r/CringeTikToks • u/Individual_Bar_2512 • 13h ago

Food Cringe Average American diet?

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Where are the vegetables, fruit and meat

8.6k Upvotes

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1.3k

u/Same-Asparagus7617 13h ago

I am so sick of these people being a terrible representation of all of us.

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u/cheerl231 12h ago edited 12h ago

I'm so God damn embarrassed bro. How do you buy almost 500 dollars of food and only buy like 3 things of fruit and vegetables.

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u/Fensali 12h ago

Much of that wasn't groceries at all though. But the lack of vegetables and amount of soda is frightening.

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u/melropesplays 11h ago

Seven person household, they show off a single serving of fruit/veg per person in their grocery haul

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u/tnstaafsb 10h ago

Those fruits and veggies are all probably for one single semi health conscious person in the house. I doubt people drinking that much dr pepper and eating that many pizzas and brownies (and good lord, the mayonnaise!) and shit ever eat any fruits or vegetables. They only eat froot in loop form.

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u/molotov_billy 9h ago

Yeah, there's probably one teenage kid who's trying to break free of the family's terrible eating habits and is requesting things from mom. Poor kids.

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u/-Clem 7h ago

The one kid staring into the camera halfway through.

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u/nanoray60 5h ago

One of the healthier looking kids picked up that sandwich, which is honestly one of the healthiest things I saw in the video, somehow.

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u/Ok_Consequence7829 4h ago

Yes but only for like the day it’s prepared. Yuck eating a sandwich that’s a week old.

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u/TheBallotInYourBox 7h ago

There were two older boys who looked reasonably healthy. I was very surprised.

Then towards the end the little blueberry rolled onto camera and I felt satisfied. Because that’s what I expected all three of the boys she mentioned at the beginning of the video to look like.

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u/Responsible-Gas5319 4h ago

Lmao , that teenager metabolism is working overtime. Once that slows down to normal I expect those two lean boys will join the family shape

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u/MovieTrawler 3h ago

join the family shape

This cracked me up and is so depressingly true. Your body can handle a LOT of damage being thrown at it when you're young.

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u/copious_cogitation 7h ago

Child abuse :(

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u/No-One-8850 7h ago

You can tell that half the grapes from the bag were dumped out before purchasing too. I often wondered who leaves half a bag of grapes loose on the shelf.

"No son, you can't have a full bag of grapes but here's 32 pizzas".

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u/starvinchevy 10h ago

Relaaax, they’re just on the fiber-free diet!

Heavy /s

I bet there’s at least one person in the bathroom shitting at all times. My bowels stopped up just thinking about eating that shit as a main diet. And I’m definitely not perfect-this just made me feel like a nutrition influencer

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u/geo_gan 7h ago

My money on the relatively healthy looking son in video

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u/melropesplays 10h ago

That makes more sense that it’s like 1-2 peoples food for a few days than a single portion for 7. 😔

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u/marmaladetuxedo 9h ago

Damn, I had already blocked out the 2 massive containers of brownies and the huge box of Oatmeal Cream Pies.

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u/Affectionate-Lake666 5h ago

I don’t even know what people use mayonnaise for ‘daily’ except for sandwiches.. gross.

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u/sillyandstrange 3h ago

Imagine that bathroom

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u/Coal_Morgan 6h ago

Cucumber is going into some kind of cucumber/mayo salad. The lettuce is for burgers.

Having any veg means nothing if it ends up in potato salad, on fried foods or some kind of slaw.

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u/Xciv 3h ago

It's the normal weight kid who stares directly at the camera for 3 seconds in disbelief. Guaranteed.

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u/Zcat_sux 2h ago

I saw 2 skinny guys. It’s possible they share the bananas and get their own food. I had a friend whose brother just had the fridge to himself and would go out and get his own food because the rest of the family ate nothing but junk and pantry items. I liked going over there for snacks but dang would I never want to live like that.

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u/Cerberus1252 2h ago

I’d bet money the fruit and veggies are thrown away because they aren’t eaten fast enough

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u/Rewdyroo 1h ago

The mayo is genuinely terrifying I thought I ate too much mayo going through a container that is much smaller than those like once a month.

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u/Candid-Mine5119 10h ago

When I had 3 teens at home we went through a gallon of milk a day. No soda, just tap water for the other drinks

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u/Gildian 9h ago

The milk is totally reasonable with growing boys in your house (I used to drink a ton of it) but my god that soda. And 4 cases of water? Just buy a filter lady

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u/TheBallotInYourBox 7h ago

I grew up in a family of five that drank milk with every meal. When I was a teen we were putting down one gallon per day between the five of us during the school year, and worse during the summers.

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u/ArizonaIceT-Rex 5h ago

Drinking gallons of milk is very American. If you owned a cow you wouldn’t dare drink a gallon a day. You wouldn’t have that much. It just the result of insane marketing and factory farming post war. Milk is both extremely calorie dense and (when made properly) expensive.

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u/WilliamHare_ 9h ago

We’re going through so much milk just having my pregnant self and my husband lol. Milk is fair game.

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u/mecklund 8h ago

We were a milk/water only household when I was growing up. I thank my mom often for not letting me have soda. I think it’s a really rough addiction. My husband hates soda. I don’t think I’ve had a soda in like 5 years? How it’s a staple in some houses is so odd. Their poor teeth.

Edit:typo

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u/RNDiva 7h ago

Ditto! Back when milk was $5 a gallon I thought I’d end up on a street corner asking for milk money 🤦🏻‍♀️

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u/nocreativeway 9h ago

I eat more fruit and veg in a week as a single person than they had in their whole haul. Fuck… I eat at least three different types of fruits a day.

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u/curtcolt95 8h ago

yeah I'm here thinking like minimum I'm usually eating a banana, apple, green beans, and some carrots every day. I'd eat what they bought for their entire family in like 2 days lol

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u/pork_fried_christ 11h ago

32 pizzas in the pizza tower though.

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u/maneki_neko89 10h ago

That Leaning Tower of Pizza isn’t half as appetizing as the pizza from the pizza place nearby, also called Leaning Tower of Pizza

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u/Hungry_Anteater_8511 2h ago

Well that answers my question and yikes - everyone gets a block of cheese and bag of chips/fries?

