It’s ironic really.  In rich nations, first world countries, obesity rates are on the rise.  This we might expect due to excess, even though we also spend more on drugs and otherwise to counteract obesity.  In poor countries, the food is often of poor quality, and in extreme cases in third world countries primarily, food can be hard to come by.

Even though the fact is people make more money, even when they’re homeless and jobless in first world countries, you might expect the same thing of the homeless.  Food would be harder to come by, and therefore you would see greater rates of certain diseases, but lower rates of obesity.  It is in fact exactly the opposite.  Obesity rates are higher among the poor in richer countries than it is among the rich and middle class.  How does that happen?  I mean I understand they have less control over what they get to eat and may gorge the time when they do get food.  But still.  When food is harder to come by, you tend to be skinnier from malnutrition and flat out lack of food. 

But the better question is what exactly are we defining as homeless or poor?  I mean we’ve all heard the story of the man who would sit on the streets of New York making money off of people who felt bad for him during the day and then go out back at night, catch a limo, and go to a huge penthouse.  That’s a scary thought that drives many of us away from trying to help others.  And the fact that there actually is a relatively prevalent rate of people who are not actually that poor or homeless doing things like that is even more scary, especially when you see it first hand.  There were days when people were actually homeless and were actually trying to help themselves, but were desperate.  My grandpa for one used to actually take homeless guys out for breakfast or lunch and listen to their stories when he saw them homeless on the street.  There may have been a few fakes, but not as many as there are now.  And this was when he was actually rather poor himself, living in a one room shack behind the hospital and eating spam every day and other cheap foods at the time.  I know this because my grandma, my dad, and my uncles talk about it.

In other countries, third world countries specifically, obesity rates are higher among the rich, because it is a sign of prevalence.  If you are fat, it means you are rich, because you actually have a regular supply of food.  But again, in richer countries, the statistics go the other way entirely.  In a 1965 study of Manhattan residents, they found that obesity was 6 times more likely among the homeless than among those with homes, jobs, etc.  That was in 1965.  You can imagine how much worse it is now.  This is evidenced by the fact that there are a number of free clinics where you actually have to qualify to go in for free drugs, free medical care, etc.  All patients have no houses, no belongings, no jobs, no regular money stream.  But the most common complains have to do with type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and other obesity related diseases.

There are several hypotheses to try to explain why this happens, why poor people in more developed countries have higher rates of obesity.  But at this time, they remain theories and hypotheses.  There are no solid conclusions.