<Having lived and worked in highly urban areas I also noticed how markets and liquor stores gouge those who have no cars and are stuck in some poor part of a big city.

What is this: the word "gouge"? You object to honest capitalism? Markets have to protect their investment. Higher crime rates mean higher insurance. This cost gets passed on to the customer. If they can't eat well, they won't do well in school, and then we will be guaranteed a steady supply of low-wage workers to keep those McDonalds and Taco Bells running. The market always works.

McDonalds or Taco Bell or Jack in the Box or Wendy's are GOOD things for a society to have.



Fast food certainly is not the healthiest but many can't afford to buy the healthy low fat, lean meats etc that we pay premiums for.



What, like chicken? Please.

It takes time to cook. All those goldbrick poor mothers have had to go out and get real jobs, remember? So they can spend all day making $6/hour and come home too tired to make real food. So they spend their money getting high-fat crap at a local fast-food outlet, which they hear advertized all the time anyway.

We are not only supersizing our menus, but also our national average weight, our rate of chronic disease caused by obesity, and our health care and health insurance costs. This problem is not exclusive to the poor, but as they are medically underserved and underinsured they bear a disproportionate cost in health, productivity and what is called "quality of life". Make no mistake, we will all pay more for it in the long run.

Regards--
Mary Anne