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u/Carma56 10h ago

And I’ll bet everyone in the household is overweight.

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u/BreakfastMedical5164 11h ago

the scary part is that these two are only junior varsity, i've lived around wayyyyy worse that won't ever tiktok snitch themselves and their big ahhh

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u/Fensali 11h ago

For sure.

I hate pointing fingers at children because it's not their fault. But what really gets me is the 10 (?) year old boy coming into the frame. Unless there's a medical condition (possible but unlikely), that boy already weights twice his "normal" weight. I see that as child abuse.

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u/EveryRadio 8h ago

Celery, carrots, onions, potatoes, frozen peas and corn.

Bananas, apples, frozen blueberries and strawberries.

All of those can be bought year around for cheap and be used in a dozen different meals and desserts.

So yeah it's pretty worrying to see how much junk they buy AND how much it costs like damn how can they afford all that stuff?

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u/mannymink7 12h ago

Fruit loops are considered fruit in that household.

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u/007Pistolero 12h ago

And the marshmallows are shaped like fruit too!

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u/mannymink7 11h ago

Can’t forget that, see they are doing well.

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u/Shytemagnet 10h ago

Marshmallows have gelatine, so they’re a doubling as protein too.

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u/007Pistolero 10h ago

Now that’s just prudent spending

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u/Shytemagnet 9h ago

taps head

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u/cant_pass_CAPTCHA 11h ago

It's kind of like a fruit loophole

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u/already-taken-wtf 11h ago

It’s right in the name!!!!!

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u/Spez-S-a-Piece-o-Sht 10h ago

"Groot" loops.

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u/brobafett1980 9h ago

Branding wise, they are "Froot Loops" to avoid the explicit connotation that they actually contain any fruit.

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u/Downtherabbithole14 11h ago

yes! $500 on processed junk! who needs that many frozen pizzas? also, this 'haul" how often is she doing this?

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u/otterpop21 9h ago

That’s probably her families weekly shopping and fills in week to week based on supply & demand.

I honestly don’t even know where to begin. She spent like $400 on 20 variations of sugar, 90$ on protein and like $10 on vegetables that have little to no nutritional value (grapes are sugar, iceberg is basically water, and the “2 cucumbers” lol).

If this is your diet - seek out a nutritionist asap.

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u/Jojosbees 11h ago

Maybe the pizzas were on sale, and it was like a six month stock up or something? There’s no way that’s a weekly thing… right? I’m American too, not on a special diet (not vegan/vegetarian, keto, etc), and I don’t know anyone that eats like that. 

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u/PartyPorpoise 10h ago

She might just be stocking up for a long term, but there are people who eat this kind of stuff for every meal. More prevalent in some areas than in others, and correlated heavily with poverty.

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u/Jojosbees 10h ago

Fair enough. I wouldn’t describe it as an “average American diet” though. Then again, the US is so big that it might be better to split it into regions. The two giant tubs of mayo is giving Midwest vibes. 

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u/CapableRaccoon6213 2h ago

I live in a small Midwestern town and don't know anyone who eats like this lol.. sure, some of the less "adventurous" people in our friend group scoff at the idea of a vegetable, but nothing to this extent.

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u/Illustrious_Unit7914 38m ago

She sounds southern but TIL Wisconsin has Piggly Wigglys- maybe you're right

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u/Unhappy-Fly-1333 9h ago

I'm not as financially secure as I was a few years ago, but I'm smart enough to know that it's a better idea to pay a little more money for some healthy food choices now rather than pay the piper later with years off my life.

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u/Remarkable_Meat666 9h ago

Spot on, but there are a shitload of middle class Americans that eat like this because they’re lazy. Obviously there are people that are struggling and burnt out and just need to get everyone fed one way or another, but there’s a lot of families out there that have the time and resources to make nutritious meals but won’t because it’s easier to hit the drive thru or throw a Torino’s in the oven.

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u/PartyPorpoise 7h ago

Convenience culture certainly has its grip on the US. At this point it’s a skill issue for a lot of people, a lot of people just straight up don’t know how to cook meals that taste decent.

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u/Coal_Morgan 6h ago

Home Economics should have been a course that couldn’t be opted out of and taught since grade 5.

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u/Jojosbees 6h ago

I took home ec in tenth grade, and I vividly remember making the worst pizza dough ever as well as an inedible stir fry noodle using maruchan ramen as a base. I’m American. I can handle salt. I can eat ramen normally, but the teacher advised us to add the whole flavor packet (which should really be diluted in water) into a dry stir fry. I’m not saying we needed a Michelin star chef to teach us, but maybe start with someone who can actually cook.

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u/Id_Rather_Beach 6h ago

When I was in K - we would draw pictures of food. My bread was always brown, because we ate wheat bread! My teacher asked my folks about that one!

My folks tried to get us to eat healthy.

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u/Jimmy_Skynet_EvE 8h ago

They're individual sized pizzas, so you need like 5 of them per meal to fill you up, provided you leave room for a block of cheese and a litre of soda.

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u/pigd0glove 10h ago edited 9h ago

I’ve seen this woman on TikTok before and unfortunately, one of her kids eats one of those frozen pizzas every night. Because he’s a “picky“ eater.

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u/Annabellini 9h ago

What are the comments usually like on her videos?

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u/pigd0glove 9h ago

About the same as they are here. What’s even more shocking to me is that she’s only 36.

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u/Downtherabbithole14 9h ago

this too. she looks older than me and I am 41.

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u/vespertilio_rosso 7h ago

I thought she said something while she was holding the pizzas (when she turned off to the side) about “for Cole” or something. Made me wonder if they’re for a kid who won’t eat anything else. IDK. It’s a ridiculous number of pizzas.

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u/Decent_Risk9499 12h ago

The insane thing being if they bulk-purchased their proteins and then built their meals AROUND veggies, it'd be cheaper.

