The title poses a trick question, because there is no “either-or” about it. People get fat because they are poor, and also become poor because they are fat. Both propositions are sadly and eternally true. One of the easiest tasks on the planet would be to populate a series of articles with references to reciprocity: specifically, about how overeating (which almost always results in obesity) can have a negative effect on personal and familial food budgets; and how either too much money or too little money can both drive a person toward obesity.
Of course, formal academic papers have been written about these stubborn questions. One such document is “Income and obesity: what is the direction of the relationship?,” which was published in 2018 by two researchers from the Department of Medical Sociology at Germany’s University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf.
The subtitle is, “A systematic review and meta-analysis;” the “meta” designation being appropriate because 21 different studies were consulted, most from institutions in the United States, along with a few from the U.K. and Canada.
As the authors scrutinized the various sources, a pattern was apparent, of lower income being associated with a higher risk of obesity. At the same time, it became clear that “the perspective of a potential reverse causality is often neglected, in which obesity is considered a cause for lower income.” Their intention was to explore the relation between income and obesity by “specifically assessing the importance of social causation and reverse causality.” The materials included 14 studies on causation, along with half as many on reverse causality.
On a superficial level, it is easy to grasp some of the major reasons why poor people tend to become fat. A lot of cheap, fattening food is available, especially in what are called “food deserts,” where people don’t have the transportation opportunities to go to stores where healthier fare is available, cannot afford to pay for memberships to big discount stores, and don’t have access to gyms, and so on.
However…
Yet these researchers suspected, perhaps counter-intuitively, that “Findings suggest that there is more consistent evidence for reverse causality.” This indicated a need to take a closer look at reverse causality processes than had been previously attempted. So why and how, exactly, is obesity likely to lower a person’s income?
In general, a body perceived as too large conveys the impression, whether true or not, that the individual is weak-willed, lazy, and undisciplined. In the labor market, this translates into fewer opportunities to be hired, lower chances of being promoted, and a higher likelihood of being “let go” when staff needs to be reduced.
In the minds of many non-obese people, difficulties are presupposed, and penalties are pre-imposed. Judgment is not reserved until a chair is actually broken, but is arbitrarily rendered, based on suspicion that the person might break the chair.
Obviously, that reverse causality involves a massive amount of social causation. Obese people tend to “drift into lower-income jobs due to labor–market discrimination and public stigmatisation.” This is particularly true for women, who tend to draw much more criticism for being overweight, and who, when carrying excess pounds, find it more difficult to present themselves in public as being worthy of respect for other reasons.
To explain such differences, one of the researchers suggests that…
[…] obese women are confronted with disadvantages that derive from the stigmatisation of fatness, and additionally face higher expectations to perform their gender properly. According to the cultivation theory of the social sciences, there is a stronger idealisation of thin women, which may help to explain why there is a stricter weight penalty for women than for men.
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Income and obesity: what is the direction of the relationship? A systematic review and meta-analysis,” NIH.gov, January 2018
Image by Pixabay, used under the Pixabay content license
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