as has been done before, more choices will grow out of that" versus "no things are too bad to have choices". I've lived completely inner city. I've been homeless, in fact. So what. As far as I'm concerned, I chose both situations.

Scott, I'm totally with you! What most people need is to understand self responsibility. Life isn't fair. It's not supposed to be. Fair is a concept parents project upon infants to protect them from the world.

I never even gave MY concept of American health goals LOL. I figured it would take this to a political fight. Silly me. I even gave the I statements lecture!