Why do commentators in the news media persist in parroting each other and perpetuating this nonsense?
Unhealthy junk food is more expensive than healthy food. From my local co-op I can buy 2 Cornish pasties for £1.20, so one plus a packet of fresh veg. for 90p and a few minutes in a microwave gives me an appetising, satisfying, nourishing, high-fibre and relatively low-fat meal for £1.50. I can't buy a pizza or burger - let alone pile of chips to go with it - for anything like as cheaply as that.
Even if I want the luxury of spaghetti bolognese, a lasagne or a cottage pie, and some more fancy veg., it isn't gong to cost me more than £3 or so. And that is instant food, for just one person, involving no preparation or cooking skill. If you're catering for a family and have a few minutes to spare, you can economise a lot more by buying un-packaged vegetables and other fresh ingredients.
To be very subtle and diplomatic about it: poor people eat shit food because they're thick and/or lazy. Poverty isn't the cause of poor diet or poor health, although they often go together. Stupid, idle people smoke more, drink more and (since the demise of physical labouring jobs) get less exercise. Stupid, lazy people also tend to have badly paid, shit jobs, so have less money. That's the reason for the association between poverty and poor health; it's not a causal relationship, they have a common cause - dimwittedness.
And you can't cure this by simply giving money to poor people. If only the solution were as easy as that! You need to educate, inform, encourage and incentivise people to eat a better diet and to lead healthier lifestyles. Which means the intervention of Nanny State, interfering Big Brothrer government, patronising people and controlling their lives more. And that is harder for a lot of people - including me - to accept, who think that voters are entitled to be treated like responsible grown-ups.
I don't know the answer to this dilemma, and I get really pissed off with idiots who think it is easy and that the government doesn't act, merely because it is uncaring and too mean.
/rant.