Comments: Diet Yourself Rich

A week or so ago I posted a piece titled Diet Yourself Rich that noted that thinner/average weight people had higher incomes than overweight people. There were some good comments after the post, starting with this one:

There is absolutely a correlation to avoiding fattening restaurant food and your fiscal and physical wealth. What a lot of people don't realize about the restaurant industry (and I mean casual-dining, not fast food) is that their fare is LOADED with fat & salt. Why? Because it tastes good. Butter & salt are a cheap, effective way to make a $2 meal taste like a $20 meal.

An interesting perspective, though the next commenter disagreed with it:

I don't think this as anything to do with food costing less or eating better. Another possible explanation is that people applied the discipline they learned when dieting to other aspects of their lives and became more successful.

Hmmmmmm. There may be something to this one. Then, finally, there's the businessman's take on the situation:

I believe thin people are more agile and faster. They pack more action in the day. Move from initiative to initiative faster.

The more opportunities anyone tries the more chances to succeed.

Gotta go now -- I'm on the move -- from initiative to initiative. ;-)

Comments

[Youngmiser]

This does not hold 100% true all the time but sometimes people who are larger eat more and thus spend more money, whether it be at the store or at a restaurant. Although being a health nut can be very expensive as well.

Now some people gain weight because of other factors such as genes, medical, medicine induced etc where they cannot help it.

So it is really hard to say.

[DS Dan]

I decided not to eat lunch after reading this post...sadly I do not feel "more agile and faster."

[fatso]

Not hiring someone because they are overweight (it's none of your business why)is just as much a form of discrimination as not hiring someone because of their race, gender, etc. While it is true that being overweight carries health risks, many normal-weight or underweight people have health risks you can't see or know about - hereditary ones, psychological ones, smoking, domestic abuse, substance abuse, etc. Places of employment should not be "clubs" - only those who are the best qualified for a job should be considered for a job.