After taking yesterday off in a show of support for the SOPA/PIPA protest I’m glad to be back!
For some reason this letter to the editor made it into one of the daily digests of nutrition articles I receive. Although I am not entirely sure what his point was I still felt compelled to comment on a few of the statements he made. He mentions that many seniors are able to eat healthy diets on meagre pensions. This is not, in fact true. Many seniors living on pensions or government benefits are struggling with food security. In Ontario we do an annual costing of a “nutritious food basket” which we then use to determine if particular families and individuals are able to afford a basic nutritious diet. These results consistently show that seniors are one of the populations that may be unable to afford a basic diet. In addition, as dietitians we often hear about seniors surviving on a diet of “tea and toast.”
The author seems to be implying that because seniors can afford a nutritious diet with a limited income that those living on disability pensions or other forms of social assistance must be mismanaging their funds if they are unable to afford a basic nutritious diet. He also mentions that there are people working multiple jobs who are still living in poverty. This is an unfortunate perception that I hear all too often, that there’s a “deserving” poor and an “undeserving” poor. People should not be categorised into deserving and undeserving. No one wants to live in poverty. Everyone deserves the right to a basic nutritious diet. Unfortunately, there are many people in Canada (nearly 10% of the population) who, for various reasons, are unable to afford a basic nutritious diet. Letters like this only serve to further perpetuate negative stereotypes.
