Ta-Nehisi Coates in his Atlantic Magazine blog quotes from Ezra Klein on obesity’s role in poverty and how they are intertwined and influence each other.

Klein says:

Obesity is bad, but it may be just one of many bad things. Overdue bills. A horrible part-time job. Endless commuting time on the bus. A mother with diabetes. A child running with the wrong crowd. A leaking roof. In that scenario, slowly reversing your weight gain might be a good idea, but it hardly makes a dent in the overall crumminess of the conditions. It won’t replace pain with pleasure. So you do things that are surer to replace pain with pleasure, like have a delicious, filling, satisfying, salty, fatty meal. That may make your overall situation more unpleasant, but then, making that situation pleasant didn’t seem like an option in the first place.”

And Coates comments:

It’s a lot easier to drop that 30 when everything else is going well, as opposed to when you’re worried about the kid’s school, your ability to make rent, and the fools on the corner.

Unfortunately, this is probably all true.

(Via The Atlantic Magazine.)