it is so not right

because i live in a small, low income town, i have to shop at EVIL*MART.  i hate it, but we are broke too, and it’s close.  it’s hard to justify traveling an extra 10 miles to shop at a decent supermarket and to pay higher prices.  i feel really yucky after i leave, and my judgmental-ness is at an all time high by the time i am walking to the car.

i see people with their kids hanging all over the shopping carts because apparently the parents can’t read visual symbols that say “no kids in the basket”.  i mean really, there are words, but pictures too.

most checkers don’t know what to do when i bring my own bags because i don’t want 118 of their petroleum based bags.  they will also fill my shopping bags about as good as they fill theirs, as in about 2 items per bag.  i was laughing the time i took in 3 bags, but the checker thought i had more because everytime she would hand me a half filled bag, i would take the items out, repack them in the first bag and hand her back the one she had just handed me, empty.

what really gets me are the obese people with their carts full of SHIT foods and not one fresh veggie or fruit.  the kids are obese and their teeth are rotting out.  i am not against heavy people, that’s not it.  i understand how it is to not be able to drop weight.  yes, some people are naturally prone to being big.  some people have medical problems that make it hard to not be heavy.  hell, if it weren’t for my thyroid disease, i would have had a tough time dropping the pregnancy weight.  it’s the fact that as a society we are perfectly ok with vilifying smokers under the guise of “health reasons” and “a strain on the health care system”, but it’s not ok to tell people that they are obese because they drink 6 cans of soda a day and eat crap for food.  that is what i have a problem with. i’m not talking a little extra around the middle, i am talking obesity due to lazy, cheap, and easy food choices.  obesity is a HUGE strain on health care in this country.

we don’t eat perfect in my house, but we do what we can.  i serve fresh veggies at dinner, i make as much food from scratch as i can, and i keep the processed foods and high-fructose corn syrup foods to a bare minimum.  i don’t even keep soda in the house.  i stopped drinking it years ago anyway.

but stores and corporations don’t make it any easier either.  last night while i was grocery shopping i decided i would make some cookies and cream ice cream for my husband because it is his favorite kind.  (i make it so i know what goes in it)  i stopped to get the oreos and they were about $2.50.  i realized the loaf of bread i debated on buying was almost $4.  no wonder people eat shit.  it’s cheap to eat shit.

evil*mart sells exactly 3 kinds of natural yogurt.  everything else has tons of high-fructose corn syrup in it because it is cheaper than sugar. yet, at what point will it be cheaper to educate people on healthy decisions?  at what point will people decide that the environmental cost of producing these cheap goods outweighs the instant gratification of having a belly full of crap? did you know that it is unsafe to drink the water near Des Moines, Iowa for about 3 months out of the year due to fertilizer runoff?  what do they grow there?  corn for feed, corn for high-fructose corn syrup.

i hate the term “obesity epidemic” because it sounds like something that people have no control over, yet we have control over what we buy, what we eat, what we teach, and what we find acceptable.  i don’t find high-fructose corn syrup acceptable, how about you?  i don’t find cheap, ultra-processed foods acceptable.  i don’t find children with rotting teeth acceptable.  i don’t find evil*mart running off mom and pop stores acceptable.  i don’t find soda machines in schools acceptable.  i don’t find cutting funding for education acceptable, because what kinds of classes go first?  those that aren’t math, english, and science.   even physical education is scaled WAAAAAY back.  it is just not right.