Originally published at brigidkeely.com/wordpress. You can comment here or there.

I was trying to think of a cute, catchy headline like “proximity to grocery stores fuels obesity?” or “since when is access to a wide range of foods a bad thing?” or “douche bag writer exposes fat bias.” But seriously, what the fuck is this shit?

One might think that “everyday low prices” for food would mean that people would eat much more–stuff themselves, even. [...] Further, we found that Wal-Mart’s effect on weight is largest for women, the poor, African-Americans and people who live in urban areas.

Fat people aren’t a glutenous mass of binge eating gluttons, cramming sacks of groceries into their gaping maws at the first opportunity. Providing people with a grocery store that sells, you know, groceries doesn’t trigger an epic shift in corpulence simply because food is available. I cannot BELIEVE that article includes that as a concept, that providing people with groceries to feed themselves with will make people fat. Or do skinny people not use grocery stores?

I’ve lived places where it was very difficult to purchase fruits or vegetables, because the only local stores where either convenience stores that either don’t carry said items or mark them up atrociously, or the fruit and veggie selection was horrible (Imagine walking into a store and every single cauliflower is mildewed and all the apples are shriveled). To get actual fruit or veggies took three hours of commute time, spread over 2 buses and a train and about two miles of walking. I’d get off work at 5:00 and not get home until 8:00 or later, which is particularly miserable in the winter in Chicago. Or, I could hit the convenience store across the street, skip the healthy components, and have a weaker dollar because all the food was marked up. I frequently didn’t have the energy for a 3 hour trek carrying 30 pounds of groceries and would just go across the street.

So given a choice between really expensive or very unappealing fruits and veggies and something less healthy (but filling) like chips or crackers, what do you chose? If your only bread option is enriched white bread, you’re not getting much sandwich related fiber. Sliced turkey or chicken is a hell of a lot more expensive than bologna or fatty peanut butter. “Real” cheese is more expensive than pasteurized processed cheese food, and also tends to go moldy if not used up quickly (assuming you don’t purchase it moldy; I’ve had that experience as well). Not everyone has access to a Whole Foods or Trader Joes, and even if you live near one that doesn’t mean you can afford their prices.

The first is the substitution effect: a change in consumption mix due to a change in relative prices. If a bag of salad is $2 and a bag of potato chips is $1, then the price of salad in terms of chips is two bags and the price of a bag of chips is half a bag of salad. If a Wal-Mart opens and reduces the price of salad to $1 a bag and the price of chips to 75 cents a bag, the “salad price” of chips has risen (from 1TK2 bag to 3TK4 bag) and the “chip price” of salad has fallen from 2 bags to 4TK3 bags. In short, salad has become cheaper relative to chips.

The other effect from a change in prices is the income effect, which is a change in consumption due to a change in purchasing power. If Wal-Mart sells food at lower prices–even if our incomes don’t change–every dollar can buy more.

No shit, Sherlock. How is this even news? Seriously? Have these people never had to go shopping? Never had to make a budget? Never had to decide between buying fresh vegetables or buying milk? Never had to skip the lunch meat and keep making peanut butter sandwiches even though you can barely choke down another God damned peanut butter sandwich but that’s all you can afford?

We’ve illustrated how changes in relative prices and purchasing power affect people’s decisions, and this research suggests that people do make the right decisions when the prices of healthy foods fall and purchasing power rises.

Ooooh, right. Because women, poor people, People of Color, and people living in urban areas eat crap food and are unhealthy and fat because they’re just too fucking dumb to know otherwise, despite the near-constant barrage from every media source on the planet dictating what, when, and how much people should eat. It has nothing to do with food availability or price. Imagine that!

Americans live in one of the richest countries in the world, yet lots of folks are physically unable to realistically buy affordable, healthy groceries. It’s very, very difficult to be healthy without a healthy diet, and it’s incredibly depressing that the assumption this dude had, right off the bat, was that providing access to affordable groceries would cause OMG TEH FAT. Seriously, what?

But I guess when you assume that non-white-male folks just shove corn chips into their gaping maws at every opportunity, you’ll assume that given the chance to buy corn chips in bulk at a low cost will lead to madness. Of course, that’s an assumption with no basis in fact what so ever.