As we gathered more data on Wal-Mart discount stores, Wal-Mart Supercenters, warehouse clubs like Sam's Club, Costco ( COST - news - people ) and BJ's Wholesale Club, and other outlets, we found that the correlation holds up under a variety of different circumstances, with a clear relationship between warehouse clubs and better eating habits emerging over time. 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.
You figure it would be the opposite. You would think that if you can buy an 8 pack of pop-tarts from Costco you would eat the entire contents and fatten right up. Instead the data seems to be the opposite. Here is one of the rationales that the researchers gave:
Our data suggest that we buy healthier food when our purchasing power increases. There is a small increase in consumption of fruit and vegetables in places where Wal-Mart does a lot of business and a decrease--or smaller increase--in fatty food consumption relative to places where Wal-Mart doesn't do business. That is, people might consume more fatty foods, but consumption of those unhealthy goods increases more slowly than it does for the rest of the population.
I have been advocating for years that if you want to help poor people in this country you have to make sure that they are fed healthy foods on a regular basis. Since eating healthy is so damn expensive you can bet that poor people can only afford cheap junk food rather than expensive fruits and vegetables.
It seems that Wal-Mart is evening the healthy eating divide by making eating healthy an everyday thing instead of luxury good. This could be a good thing for health care as well since healthy people need to go to the doctor far less. Now all we need is some way to get a tax credit for gym memberships and we are all set.
No comments:
Post a Comment