[Carter08]

Originally Posted by jethrod3

This comment appears to have been made without much consideration of the current state of healthcare in underserved populations, and the maintenance of health and diet in populations of different socioeconomic backgrounds. In fact, I'm sure that it could be interpreted as somewhat insensitive to some readers, regardless of socioeconomic background. Some facts:

1) The poor and/or underserved (many of whom must accept government assistance to survive) often cannot afford to purchase healthier foods or do not have access to stores that carry healthier foods, and by necessity must buy more items (often because they are less expensive) with higher fat content (for example, the fattiest ground beef is MUCH less expensive than 96% lean ground beef). This leads to adopting a higher fat diet, which leads to obesity.
2) There are other causes of obesity other than consumption of bacon and whatever foods you may have seen in those ladies' carts at the time you saw them. Some contributing factors may be genetic. Another factor may be level of activity that may be deficient due to any of a myriad of reasons.
3) The comment suggests there should be a correlation between obesity and /or food choices and the wearing of masks. I have seen no studies out there that have researched correlations between obesity, items in a shopping cart, and mask wearing. It's also worth considering that perhaps the women were sick and did not wish to infect other people, and wore masks for that reason. I can tell you that many people wear masks to prevent potential infection of others, not to prevent infection. I have done this myself at times.
4) It's perfectly reasonable for someone to wear the appropriate type of mask to reduce the possibility of infection if they are obese, because obese individuals will often have co-morbidities that can make it much worse for them should they be infected with COVID. Also, appropriate masking and transmission of infection or risk of being infected is something that can be controlled; obesity can't or often cannot be controlled as easily as you might think.

If you were a member of the healthcare community, I can assure you that what you saw would not be "funny" or interpreted as ironic at all.

Well said.