The other day I ran across an online article discussing the reasons rich people are thinner than poor people. Several reasons were cited; one reason was that poor people are often uneducated, so much that they may not understand nutrition and exercise. It also said that poor people do not have access to gyms or expensive exercise equipment, whereas rich people can afford personal trainers and workout rooms in their house.

Something didn’t sit right with me about the whole article. The thing it never mentioned was people’s priorities. I suspect one of the last things on a truly poor person’s mind is his or her health. When your sole purpose for eating food is survival, every calorie counts — the more, the better. Government cheese has a lot of calories. And on the other side of the fence, the rich have a vested interest in staying fit and beautiful.

The ironic thing about the article was that last year I lost 65 pounds and it didn’t cost me a dime. Now, there were a few things I bought that made losing weight easier (a new pair of tennis shoes and an MP3 player), but I could have done without those things just as easily. In fact, by replacing several meals with frozen weight-loss meals, I SAVED a bunch of money. The only real exercise I did was walking around my neighborhood in circles. All this is not to say that a poor person could lose weight just as easily. Going back to those priorities, I’m sure the truly poor have a million hurdles in their daily life that I couldnt fathom (like not owning a microwave, or having a safe place to walk).

Maybe I will ask my boss for a raise this year so I can lose some more weight.