If they are fat, then they are not poor - but their standard of living is just lower than most others.
High protein diets are a standard for a higher standard of living.
Not necessarily that if they're fat they're not poor.
One of the major MAJOR symptoms of a food intolerance that is often overlooked is a fat middle. It's usually actually bloat, as I found out trying to get off of gluten myself. I felt myself bloat and feel ill every time I ate it, and now that I'm not I feel a lot better. I do the same with chicken and pork.
I am one of those people on assistance, and yes, we use our church's food bank. Well, my husband's church; I have not felt welcome there.
Many people are allergic or at least intolerant of corn and soy as well, and they are common ingredients in food pantry foods like macaroni and cheese, especially so in the store brand varieties.
If a body can't process the food for some reason, it just gets stored around the midsection in gas. I have literally been ten inches smaller in the waist in the morning than in the evening, all from eating my allergens. And if that's all I can get ahold of, then I just bloat and bloat until I get from my normal size 14 to a 22 in about three days time. Once I lay off for a week, I'm back down to seeing my ribs again.
So imagine you know you feel ill eating like this but can't afford to eat better? That's what I and lots of other people are up against. There's also a theory (which I have found correct) that states if you eat too much of a certain family of foods in a row, your body becomes intolerant of it. Lay off of it for a few weeks and you might be able to eat some. But you should rotate your diet every four days... if you have pasta one day don't have it again until the weekend, for example. But poor people don't have that luxury.
Also, if a family is not getting enough food, sometimes the body will store whatever fat it gets. That is what happened to me when my family had me put on a raw food, vegan diet. I would eat what I wanted (and not great quantities of it either) at church potlucks (which were only once every three months) and eventually my body just hoarded the fat until I weighed 215 pounds, despite doing 90 minutes of cardio a day and an hour of weights three times a week.
Added to this all is that hormones need certain fats and certain nutrients to work. Processed junk doesn't give the nutrients to support the thyroid, processed carbs can lead to diabetes, at which point it's very difficult to lose weight once it's on.
Anyway, just my take, from someone who is both on food stamps AND church food pantry.
I wish churches would try to raise that little bit extra, so that they could employ poor people to do part-time work - mostly physical work. That way people gain self-esteem, and get some exercise as well. It would be far more likely to serve as a gateway to earning a living, than simple hand-outs.
As for the elderly and poor - they should be looked after and given the opportunity to rest and enjoy pleasant past-times. It does us good to honour the elderly.
I wish this too, but many churches are too much in debt to their building costs, and supporting overseas missionaries seems to be the top of their priorities with what money they have leftover. This is why I favor a house church setup with about four families, each tithing 10%. Say if each adult has a job paying $30,000 a year, that's $24,000 that could be raised to help their community- and not even worry about building costs! If they raised $2,000 a month, that could help with giving $400 worth of food to 5 different families each month... a LOT better setup if you ask me than the one grocery bag a month we get from our church, half of which is leftover candy from the last candy holiday.
