
Dining out is a reason Americans are broke and overweight - mudil
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-why-americans-are-broke-and-fat-2017-12-05-10881649
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Diggity
I am going to take the controversial stance and say BS to this one.

With Americans marrying later and often times dual income even then this has
left most individuals doing 1.5 jobs (house work and their actual job)

Additionally the time required to access to the basics has also gone up. Super
markets are more crowded. Traffic is much worse.

This has left Americans with a drastic reduction in time and created large
amounts of time pressure stress.

The major advantage of eating out is a massive reduction in stress related to
food prep, particularly around time savings and mental energy expenditure.

Now eating out is not on average healthy, but not all meals that are prepared
at home are either. When faced with equivalently unhealthy meals, dining out
has the advantage of automatic portion control.

The REAL reason American's are broke is cost of living. Rent and housing costs
have skyrocketed and wages have stagnated.

Coupled with a reduction in time and increased time-stress taking care of
every day chores, health goes out the window.

In short, there is a direct correlation between health and wealth.
Specifically, if one partner earns enough to support a relatively unstressed
house mom/dad, the family unit is healthy.

Otherwise if an individual earns a large sum of money with sufficient few
hours, they have compound time benefits in other aspects of their lives allow
for health considerations.

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maxxxxx
"When faced with equivalently unhealthy meals, dining out has the advantage of
automatic portion control."

Portions in restaurants are way too big. After a while this totally skews your
perception of appropriate amounts of food.

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nicolashahn
That depends on your activity level. When I was working out 5x a week, I'd
want two of the most calorie-packed things on the menu.

~~~
maxxxxx
Sure. I'd venture a guess that maybe 1% of restaurant users have the problem
of needing as many calories as possible. Everybody else needs much less.

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Forge36
Why assume this trend is new? Had the author not researched history? Dining
out has been a feature of society since Rome (79AD)

[https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/10/05/take-out-
restauran...](https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/10/05/take-out-restaurants-
existed-in-ancient-rome-and-were-called-thermopolia/)

It's very possible to go out and not spend a lot. Does this cost include
alcohol? 60$ with drinks/person sounds right to me (for a week). Dropping
alcohol: 20$ is doable (granted I don't go out 3 times a week).

However: why state the weekly budget over average meal cost?

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philip1209
This article is sensationalism. The science does not support the claims.
Flagged.

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TheBeardKing
>six in 10 Americans ate dinner out at least once in last week

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that most of the 40% who didn't eat out
are lower income, and income has some correlation with obesity. Eating cheap,
processed food is going to make you gain more weight than occasionally eating
out. Sure, there are lots of wealthy people who eat out frequently and don't
exercise, but there are a lot more poor people who can't afford to buy healthy
food and don't have time to exercise.

~~~
jandrewrogers
Back when I was very poor, I ate fast food frequently -- definitely unhealthy.
It had more to do with time and energy than cost. It is a common pattern among
the poor people I knew.

Healthy food is unbelievably dirt cheap in the US and available almost
everywhere _but it takes a lot of time and effort to prepare it_. When you are
working 60+ hours per week, that isn't always an attractive option. Poor
people can afford healthy food.

Tangentially, the common definition of "food desert" improperly and tacitly
conflates expensive food with healthy food. You can eat a very healthy and
more importantly very cheap diet while living in a nominal food desert. Poor
people can't afford boutique organic heirloom tomatoes so they don't sell them
where poor people live. Frozen and canned vegetables are perfectly nutritious
and cheaper substitute -- and I can vouch that poor people eat these in
abundance -- but for the purposes of labeling an area a "food desert" they
don't count.

~~~
ip26
Frozen or canned is not always as good for you as fresh, depends on the
produce. So access to fresh is still good.

There's also a bathtub curve I think. Bulk carrots, onion, potatoes, and
celery are cheap. But as you move up the scale it starts to be not-cheap, with
spices, shallots, olive oil, garlic, leafy greens, organic anything (which
_has_ been shown to be healthier long term). I cook from scratch and shop
savvy but, perhaps partly due to cuisine and partly caloric needs, struggle to
keep it in the $300/mo range I hear some couples and small families manage.

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grogenaut
Pretty sure American's weight didn't go down during the 2008 Financial Crisis
when restaurant usage went way down. I admittedly have no data.

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olliej
No, the reason is that incomes have not increased meaningfully in decades,
while literally every major cost (housing, food, power) has.

This is not hard arithmetic.

~~~
MSM
It's not hard arithmetic but they also have no real causation that I could
think of.

I can go to McDonald's and buy some combo for $5-8 and get a single meal, or I
could go get some chicken thighs, some black beans and some rice and boom,
you've got like 5 much healthier meals for $15. People all over the world do
this, but in the US we always parrot that eating healthy is "too expensive".

I don't know if people are too strapped for time because of being overworked,
having other priorities with the free time they do have to want to cook, or
what the root problem is but I can't wrap my head about it being a financial
issue.

~~~
olliej
If you’re poor you don’t have time to cook, especially if you’ve got kids.

If you are working two jobs to make ends meet, the extra hours required to buy
food, and cook said food, may literally be more time than you have available.

Couple that with the simple fact that fresh food expires quickly, and you have
a recipe (ha)for fast food being the best available option. You say you could
buy some chicken thighs, but you can guarantee you have a fridge available.

The reality is that in spite of being unhealthy fast food has a lot of
calories _which you need_ , and is functionally cheap.

I think also this kind of article ignores that the bottom of the poverty
spectrum in America aren’t eating fast food, they literally can’t afford it -
they live on canned food and rice. The elderly living on canned cat food is
not uncommon, and is a response to that being the among cheapest sources of
fat and protein you can get; it’s not by choice.

The jokes about people in the Appalachia’s eating raccoon are based on fact -
I have a friend who grew up there, and his parents still hunt and can
literally anything they can. So they do have canned raccoon for the winter.

 _My_ parents and I lived in a literal shed until I was 3 or 4. My dad
actually shot rabbits from the bedroom window.

I don’t think people on HN actually understand what real poverty is like.

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theredbox
Bs. Asians eat out all the time. It is the type of cuisine and establishment
one decides to eat at that makes a difference.

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mrbonner
Marketeatch is shorting restaurant chains?

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perfmode
Sure. Let’s blame economic disparity on trivial individual choices while the
public coffers are being plundered to the advantage of the already wealthy.

Injustice is stressful. When I’m under stress, I know I am liable to make
decisions that I wouldn’t otherwise make. I’m liable to use material means to
assuage the feelings of despair. After all, isn’t this the messaging
reinforced in advertising and media? Am I able to ignore advertising when it
intrudes upon me at every turn? In the subway, on billboards, in my apps, in
news papers, in news headlines, on TV, in movies, in books, in stores, between
songs, in songs, from our friends, from our families, starting from birth.

There’s really no escaping from environmental stressors anymore. Not short of
leaving society entirely. But billions of people lack the financial
independence to do so. And I’m not talking about wealth. I’m talking about a
lack of debt and enough money to abscond after taking care of ones
obligations.

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dlivingston
How does this have any relevance to the article?

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perfmode
The article seeks to connect being “broke” with having bad judgement.

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dlivingston
It some cases, that is true; in others, it is not.

