“In the USA, obesity is more common among lower income groups because they make bad decisions and it is true that high carbohydrate fattening foords are cheaper and easier to prepare.”

This statement is pretty accurate.

I’m from San Antonio, which has more Hispanics (Mexican) than any other racial group and it’s been said that San Antonio is considered the ‘fattest’ city in America. I can certainly see why due to a constant diet of Mexican food among many of the Hispanics especially those that are first, second and third generation Americans. Of course culture, and income has a lot to do with this, but so does the poor nutritional value of many Mexican foods.

I used to be a mentor for a Jr. High and High School in a low-income side of town, which happened to be on the west side of San Antonio. If you have never been to the west side of SA it basically resembles Mexico, literally. I would estimate that 70% of the adults in that area speak no or badly broken English, live in poverty and probably 90% are over weight children included.

The children that I mentored where all over weight. I’m 6’ 235lbs with very little body fat (lift weights and eat right) and there were kids that where about 5’4” to 5’9 that weighed almost as much as I did, they where little butterballs. As a mentor I would try to help them as much as I could in their personal lives and would ask them how things where at home and would inquire as to what they had for breakfast and dinner. I couldn’t believe the crap that these kids where eating, anything that would go into a flour tortilla for three meals a day, no wonder some of these kids where panting and sweating bullets after walking from one class to another.

I talked to a few of the parents about their child’s weight and diet and the parents would basically gaze at me like I was an alien from another planet. Since I was one of only three white people in that school I wasn’t taken seriously, and was called a racist a time or two for trying to suggest that Mexican food 24/7 is not very healthy and nutritional. I even had one of the dads show up and call me a gringo (amongst other epithets) in front of his kid that I was mentoring and told me to keep my white ass out of his family’s business. I felt like ripping this dude limb for limb but I let it go and moved on. I learned a valuable lesson working with poor people especially if you‘re white and they‘re not. Many flat out refuse to take your advice and you can’t fight a culture. Many of these people are fat and don’t care and the last thing they want to hear is whitey trying to tell them something that could prolong their lives. I gave up because I no longer could tolerate the aggravation (I wasn’t aggravated with the children just with the moronic parents) all I can say to those that try to convince a fat body that they need to watch their diet, good luck. Many Americans don’t like to hear the truth, and this PC over sensitivity to everyone’s ’feelings’ attitude that we now have makes it even that much harder.