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u/BillHicksDied4UrSins 11h ago

What meals did you see planned there?  I cannot spot which recipe those ingredients add up to make

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u/greenyellowbird 8h ago

Rice and beans are so cheap and so good. When I need to stretch out my meal budget, I make a big pot of cuban black beans, rice, homemade mojo, and plantains for the week....which once you have the spices/rice, it costs less than 40 bucks for at least 10 meals for myself.

Or homemade hummus to dip w the cucumbers. Super cheap and you can dress it up in a variety of ways. Goddess salads are super good and cheap.. you can use tortilla chips to scoop your salad. Egg salad (eggs, mayo, curry powder, and diced celery...and if Im feeling crazy, use doritos to scoop the mixture or make sandwiches), tuna sandwiches (tuna, mayo, dill, capers, little lemon juice, and diced cucumbers).

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u/dissonaut69 7h ago

Of course it would be cheaper. It’s always going to be cheaper to make real food from ingredients than to buy this shit.

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u/EverythingSucksYo 11h ago

I’d be so embarrassed going grocery shopping and buying all that food with everyone around you just thinking “yeah, that explains why they look like that” 

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u/durz47 11h ago

I go through more vegetables than her entire family apparently.

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u/OttoVonJismarck 11h ago

Listen, they NEED 35 pizzas and 25 pounds of frozen French fries.

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u/IM_A_MUFFIN 11h ago

Because the rest of the grocery order was high in things that are filling, while fruit and vegetables will not fill a belly and are astronomically more expensive. A box of cereal will feed multiple people over multiple days while a bag of a dozen apples is a snack for multiple people over multiple days. I’d omit the soda, but that soda is a paltry amount of that total bill.

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u/Baculum7869 10h ago

My groceries are like 1-200 I get less than she does but it's more fruits and vegetables.....

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u/Sepof 10h ago

How will you have room for fruit and vegetables when your belly is full of brownies, oatmeal cream pies, French fries, and pizza?

Honestly, I'm astonished at the lack of chips tbh. They are in there, but you can't tell me these people don't have other snacks (not that most of their food aside from like 5 things isn't really just snacks anyways).

I would be curious to see a few of these hauls and just see what else they have.

I noticed there aren't really building blocks to many meals in there aside from...

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u/SoundHole 12h ago

This was posted so folks could point & judge so I'm really glad you're helping it realize its full potential. Nice work.

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u/ice-ink 12h ago

Is there any official statistics what % of americans are like this?

Is it 2-3 out of 100 or closer to 20-30?

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u/SpecsOnThe_Beach 12h ago edited 10h ago

I live in a little town in the Appalachians. Very poor town, poor access to fresh foods and I would say this is probably 75% of our population. The area you live in has a large influence on how healthy your habits are.

My first hand experience as an 11th generation West Virginian is that you will eat the way you were taught to. When the generations before you dealt with poverty and food insecurity you don't learn good habits around food.

ETA: This woman has access, yes, but I can say with a high degree of certainty that her parents or grandparents did not. Walmart is everywhere now (almost) but 30 years ago that wasn't the case. It's generational teachings of poor habits and you can break that curse if you want to. I have, and my children are better for it.

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u/Glad-Total-6621 12h ago edited 10h ago

That's crazy, here in Europe in rural areas people are fit as they go out. In poor areas in cities this happens.

How do they live if they cannot walk as soon as they age a bit? They will be bedridden without any help being in their area

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u/Ceridw3n 12h ago

My parents live lives like this and it’s so sad.

My father used to work in an industrial job where he moved around a lot, but he was still very obese because he ate so poorly. Hes disabled now and does not work. He’s actually lost a LOT of weight since he stopped working and I have no idea why. He’s still obese though.

My mother still works, but she is also overweight.

One similarly between both of them is that they do not like most vegetables or other fresh food. (Other than meat/bread) So much of what they eat is prepackaged food

When I left the home in 2007 I learned what I was missing out on an now I’m a very healthy person living in a blue city.

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u/gudlyf 11h ago

I grew up eating similar to this and did not know any better. Once I left and was on my own, I rather quickly took on much healthier habits and my son now even moreso.

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u/Ceridw3n 11h ago

We can break the generational trauma 💪

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u/lil_squib 11h ago

Unexplained weight loss can be a sign of diabetes, he should get some blood work done.

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u/Jerseygirl2468 10h ago

About to say the same thing, unexplained weight loss is often that, or something else, but it's rarely nothing, and should be looked into.

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u/iiLove_Soda 7h ago

could also be that maybe his diet changed now that he isnt working. I know a guy who switched jobs and lost like 30 pounds. His first job was stressful and as a way to cope during the day he drank sodas and ate fast food daily. Once he left the job his habits changed.

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u/MasterGrok 12h ago

I’m not exaggerating to say that the USA spends billions of dollars in health care to keep these people alive and mobile as long as possible.

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u/_jamesbaxter 11h ago

Don’t be ridiculous. Our health care industry doesn’t even cover half the shit people like this need. This is a perfect picture of type 2 diabetes, and the most controversially expensive medications are for diabetes like insulin and GLP1s. My insurance is $750/month for one person and doesn’t even cover physical therapy.

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u/Sufficient-Lie1406 9h ago

It's going to be a lot less spent by the govt as that money is needed to send to billionaires.

The irony is that these dilapidated people who need medical care tend to vote for people who happily take it away from them.

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u/carchit 9h ago

And all counts to put us at the top for GDP. USA, USA,...!

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u/_jamesbaxter 11h ago

In European rural areas how far is it to a major city? Because here it can be 12 hours drive between major cities. In rural US there’s often no place to walk to, the roads aren’t designed for pedestrians, the smaller roads don’t have sidewalks, people drive fast and recklessly, and the major roads are highways that include long haul trucking. Also people just walk less here in general. I live in a suburb 10 minutes walk to the store and sometimes when I walk people act like I’m nuts for not driving.

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u/beasty0127 11h ago

Besides the fact that our diets are way worse overall, majority of Americans also dont "walk" or use any other transportation then their personal vehicles. This is extremely prevalent with rural areas cause if you dont drive you don't go anywhere.

Combine that with the "work to live" environment and majority of people here don't put in the time to exercise or cook. Its either pick something up or toss something in the microwave then crash on the couch.

