Another Reason Why I Am Overweight

Tara Parker-Pope, the NYTimes health columnist, writes up a study by University of Washington researchers (from the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, subscription required) on the relative cost per calorie (kcal) of 370 grocery items in the Seattle area. Not surprisingly, high-energy density foods (i.e., junk food) cost, on average, $1.76 per thousand calories, vs. $18.16 per thousand calories of low-energy density foods (e.g., fruits and vegetables). I'm not sure what adding the organic surcharge would bring the number to, but it explains why our family's food costs have risen so much in the past couple of years (as we try to consume more healthy foods and less junk food).

One issue that should be considered is that throwing out numbers based on cost per thousand calories doesn't reflect the way Americans actually eat. Few Americans (save those on Weight Watchers-type regimes) base their food intake on strict daily calorie amounts. I would like to say I eat 2,000 calories per day, but like most people, my daily calorie intake is variable (and, sadly, somewhat higher than 2,000 calories per day over the winter holidays). Parker-Pope , quoting Adam Drenowski (one of the study's authors) does make note of the fact that because high-energy density foods are so cheap, it may be one cause of the odd fact that the lowest-income segments of the American population have the highest rates of obesity.

One facet Parker-Pope does not explore (and I assume the authors do not, as well, though because the study is behind a paywall, I don't know) is the reason for the much higher cost of high-energy density foods. One reason for the price discrepancy, as I'm sure Michael Pollan would quickly point out, is that farm subsidies overwhelmingly go to foodstuffs that are included in junk food, but not in low-energy density foods. So we have tons of subsidies for corn to make high-fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, but not much for strawberries and tomatoes, and even tariffs to keep the prices of some items like bananas higher than they otherwise would be. Essentially, we reward food producers for making high-energy density precursors, which ultimately drive our health-care costs sky-high. Conversely, the foods we could produce that would potentially drive down health-care costs, we provide no reward for producing.

How did we get here?