Why are so many poor people fat?

Progressives point to limited food choices — food deserts — as one cause. But that idea has been refuted.

Conservatives might cite bad food choices — people get fat because they choose to eat fattening foods.

Yet another idea is that humans are programmed in the womb by what their mothers eat during pregnancy.

South Africa has some of the highest levels of obesity in the world, together with exceptionally high rates of poverty. These two issues are linked in a vicious, attritional cycle.

At first glance it appears counter-intuitive to consider that poverty and obesity could be associated. The fact is that poverty is intimately correlated to several non-communicable diseases. Numerous international studies have shown how obesity and its morbid fellow travellers, hypertension and diabetes, stalk the health of the poorest and most marginalised sectors of society.

As a developing nation, with increasing urbanisation, South Africa provides an exemplary case of the paradox of obesity amongst poverty. So how does this apparent contradiction exist and perpetuate?

When most people consider the effect of poverty, the initial image is of an emaciated, stunted figure, perhaps with a tell-tale red tint in her hair. While this is the most visible impact on children, research shows us that the long-term impacts of poverty are even more profound and menacing.

Poorly nourished infants have been found to be predisposed to obesity in later life. This occurs by interference with the genetic programming of the body, mainly in utero. If a mother does not receive adequate nutrition, the lot of her baby can become forever compromised. This is how the tragedy of poverty is perpetuated, inter-generationally. This occurs directly through malnutrition, as well as through other rather more sinister mechanisms.

There is some evidence for this, as you’ll see in this TED presentation.

Annie Murphy Paul tells of a group of Dutch babies who were in utero during a bleak time in WWII when the Dutch were surviving on 500 calories a day. These babies grew up to become more obese than the general Dutch population.

According to the theory, the babies got the inside the womb message that it was a lean world out there and their bodies were programmed to hang onto every calorie.

Sounds plausible. But why wouldn’t the babies of fat mothers be programmed to be lean?

Bob Owens:

Daily Beast columnist Mansfield Frazier has turned the concept of “justice” upside down, arguing that George Zimmerman should be convicted in the shooting of Trayvon Martin merely to avoid race riots.

The case was already heavily politicized even before prosecutor Angela Corey  filed a charge of second-degree murder against Zimmerman based upon an extremely thin affidavit. The charge was a shock to most legal experts because of the incredibly high burden of proof for a murder charge that none of the known evidence comes close to supporting.

It was in this toxic political environment that Frazier filed a remarkable op-ed titled “Trial of George Zimmerman Could Trigger Another Rodney King.” The article isn’t incisive in its dissection of the facts of the case. It doesn’t offer cogent analysis of the legal strategies that the prosecution and defense might try to use if the case proceeds to trial. It doesn’t caution fellow journalists to be careful about jumping to conclusions surrounding the case, a low-hanging fruit for any columnist with a hint of competence.

Instead Frazier offers the extraordinary advice that despite a critically — perhaps criminally — flawed prosecution, George Zimmerman should just cop a guilty plea anyway to assuage his violence-prone critics in the black community in an attempt to keep the violent mobs at bay:

As George Zimmerman faces murder charges for shooting Trayvon Martin, it’s worth asking if America is in danger of facing Rodney King, Part II?

That’s what I see down the tracks: If this case goes all the way to trial, it’s a train wreck waiting to happen. The time is now for strong hands to take the helm and steady the ship of state — not to mention our national racial, political and legal discourse. The paramount concern has to be to avert a large-scale racial calamity.

Were you misinformed that the role of the criminal justice system is to fairly and impartially weigh the facts and evidence of a case? Well, now you know better. Mr. Frazier has eloquently argued that racial politics, not guilt or innocence, is the true measure of “justice for Trayvon.”

Why not threaten to burn down the NBC news headquarters for fomenting racialist lies? Or arrest Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson?