As a personal trainer, I have come across many people who come up with countless excuses as to why they haven’t, or in their opinion, can’t be successful in terms of living a healthy lifestyle. Not enough time to exercise, not enough money to pay for a gym pass, not enough energy to be active, the list goes on. One of the most common excuses I hear is related to a healthy diet. When I talk about a healthy diet, keep in mind that I mean diet in terms of making healthy choices and not starving yourself or going on a celery diet for a week. Many people say that the reason they can’t eat healthier foods is simply because healthier foods are significantly more expensive than unhealthy foods. They claim that the cost of eating healthy is too much, so they are forced by finances to eat unhealthily. I decided I would do some research on the Louisiana State University campus to see why this might be.
I began my research by creating surveys that asked four questions related to what participants ate, where they ate, and what they thought about healthy eating. The results of my survey of 100 students showed that 64% of them agreed that healthy foods were significantly more expensive than unhealthy foods. On the other hand, 36% disagreed and thought that a healthy diet was not significantly more expensive. This made me realize that based on my sample, many people believe this statement to be true: healthy foods are too expensive.
Question two asked participants what played the biggest role in their grocery shopping decisions. The results of this showed that price is the most important role for 45% of people. The taste of the food was the most important for 30% of the people. Food safety was most important to 18% of people and convenience was most important to 7% of people. These results showed that although people believe that healthy food is more expensive, they base what they buy on the price and taste of the food before looking at healthiness. Question three asked participants how often they ate fast food in a week. The results showed that 40% of people ate fast food 3-5 times a week, 7% of people ate fast food more than 6 times a week, 32% ate fast food 1-2 times a week and 15% ate fast food less than 1 time per week. This information told me that most people ate 3-5 meals at fast food places per week. The last question I asked played a very important role in my research. I asked the participants how often they cooked their meals that didn’t include instant foods. The results of this question showed that an overwhelming 55% of the participants only cooked 1 or 2 meals a week. To add to this, 34% of participants only cooked 3-4 times per week, 3% cooked 5-6 times per week, and 11% cooked more than 7 times per week. These results showed me that most of the participants did very little cooking other than instant foods like Ramen Noodles or Kraft Easy Mac.
From the data I collected, I was able to determine that, according to my participants, although the majority stated that healthy foods were more expensive, the safety of food was third on the list of importance when shopping. I was also able to determine that most of the participants did not cook their own food and ate fast food 3-5 times per week. With most people not cooking and eating fast food 3-5 times a week, the cost of eating healthy would be higher. If you don’t know how to cook, trying to find healthy instant food would be a challenge in and of itself, let alone trying to find healthy instant food at a good price. On the other hand, if you know how to cook, it’s much cheaper to shop for groceries and prepare healthy meals and save money in the long run on leftovers.
Many people get caught up in the Whole Foods gimmick and believe that the only place to get healthy food is a place called Whole Foods. You don’t have to shop at Whole Foods in the organic aisle to be healthy, despite what many people think. Eating healthy is a matter of making good decisions over bad ones. For example, a 21 oz box of Cheerios is $3.98 and a 20.5 oz box of Lucky Charms is $4.18, one is a healthy option and one is not. Another example would be Quaker’s Instant Oatmeal over Poptarts. PopTarts are $3.68 for 8 packs of 2 and oatmeal is $3.65 for 22 packs. I could literally do all of this. A McDonald’s Big Mac combo costs about $7, while a 4-pound bag of chicken breast is about the same price. A Hot N’ Ready Little Caesars pizza is $5.45 but a Walmart rotisserie chicken is $4.95. We have healthy options everywhere if we are willing to look for them. A bag of frozen vegetables costs $1.98 while a bag of French fries costs $2.00. The only time unhealthy food is more expensive is when eating out, and since that seems to be where most people eat, they blame the price on their poor eating habits. You can find healthy foods almost anywhere, and you don’t have to be rich to do so. In some cases, healthy foods may be more, but not as important as people claim they are.
In conclusion, I think that people believe that healthy food is more expensive because they do not prepare it themselves. Since health is not a top priority when it comes to eating, people may not be inclined to eat healthy. If you walk into a grocery store and look for cheap food first, then look for good, cheap food that you don’t have to cook. Chances are, you won’t find very healthy foods in that aisle, and you probably won’t dismiss your first two criteria for the third, which is wholesomeness. People are buying what is cheap, good and instant. This is the source of the problem that can only be corrected by the actions of consumers.