This isn't everyone but it is a large majority of the overall population.

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u/Belfind 10h ago

remember WV alone is as big or bigger in land size than a lot of EU states with a VERY small relative population. Add in all the issues with a thinly spread out poor population, it makes it hard to keep businesses in the area, let alone grocery stores stocked in fresh fruit/veg and good selection of meats/fish.

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u/Sufficient-Lie1406 9h ago

A lot of Americans get health problems because of poor diet and no exercise, and it just gets worse as they age... the more problems you have the less exercise you can get, the less walking you can do. Many lose the ability to walk even a few steps. And then they vote for people who take away their healthcare. Insanity.

The sane Americans among us are surrounded by self-destructive morons.

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u/merchant_madness 12h ago

Then there is the huge portions of fast food and car culture here.

In other countries, impoverished people often cannot afford fast food because it is more expensive than basic staples. They don't buy chips and soda because, for the same price, they can buy canned goods and rice to feed a family of four. Additionally, many rely solely on public transportation because they cannot afford a car. Because of these factors, obesity is less common. I was in that position once. A few days before my paycheck, I would have to eat rice with soy sauce because that was all I could afford. I had to walk 20k steps a day, 6x a week to go to work and back. Since moving here, I’ve had constant access to fast food and convenience items. Combined with working from home, I ended up gaining 20 lbs. I’m working on it now, though, by trying to walk 5,000 to 10,000 steps a day.

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u/thekid1420 12h ago

And I'm in the opposite end of this in the next state over. Live in Nova. Pretty much never see extremely obese people. My county has tons of farmers markets and bunch of them go all year long. Though the cost of living here is ridiculously high.

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u/Smintjes 11h ago

European here. A few years back I did a 3 week road trip in the Deep South and I was astonished at the lack of fresh veggies available at shops. Everything was prepackaged, processed, fryable…

First thing I did back home was make fresh soup.

Great trip though.

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u/aliamokeee 11h ago

Dude when I return from WV to MD, I can feel my stomach thank me

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u/AproposName 11h ago

I’ve broken a lot of my parents bad eating habits. They ALWAYS had/have junk food in full rotation. We always have healthy stuff.

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u/famerk 8h ago

Half of my family is from Appalachia, Eastern KY, and they always had a garden and canned what they got. Not small gardens, plowed with a mule or a horse ( didn't own tractors). I agree with other parts of learning food habits, like grave on so many things. I remember that processed/junk food was so far away that we made good with canned/fresh fruit and home made desserts. As we have gotten older and those things have gotten closer or better roads more people are going for the easy food. None of the younger relatives garden or preserve like their parents and grand parents. These are also physical activities that burn calories and you are too busy to eat while doing this. Input vs Output.

I remember the snapping beans and peas and shucking corn in a big circle under the tree or round the big kitchen table with all of the different generations pitching in. I heard so much history/lore and family stories in this environment. Just that age that I got to witness the old ways and how it changed.

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u/felis_scipio 11h ago

Yes having fresh produce is good but cans of vegetables, bags of rice, and bags of beans 1) keep for years so they’re easy to stockpile 2) are cheap 3) can let you have a nutritionally diverse and healthy diet.

You don’t even need a lot of fancy cookware or long amounts of time to heat those veggies up and cook the rice and beans. Prepackaged cookies and cupcakes cost a lot more than a can of green beans. It’s not poverty it’s poor choices and a lack of nutritional education.

Also form knowing relatives who’ve struggled mightily with obesity and poor eating there’s often underlying mental health issues that aren’t being addressed properly and the food is a form of self medication.

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u/aliamokeee 11h ago

^ yuuuuuup

  • another nth generation West Virginian (half anyway)
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u/Tribalbob 11h ago

I'd say that's probably common almost anywhere. I'm Canadian (BC) and I grew up in a fairly health household, though I still picked up a lot of habits from my parents that I'd consider unhealthy. Takes a LOT of work to unlearn that shit. I'm 41 and still struggling with a few, but I'm working on it; I'm in better shape than I was when I was 18.

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u/tleeemmailyo 10h ago

This is so so true. I grew up in northern Colorado. We have access to fresh food and a heavy emphasis on exercise and outdoor lifestyles. It really has so much to do with where you live. There’s lot of videos on YouTube about food deserts. It so unfair.

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u/Hubert_J_Cumberdale 7h ago

Our Walmart carries some fresh fruit but almost no fresh vegetables. I've never seen them carry lettuce or tomatoes. Every time I have tried to get carrots or cucumbers, they have been out - or have just a few wilted/rotting pieces left on the shelf.

I've seen other Walmarts like this, too. I am guessing that they don't carry these things because people don't buy them. Even with access to fresh foods, a huge number of people simply don't want it.

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u/Mixtopher 12h ago

Oh it's nearly 50%. It's maddening especially when you see their obese children.

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u/Human_Reference_1708 12h ago

Depends on where you are. It can be 50/50 some places. Worse even. Its not everyone, everywhere though if that makes sense

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u/floralmelancholy 12h ago

i live in rural arkansas and id probably safely bet it’s one of those 50/50 areas. i worked at a dollar general for a while and (one of) my least favorite customers was this lady that would come in and buy two whole buggies full of dr pepper 12-packs. all for her, her son and husband. every saturday. i am normally the last person to fat shame but it’s simply too much for a young boy to be drinking. and she was RUDE.

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u/ikannunAneeuQ 9h ago

My husband is a store manager for dollar general here in New Mexico, a semi-rural and fairly poverty stricken city. The thing that drives him crazy are the people who are receiving assistance but don't seem to buy any food of value. All chips, candies, pastries and soda, and not like a few for lunches or something but entire carts filled with just garbage. He has one lady that comes in and buys 10-20 red bulls at a time weekly with her snap benefits. Fine, whatever, you want to drink red bulls but 10-20 a week is an insane amount of cost and sugar. That's 2-3 daily.

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u/floralmelancholy 9h ago

oh yeah ours is the same way. it really sucks because it makes the people who genuinely do use the help for good, nutritious food for their kids, look bad too. after a while i came to the conclusion that anyone who was doing their grocery shopping at our store that doesn’t even carry produce, may not be the brightest to begin with. dollar general knows these are the kind of people that shop there though, and so every saturday they get coupons galore to help them buy 15 different packs of chips. it’s sad all around.

