Question
How come my cleaning lady isn't in better shape?
Answer
1. The fat cleaning lady may be the stereotype, but I've met several who were very fit and slim
2. But... as a member of the generally poor class, the answer is probably the same as for the question of obesity in poor people generally: the cheapest food is the fatty, addictive, calorie dense food. The Supersize Me effect. It takes a lot of money or effort to eat healthy, and cleaning ladies don't have the former, or the time for the latter. An interesting piece of data about this is that when Campbell's first came out with canned soup, they assumed the middle class and upper class would eat it, since it was expensive compared to home-made. Turned out the time/money tradeoff was such that canned soup is primarily a poor-people food choice. Rich people can hire cooks to make soups from scratch. So the cleaning lady, if she's also a general housekeeper/cook, may be cooking healthy for her employer, but eating very badly herself.
3. The book 'Nickel and Dimed' by Barbara Ehrenreich has some fascinating glimpses of the lives of cleaning people. Being poor in America is hard. Not as hard as in other places, but still quite hard. Harder than being middle-class in the developing world.
2. But... as a member of the generally poor class, the answer is probably the same as for the question of obesity in poor people generally: the cheapest food is the fatty, addictive, calorie dense food. The Supersize Me effect. It takes a lot of money or effort to eat healthy, and cleaning ladies don't have the former, or the time for the latter. An interesting piece of data about this is that when Campbell's first came out with canned soup, they assumed the middle class and upper class would eat it, since it was expensive compared to home-made. Turned out the time/money tradeoff was such that canned soup is primarily a poor-people food choice. Rich people can hire cooks to make soups from scratch. So the cleaning lady, if she's also a general housekeeper/cook, may be cooking healthy for her employer, but eating very badly herself.
3. The book 'Nickel and Dimed' by Barbara Ehrenreich has some fascinating glimpses of the lives of cleaning people. Being poor in America is hard. Not as hard as in other places, but still quite hard. Harder than being middle-class in the developing world.