I'm confused - your phrasing suggests you disagree with me, yet your numbers fully support my claims. There is no reason a student, a retired person, or a part time worker can't exercise and cook healthy food. I recently learned how to do a clutch flag from a retired person who always seems to make time for his health.

I would have brought up a different citation [2] but it wouldn't have differed significantly.

You also bring up an important additional point - disability. Folks who are truly disabled (as opposed to engaging in disability fraud [1]) have unfixable reasons for being unhealthy and the same unfixable reason for being poor (a person unable to work is poor by definition - most wealth transfers are excluded from poverty calculations). The solutions here are a) cracking down on disability fraud and b) figuring out how to cure all the different disability types.

(Of course, some types of disability are also caused, in part, by the actions of the disabled person; consider a diabetic person who lost their feet. )

[1] http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

[2] My numbers count people who worked 27+ weeks in a year, rather than a point in time snapshot. No major disagreement though: http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/cps/a-profile-of-the-working...

This supports exactly what yf just said.

Only 64.8*62.6 = ~40% of the poor are working at all. And only 29% have full time work.

EDIT: And in comparison with other cultures and times throughout history being weak and out of shape has never been more in fashion than in America. There are entire stores dedicated to fashion for obese men and women and songs specifically designed to appeal to their sense of worth.

In a discussion about what kind of time consuming and physically demanding things the poor ought to be doing with their copious free time, it's hardly fair to consider those who are ineligible to work because of disability, etc. And if the point is to cast the poor as a bunch of lazy layabouts, it doesn't make much sense either to include those who are currently poor, unemployed, AND seeking employment.

The point isn't to cast them as anything. It's to use data to solve problems.

Some people live comfortably and healthily on less than minimum wage - some don't. Some very wealthy people live unhealthily and save less than the poor.

And it is fair to consider all people who may be unhealthy because they would suffer as well. Does my friend on disability for autism and Asperger's not deserve consideration?

Your tone and argument goes far beyond the scope of what has been said. The fact is that even among non-working poor health is still an issue - meaning that the reason for the lack of health is unlikely to be the necessity of work.

Scroll up - we are discussing why people are unhealthy. I claimed lack of free time is not the reason poor people don't cook healthy meals, eat a healthy number of calories, and get some exercise. All the cited numbers support this point.

edit -- in light of iak8god's post below, deleting this since while accurate it doesn't particularly contribute to the discussion in a positive way.

Instead I'll summarize in a slightly more polite way by saying this: every discussion I have seen between these two viewpoints -- the one who blames the poor for being poor and the other supporting the notion that there's more going on than individual personal failings -- one of these two interlocutors provides data and evidence and the other provides only anecdotes, and the roles are NEVER switched.

Just trying to be polite and open-minded.

I have met a lot of well-intentioned folks who are blind to the roles of chance and circumstance in their own lives because they correctly perceive that they've had to work very hard to get where they are. And though I don't agree, I can at least understand the appeal in just assuming that anyone who's less successful is just not trying hard enough.