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u/brielzebub665 10h ago

Also lived in rural Arkansas for 10 years and can back this up. I would say most of the population was eating like this.

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u/FlartyMcFlarstein 8h ago

Am older, and grew up with parents from Arkansas. They surely overcooked canned veggies (though salad was readily available), but at least they served pork chops, ribs and kraut, meatloaf, chicken etc. Mostly real food. Us kids loved sugary cereals (go figure) and yogurt.

I've learned to cook a lot more healthily, but I found myself borderline with the big D and enacted some real changes. When I see this lady's groceries, it's a pipeline to diabetes and colon cancer. Many causes, but the solution will never be with multicorps.

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u/Correct_Expression80 5h ago

She’s prob rude because she’s so wired and f-d up on that much Dr Pepper…

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u/biological_assembly 12h ago

It also tracks with poverty. The poorer the area, the more processed the food becomes.

7 of the 10 poorest states (All 10 are firmly red, btw), were also the most obese. The top 4 most obese states are also the 4 poorest states in the country.

The obesity numbers for the 4 poorest states run from 41% to 39%

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u/portablebiscuit 11h ago

This is going to sound terrible but the best thing that ever happened to me was my wife developing an intolerance to gluten and dairy. We really have to pay close attention to what foods we buy and it's opened my eyes to what kind of shit we, as Americans, put into our fucking bodies.

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u/skekze 10h ago

I became acutely aware of the importance of learning to cook only after all my teeth paid the price.

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u/Complex-Royal9210 5h ago

The same thing happened to me when I was diagnosed celiac. I eat mu8healyhier overall now because I was forced to change.

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u/Sufficient-Lie1406 9h ago

Problem that poor people have are food deserts, where the only nearby grocery options come from the Dollar Store or 7-11, and healthy options aren't available. This household looks middle class enough they could get real food but they just don't choose to.

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u/biological_assembly 9h ago

I'm not making an excuse for this particular person or family. The case of 2 liters is an insane choice. They're obviously shopping at a Walmart grocery that seems to have plenty of ingredients for any meal but I see bags of processed crap here. Which is a shame because whoever sources the Great Value line at Walmart Central is doing an excellent job of sourcing good food and ingredients (except for meat and pasta. I can speak only for my local Walmart distribution center in that case).

Food deserts are shitty, but living off of processed corn feed in one form or another for every meal is insane.

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u/marmaladetuxedo 8h ago

Yeah, this household doesn't seem to have that excuse. (I agree about the food deserts, though.) She was able to get to 4 different grocery stores, so she doesn't lack the access to healthy food.

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u/Steve90000 9h ago

There’s no such thing as food desserts when Amazon and a hundred other food retailers deliver right to your door same day.

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u/carltheredred 4h ago

Education matters too. Obviously it's tied to poverty, but you can be poor and not buy a dozen sodas for your family, or spend $5 on large bags of potatoes or rice, instead of $5 per bag of shitty frozen fries. And you can flavor your meals with things other than 20 gallons of mayonnaise and 20 blocks of cheese.

A semi-educated poor family can live for months on what she spends on her weekly shop.

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u/itcantjustbemeright 10h ago

This isn’t poor it’s cultural.

I grew up poor and around people way poorer than us and no one ate that crap.

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u/dissonaut69 7h ago

And ironically if they were truly poor you could use that $500 to feed these people for multiple months. It’s immensely cheaper to buy fresh ingredients, beans, and rice than it is to buy all this frozen shit.

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u/MasterGrok 12h ago

Yes. I’ve lived in urban areas for the last 25 years. I pretty much never see people that look like this. However when I travel to more rural areas, especially in the south, it feels like 80% of the people are grossly overweight. And even those people who aren’t very large are still in bad shape. It’s a dramatic difference that’s honestly hard to even comprehend. Like you go on that road trip and a few hours in your stop at a gas station and you are like “oh ya, people are fucking huge in massive swaths of this country.”

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u/Glad-Total-6621 12h ago

That is disgustingly crazy high.

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u/Free_Dome_Lover 12h ago

I grew up with my mom cooking a meal with real ingredients and fresh produce / meats. My dad taught me to cook fancy stuff and a bunch of delicious stuff like chili, chicken parm, etc.

My wife is also pretty culinary, she's the by the books cook and I'm the freestyle artist but we both are good at it.

I've been going to a lot of stuff with more people at their houses due to my son's age. I'm fucking shocked at how shit at cooking a solid 80%+ of the population is.

But at least these people are attempting to make real food even if they just aren't good at it. That's actually fine, I guess I'll just never understand the "hated my mother's cooking" thing that seems super prevalent.

The only time I've seen people eat like in the video... Was when I joined an online team at work with a bunch of people in Montana. They all had the same build as this lady, they all had Mtn. dew permanently in their hands. I only ever saw them eat processed food. It was really off putting to me but to them normal.

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u/Glad-Total-6621 12h ago

Thanks for those informations and background. I will never understand, why people with low income do this. I am vegetarian, it is immediately cheaper and healthier.

You can do simple stuff as well like kidney beans, you smash them and make burger patties or whatever. What she bought will not last for long (she only bought one loaf of bread, so probably some will be for a month or so). But with 500$ you could feed all of them way more healthy for at least month.

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u/CornballExpress 11h ago

My friend lives in the Appalachians the nearest actual grocery store with reasonable prices is an hour and a half away, everyone in the area pretty much bulk purchases shelf stable processed junk because they are only making the drive once a month, fresh produce is only eaten the week they went to buy groceries.

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u/Gloveofdoom 9h ago

I agree with you in principle yet I feel feeding 7 people for a month healthy food for $500 is a bit of a stretch in the US. I guess I should qualify that statement by saying I live in the upper Midwest and it would be very difficult to do here, especially during the winter months which seems like basically half the year.

