Ugh

In an interesting, ahem, article about Rwanda's national health insurance system, this was certainly one of the more remarkable parentheticals:

(In another contrast with the United States, obesity and its medical complications are almost a nonissue. Visitors to Rwanda are quickly struck by how thin everyone on the street is. And it is not necessarily from malnutrition; even the president, Paul Kagame, a teetotaling ascetic, is spectral.)

Wow.

One of the facts obfuscated by that interesting, ahem, observation is that some of the most dangerously malnourished people in the United States are also fat. There aren't a lot of vitamins in the boxed and canned foods that are the staples of corner stores serving grocery deserts, foods that are also the cheapest thing on grocery store shelves for poor people with low food security.

But there are a lot of calories.

While I'm sure it's accurate that "obesity and its medical complications are almost a nonissue" in Rwanda, the implication—provided by the note that even Rwanda's president isn't fat, because, despite having access to stuff to make him fat, he has the sense to reject it, unlike all those blubbery Americans!—that the "contrast" is down primarily to personal choices is incomplete at best.

In an article in which one of the central points is the irony that there are USians living in the wealthiest country in the world who nonetheless have reason to envy Rwandans because of their access to basic healthcare, one would hope to find some shred of awareness that there are malnourished USians who have reason to envy nourished Rwandans, too.

And whether the rumbling, empty bellies of those envious USians are in fat bodies is really, truly beside the point.

[H/T to Shaker Karen.]