Poverty and Obesity in America - Articles Analysis

Levine builds his arguments by first of all painting the picture of obesity as it is one-third of the population has obesity plus another third is overweight with the situation being on the verge of even getting worse as rising childhood obesity rates forewarn of worsening statistics (Levine, 2011). From there, he proceeds to make the associating link between obesity and poverty. He reckons that people in America who live in the most poverty-dense countries are those prone to obesity. (Levine, 2011). The reasons behind the trend are the fact that those people have poor access to fresh food. At the same time, he proceeds to point out that in many poverty-dense regions, people are in hunger and unable to access affordable healthy food, even when funds avail (Levine, 2011).

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In Poverty and Obesity in America article on the other hand, Dune asserts that the idea of surgery and dieting cannot work to address the problems of the economic groups with nutrition and weight problems as they are very expensive to this group. This type of people will not likely be able to buy expensive health foods when there are cheaper alternatives that satisfy their hunger (Dune, 2016). Dune also builds his case for obesity among the low-income group from the food stamp cycle hypothesis. Here, when families receive their food stamps and paycheck, the family will use these resources until they run out (Dune, 2016). This means that resources will end up being depleted before the next distribution. As such, the main reasons for obesity according to the article among the low-income groups would be due to periodic food restriction and a poor nutritional diet due to financial restrictions (Dune, 2016).

The two articles are similar in a number of ways. First, both articles try to explain obesity from the low-income group point of view. Secondly, is the fact that both articles agree that there exist a relationship between hunger and obesity where individuals are not in a position to access nutritionally balanced food. Lastly, both articles agree that individuals drawn from low-income groups have little choice when it comes to food and will end up eating anything that comes their way as long as it deals with their hunger. But having said that, the articles have their own notable differences. In Poverty and America in America, the Dune notes that female-headed families among the low-income group are affected heavily compared to male-headed family. While Levine notes no difference in the affection rate between male and female headed families. Levine accounts for obesity among low-income groups is mainly due to inactivity where sports facilities are less available. The article, Poverty, and Obesity in America, makes no effort on the same. Levines article also does not stop at only giving the reasons for obesity among the low-income groups but also proceed to explain why the link between actively and poverty must be addressed. The article asserts that countries with greatest rates of poverty have greatest diabetes rates too (Levine, 2011). This goes a long way in raising awareness why the existing problems need to be addressed. The article Poverty and Obesity in America relies on the causes of obesity among the low-income group but makes no effort of assessing how the existing problem may proceed to impact the American society in other ways. The author of the article though goes ahead of outlining various ways through which the problem of obesity among the low-income group can be addressed while the same cannot be said for Levine articles.

As established above, both articles proceed to comprehensively explain causes of obesity from low-income group perspective. It once and for all explains why the group that in theory would not be likely to suffer from obesity end up being the worst hit by the problem. The one outstanding premise noted from the two articles is the fact that low-income individuals, as a result of poverty end up having fewer options for balance and nutritious food thus have to settle for what is available to them just for the sake of something to put in their stomachs. Levines article also makes a new argument in the form of inactivity which makes the problem to be prevalent with the Dune, on the hand, insisting on the food stamp cycle hypothesis.

References

Dune, E. (2016). Poverty and Obesity in America.

Levine, J. (2011). Poverty and Obesity in the U.S. Diabetes, 60(11), 2667-2668. http://dx.doi.org/10.2337/db11-1118