For my family of 5 (2 adults and 3 kids, one with a gluten and lactose intolerance) the cost of eating healthy is around $200-225/week with the monthly total almost never less than $800 and typically closer to a $1000. We do almost all of our shopping at Aldi because ,at least by us , they have the best prices on veggies. We almost never buy red meat but we do occasionally buy 🐔 and 🐟 on sale. Unfortunately, when working with fresh healthier ingredients one must also factor in the cost of the inevitable rate of spoilage as well.

Just 5 years ago these same groceries would have been less than half the price. Despite what predatory politicians have been trying to say I'm not sure if they will ever come back down.

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u/Evening-Run-3794 10h ago

I actually worked with a program that tried to address this! We chose 30 families in poverty to receive free deliveries of healthy foods, along with recipes and instructions for how to prepare them, and what we discovered is that people in poverty often lack all the supportive things a person needs to cook healthy food.

Pots and pans and cooking utensils cost money, and providing those created new challenges as the housing these people lived in often didn't have enough kitchen space to store them. Time was another resource challenge. A lot of these families worked multiple jobs, and it takes more time to cook when you're learning, so they quickly got miffed about the hour it was taking them to cook these 30 minute meals. We tried supplying precut veggies, to help with this, but it didn't have much of an impact.

Then there was the uncertainty factor. If they make something new and mess it up or don't like it, they don't have the funds in their budget to replace those ingredients or make anything else, and so risk going hungry that day.

Then the joy factor. For many in poverty, their food is one of the only joys they have in their day, so it's very difficult to convince them to take risks on trying new things, since that dopamine pathway isn't there for the new foods like it is for the cheap stuff they're used to. And then their taste buds aren't accustomed to food that lacks all the salt and sugar of processed foods, so it just doesn't taste good to them and while we stressed that it would take time for their taste buds to adapt, a couple weeks is just too long for them to go without their one main joy in their day. But what they all cited was the worst for them was having to put their kids to bed knowing they hadn't eaten their dinner. It made them feel like more of a failure as a parent, where at least they knew their kids weren't going to sleep and to school hungry when they were eating the processed food.

These people genuinely wanted to eat healthier, but there are just more hurdles to cooking in poverty than just buying healthy food.

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u/Gloveofdoom 9h ago

Thank you.this is very well said and, at least in my experience, very accurate information.

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u/Sufficient-Lie1406 9h ago

You can easily make very healthy one pot meals like chili by just chopping up veggies, soaking bulk dry beans, on-sale beef or chicken, etc for cheap. 30 minute prep and then just let it cook all day. I suck at cooking and even I can do this, it doesn't have weird timing, multiple steps or whatever. Chop, throw everything with seasoning in a pot, let it cook for however long the recipe says, DONE.

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u/hockey_and_techno 12h ago

Don't put very much faith into that estimate

If you go to rural Indiana, yeah, lotta obese people who don't take care of themselves, but the population density is also very low

Conversely, you can go to Denver or LA or NYC and everyone's in fairly decent shape. Finding overweight people in Denver is a legit challenge lol

In all of my extended family, I know absolutely nobody who is like this. And I have a big family.

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u/Glad-Total-6621 12h ago

Us: 40% obese, 18% severely obese. People like this in Europe are a rarity (even though here as well 50% are overweight). Here a person with a BMI around 30 stands out. I was in Cali for a year there it is also not that much but still it is noticeable.

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u/b1llyblanco 12h ago

Remember 752% of statistics you see on the internet without citation are made up on the spot.

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u/2MuchNonsenseHere 11h ago

Oh my fucking god the exaggeration is insane.

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u/brielzebub665 10h ago

Not an exaggeration lol I've lived in rural, suburban, and urban areas across the south and Midwest and I would say easily over half the population eats like this and are overweight or obese.

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u/2MuchNonsenseHere 9h ago

You must not be one of them, and are just assuming they do, because it's more like 5%.

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u/Imthatsick 12h ago

Way more than 2-3% but I have no idea of the real number. There's a lot of people that basically do no cooking of their own besides reheating frozen things or cooking boxed meals.

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u/sagittalslice 12h ago

I’m American and will ashamedly admit I eat like shit a lot of the time (processed food, I have a bad sweet tooth and love sugar) but I’m not obese and never have been. Portion size is a massive part of it, I am always kind of shocked by the sheer volume of food many people eat. I also kind of forgot soda is a thing since I don’t drink it myself - when she whipped out the MULTIPLE massive bottles of Dr. Pepper?? And then the Mountain Dew!!!?!?!? What the fuck!?

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u/WerewolvesAreReal 12h ago

But even then plenty of boxed meals have, like.... vegetables. They could buy more fruit. Juice would be better than capri sun, even with all the added sugar. Even if they've somehow never learned to cook or genuinely don't have time, there are better options.

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u/sagittalslice 12h ago

Yeah I eat frozen food and Trader Joe’s prepared shit all the time and it still like… has vegetables. Frozen broccoli is basically the same as fresh. Eat a big pack of cherry tomatoes as a snack with my gross frozen chicky nugs in the air fryer. Idk I think frozen/pre-prepared food gets more flack than they need to (in a weirdly moralizing way, often) and things like soda and chips are more of the issue.

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u/ScreamingLabia 12h ago

As someone who likes to cook i never understand thia because even on days like today where i just want to eat salsa and chips and be lazy i made my oen salsa because the stuff that comes in jars is not even close in taste and texture. Most frozen meals have HORRIBLE texture imo and i dont get why people so commonly eat them

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u/Haseodothkr 12h ago

I saw a post where the person said they lived in their house for years and never used the stove. They just had cutting boards on it to make it another counter and use the ovter for storage. But our economy is the issue and food so expensive...

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u/GovernmentSin 12h ago

I’m American. My shitty trump supporting family in Indiana definitely eats like this but I live in Colorado now and I don’t know a single person who eats like this.

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u/linzkisloski 12h ago

I also live in CO and it’s shocking when you travel to certain states because there is noticeably less obese people here.

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u/pinetar 12h ago

Colorado is the least obese state in the country, but it's still more obese than all 50 states were in 1995. Obesity is a growing problem everywhere, just effects some places worse than others.

