Obesity and Poverty Being Unjustly Deemed ‘Choices’

“Poverty becomes defined then as the inability to deal adequately with the anticipated and unanticipated turns of life, to overcome adverse events through strategic deployment of credit” (Galvez 139).

The issue of poverty becomes even more magnified with this excerpt from the “Eating NAFTA” text. Poverty for these folks, like the day laborers, is wrongfully and unfairly practically considered a ‘choice’. It becomes a ‘survival of the fittest’ scenario, but they stand no chance in doing so under these conditions.

They get no government assistance, so they are unable to have the financial opportunities that other wealthier people may get. Even the topic of obesity falls under this category. Many people cannot afford to eat anything other than stuff like junk food products, which can then cause health defects like obesity.

Another aspect of this I took note of was how it was kept ‘hush-hush’ and concealed when one of the workers had drowned in the canal. It goes to show the lengths these companies will go to hide and keep unexposed the inhumane conditions these laborers experience. That’s an extremely sad and frustrating thing to see.

Dr. Alvarez left us with the final point that even if we don’t become activists for problems like these, it’s important to at least think about how this may have altered our lines of thinking. It certainly left me with second thoughts regarding so many products my family purchases as to what circumstances were exactly involved to produce them.