Well stated, Chrystal!

Toba
> 
> From: Chrystal Ocean <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 2006/03/22 Wed PM 01:18:03 EST
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [SDOH] Time Magazine:The Politics of Fat
> 
> How about this for a frame? It may also answer Deborah Lay's query. From two
> of our storytellers:
> 
> Mother of 4 children, one with special needs: "I buy as much as I can, as
> cheap as I can, as healthy as I can when I get the big bulk of money, but
> inevitably I kick myself for not having bought more macaroni and cheese
> instead of carrots. When we run out of money, I go to the food bank. They’re
> very nice and I’m glad that it’s there, but there’s maybe enough for three
> days and most of it’s not healthy. It’s horrible in a way. You get your
> package and you look in it, and there’s pudding and cookies and candy.
>   "The way we eat does not promote our health or our vitality or our ability
> to perform well in any environment. Now we eat mostly carbohydrates, very
> little fresh fruit, very little fresh vegetables, very little protein. There
> was a time not that long ago where we had gotten so to the end of what we
> had – we had nothing but rice and bread – I said: 'We’re going to play
> Survivor this week! We’re going to see who can last the longest just eating
> rice. You get a special prize at the end of the week if you can go the
> longest'."
> 
> Mother with diabetes, and 2 children: "You can’t afford fresh fruits or
> vegetables, you can’t afford any high protein. You’re stuck eating Welfare
> Diet: all carbohydrates. That many carbohydrates turn you into a blimp. 
> Well eventually, as a blimp, you get diabetes and in the process of losing
> everything that you are, were, could have been, should have been, used to
> be, could have had, should have had, would have had…, you lose yourself.
> That’s called depression. I would love these ‘mental health professionals’
> to understand. It’s a single diagnosis – poverty...
>   "Eventually, physical poverty leads to emotional poverty. When you’re poor
> in pocket, you’re boring. You can’t go out and play. You don’t have your
> kids in every sport going. You don’t make friends with all the parents on
> every committee because you aren’t on any. You don’t wander around the
> neighbourhood making friends. There are no opportunities. 
>   "Then the poverty diet kicks in... The next thing you know you’re putting
> on weight, because you’re not outside exercising. It’s winter and you don’t
> own a coat, you don’t own boots; it’s raining and your last umbrella got
> stolen. You pack on enough of these carbohydrate pounds until you’re a
> diabetic like me... If I could just stop being fat, I could stop being
> diabetic. To stop being fat, I’m going to have to change how I eat and how I
> live."
> 
> And I will add that it's an insult to people in poverty for others to assume
> that we lack knowledge about what foods, activities, etc. are good for us.
> The fact is that the vast majority of us DO have this knowledge, and I can
> tell you that the messaging of 'exercise and eat your fruits and veggies'
> just adds to our despair.
> 
> Ocean
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------
> Chrystal Ocean, Coordinator
> Wellbeing through Inclusion Socially & Economically
> http://www.wise-bc.org/
> 
> BOOK INFO - Policies of Exclusion, Poverty & Health: Stories from the Front
> http://www.wise-bc.org/CVProject/book.html
> 
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