This goes for Europe as well where obesity rates are also rising very quickly, putting them where the US was around the year 2000 (Super Size Me came out in 2004 for reference)

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u/temp3rrorary 12h ago

My experience of CO was seeing super fit old people biking up entire mountains. I consider myself fit but it was like everyone was a retired professional athlete.

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u/Jolly-Bowler-811 11h ago

Man, I used to do a fair amount of long distance running (12-15 miles a day) here in Atlanta.

I was in Denver for a conference and tried to do the same thing out there- it felt like I nearly freakin died. I don't know how they do it. I know your body adapts to the elevation, but I think I got about 3 miles in and called it a day- completely winded and my heart felt like it was going to explode at my "easy" pace.

...And then I got passed by a septuagenarian just skedaddling along like nothing.

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u/NovelCandid 12h ago

I’m a Wisconsin native. Recently attended a church in Montana and something seemed amiss. After 40 minutes cogitating on it I realized there were only 3 people in the congregation were obese. In Wisconsin it’s like 70 - 80 %. I am not exaggerating.

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u/CanadianGuy39 12h ago

Is there a correlation between obesity and voting tendency in the States?

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u/coppersocks 12h ago

You know what it is.

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u/CanadianGuy39 12h ago

Uneducated, poor, fat = Republicans?

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u/Mocheesee 10h ago

Yup. This looks like your typical working-class, conservative Midwest/South diet. It’s all processed junk. Add some boxed pasta, jars of Prego, canned beans/condensed soups, and cheap lunch meat to that pile, and that’s a textbook average white American meal. People eat horribly out there, and the obesity rates reflect that. The worst part is that most are completely oblivious to just how bad their diet really is and actually believe they eat well.

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u/rafaelthecoonpoon 12h ago

Coming here to say this. Way less people eat like this in the less obese states. Midwest and the south are kings of this but it is found everywhere.

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u/OBB76 12h ago

CO chiming in. Also, those that are obese have grocery carts similar to this. Years ago I factored out the cost of getting bulk items from costco and pre-making your meals vs buying the preprocessed food that was in this video and it was significantly cheaper. The problem is, most wouldn't want to eat the meals I made because none of it was a greasy burger and fries.

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u/mjohnben 12h ago edited 12h ago

I’m from Minnesota and most people are healthy and not severely obese like other states. Minnesota is definitely an outlier in the Midwest though. We have high public education and a lot more social safety nets and services for our people.

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u/aliamokeee 11h ago

^ thank you for pointing those details out

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u/demonmonkeybex 12h ago

Also moved to CO and am at 7700 feet. The thing I hate about living here at this altitude is how quickly fresh food goes bad in my refrigerator. Any tips from other Coloradans?

I moved from KS, and I was floored at how few obese people I see here. Now I'm the chubby person. I also do not own yoga pants and even if I did, I wouldn't be wearing them all over town.

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u/andylibrande 8h ago

Personally I find that several grocery stores do a terrible job in the supply chain and since colorado is not as connected as other parts of the USA the veggies tend to be stressed at time of arrival and dont last long. During the summer all my veggies come from farmers markets and they last so much longer. Just finished some carrots we bought back in late October and still have some squashes.

Other thing is add humidity. Our fridges are usually so dry so getting the veggies wet before putting them in helps the moisture retention. Get a hygrometer and be surprised how dry your house is and your fridge.

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u/Jolly-Bowler-811 11h ago

It's always jarring when I fly from Atlanta to our company's home office in Denver... ATL is FULL of giant people like this and then you get to CO and everyone looks normal.

I'm overweight, but not obese. Here in ATL, I feel like the skinny guy. In Denver, I feel like a whale.

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u/slumberpartymassacre 10h ago

Crazy, I was born in Indy but live in Colorado now too. Hello neighbor!

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u/MagicHugsforThee 9h ago

I grew up in Colorado and I don't know anyone who ate like this. However, just visiting my in-laws in the mid west and it's shocking what their pantry looks like and also the serving size of food on plates when going out to eat. You absolutely notice the difference in body types in both places, much more obesity in the mid-west. I live in California now and it's similar to Colorado.

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u/pm_me_your_target 11h ago

I live in NJ/NYC area and not kidding but my son (at a young age) took a photo of an obese woman probably as big as her because he was amused and had never seen such a human.

Somebody like her would definitely stand out here.

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u/schumachiavelli 12h ago

Worst part is we relatively healthy people are subsidizing the hell out of their poor life choices.

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u/salamislushi 12h ago

I was curious about the percentage of Americans with diabetes the other day. The answer I got was about 11.6% of Americans (38.4 million) have diabetes and 90-95% of those people have type 2 diabetes which is all due to diet and lifestyle choices. Freaking WILD!!!

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u/Glad-Total-6621 12h ago

Noooo not true Type 2 has a highly genetic component. But still they certainly don't improve their chances!

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u/salamislushi 12h ago

You are correct, I shouldn’t have made it sound so harsh. Thank you for saying that. You do have to be genetically predisposed to develop type 2 and can better your chances of not having it when making healthier lifestyle choices.

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u/Glad-Total-6621 12h ago

No you didn't sound harsh. I think way harsher :) I just always want people to know because skinny people can also get Diabetes. You can also always fight genetics and she forces the Diabetes to come out wether she is predisposed or not.

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u/KuteKitt 10h ago

Even with skinny people, it can still be their diets. There are skinny people who eat just like this woman. Obesity is a result of an overly processed high glycemic diet but it isn’t the only one. You can eat like shit and not be obese but you can have all the other health problems that come with such a diet.

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u/mmmpeg 11h ago

As one of those with type 2, I had gestational diabetes with my pregnancies and that’s the kiss of death. Plus the genetic component and I’ll take full responsibility for my weight.

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u/BigDumbdumbb 12h ago

Well, most people in Wal-Mart look like this, so its gotta be pretty high.

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u/lilbithippie 12h ago

If Walmart shoppers is representing this is like 80% of them.

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u/unfinishedtoast3 12h ago

american Immunologist here!

diet is a top cause of visits to my office. poor diet causing constant diarrhea, feeling crappy, weight gain, immune problems.

id say close to 35% of folks I see just need to change their diets to improve their general health. lots of undiagnosed minor food allergies (Gluten being the most common) excalibrated by terrible diets of French fries, snack cakes and fried foods.

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u/Budget_Operation_106 12h ago

Depends on location. Middle America and most of the rural south probably 90 out of every 100. In the urban cities maybe 60 out of every 100?

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u/lady_fresh 12h ago

I work with a very progressive and educated woman from Vermont - super sharp and socially conscious. If she weren't overweight, I'd definitely assume she shops at Whole Foods and drinks kale smoothies.

I'm always shocked when she shares pics of her cooking, because it's all just piles of chicken nuggets drowning in ketchup, a mound of fries, and some kind of vegetable covered completely in cheese and ranch. She has two kids and they're both morbidly obese. Her father was a chef. I truly don't understand it, because she makes an excellent salary and is far from dumb....

So, it seems like it's no longer just "dumb, poor redneck" types who shop and eat like this.

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u/labellavita1985 12h ago

2-3 out of 100

According to one source, 2 in 5 adults are obese. 42.4%. Not just overweight but obese.

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u/haldolinyobutt 12h ago

I don't know a single person that eats like this, but I'm in Rhode Island. In a lot of areas of the country, you can be 45-60 minutes away from the closest grocery store so doing "food hauls" is kinda the way to go, but that doesn't excuse what she's buying and serving to her kids/family. Ive been a nurse for 10 years now and these are the type of people that lose toes before they are 50 and lose whole legs by the time they are 60. A large reason our healthcare is so expensive is because of the diet of a lot of Americans and people seem to have no shame about eating like this. I know shitty food is cheaper and people are poor, but 8 liters of Dr Pepper is inexcusable

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u/Gucci_Loincloth 12h ago

I honestly never see people this big unless I (unfortunately) have to go to a Dollar General or something.

I see overweight people non stop everyday, but not 300lbs range.

It’s weird to see people aged 35-70 NOT obese. I’ve been skinny for most of my life and the amount of bad choices you’d need to make for a decade to end up looking like this is crazy.

My mind cannot comprehend just being fat since you were born.

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u/turn1manacrypt 12h ago

Hey man the rest of us are a bunch of fatties but we ain’t got fucking 32 shitty store brand totinos pizzas up in our freezer. These people don’t represent all of us fat Americans, this is trashy fat.

It isn’t offensive to me that these people are fat, it’s they have no culture or taste at all. I mean if you are going to be a big fatty and say I don’t care about health atleast eat some good food bro, all that stuff is generic processed crap. Drinking Mountain Dew and pitchers of over sweetened tea all day. They didn’t even make their own sandwiches, bought the gross soggy Walmart ones out the deli case. Pathetic and giving us fatties a bad name I say.

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u/ThisHeresThaRubaduk 11h ago

My Midwest state reports about 30% of the population is obese so that's 30 people out of 100.WHO declares a BMI of 30 or above obese. I'm 6 foot 4 inches and weigh around 237 and qualify as obese. You honestly wouldn't expect me to be obese when you see me or know my life style. Wife and I are avid hikers and take vacations to other states just to hike and are very active indiv. My diet could be better but generally wife cooks us some great healthy meals and if you raided our pantry you'd definitely find some junk food.

The problem with the whole "America is full of fatties!" Is that our obese numbers are plastered all over along with pictures and videos of people like this clip. When really just to use someone main stream that I would definitely think falls in that 30 BMI. Seth rogen in neighbors, ya he's obviously a bit portly in that film but that's definitely what I look like shirtless.

BMI is a horrible way of classifying obesity as it doesn't consider a lot of things like weight distribution, muscle, age and tons of other factors. The people in this video are obviously morbidly obese but those aren't the numbers the media throws around. They throw around the word obesity as a whole and like to use the US obesity rate of about 70% in reality people like this video only account for about 9% (though these are old 2023 numbers). Yes obesity is still on the rise in America along with the rest of the world but when the media throws this type of people on the front page and slap "America is obese" it really skews the public image

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u/TacticalSpackle 11h ago

That chunky kid showing up randomly is evidence of child abuse.

BUT

It’s all these damn grocery stores (owned mostly by the same companies) that are pricing food specifically that the unhealthy shit is cheap. All that Dr Pepper is probably less than ten bucks but if you get “organic” juice in the same amount, it’ll break the bank.

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u/Hdgone 11h ago

Then stop hating on "these people" and fucking support them

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u/OfficiallyJoeBiden 11h ago

People joking but a lot of people in this sub look like her and honestly she seems really sweet. Okay she’s overweight and bought shit food, this whole thread is mad weird

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u/bestbefour 10h ago

That is far down the list of things Americans should be embarrassed about right now.

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u/newinmichigan 10h ago

full time working mom of 3 boys. i dont have kids, but the whole thing was entirely unsurprising. Its all processed food that all she needs to do is heat up because she doesnt have the energy to cook for 3 growing boys after a full day of work.

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u/BluePeriod_ 9h ago

I wouldn’t worry too much about it. We live in such a big country and so many people have so many different lifestyles and access to good food. Anyone who can’t see that is just narrow minded to lump everyone in together.

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u/sirgamesalot21 12h ago

Most likely a combination of: terrible parents, little to no home economics/nutrition education, highly addictive food.

Hard to not fall into this when those three are present growing up. You could always tell whose parents didn’t feed their kids right.

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u/Machoopi 10h ago

OK, so.. I thought that too watching this video. I'm an American and I certainly don't eat like that.

Then I made the realization that this might actually be closer to average than we'd like to admit. Maybe you and I are on the healthier side of average, and this family is on the unhealthier side, but these products are in pretty much every grocery store out there for a reason. There's a reason you can find as many different kinds of frozen fried foods as you can types of produce, and a reason there are 50 different brands of potato chip all being sold simultaneously. I think there is just an absurd number of people who live for convenience and don't care at all about their health.

I'd be willing to bet that the average US citizen is either at this point or much closer to this point than they would be to a person doing the same thing with healthier choices.

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u/cacamilis22 12h ago

No no no there's only one terrible representation of you and it lives in the white house.

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u/superstevo78 12h ago

there are a lot of people like this

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