Effects of Poverty

Walking in the street during midnight on a cold New Year's Eve, the poor girl tries to sell all of her matches or her father will beat her if she does not bring him money. Freezing badly, she takes shelter in a corner and warms herself by lighting the matches. She sees some lovely visions in their glows which includes delicious foods, her beautiful house and a Christmas tree, things that she once had when her family was wealthy. She lights the next match and sees her grandmother, the only person who loved and treated her with heart and kindness. The poor girl continually strikes all of the matches in order to keep the image of her grandmother as long as she can. The next morning has come and the passengers reveal that the little girl died with a smile on her face. This story, "The little match girl", was inspired by a Denmark writer named Hans Christian Anderson which tells us somewhat about the effects of poverty. Poverty, "the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money", is a life that nobody would expect to have because there are many negative effects that people would get from it.

Obesity is the first major effect that poverty may bring to our society. According to the article "Tackling Obesity amid Poverty in a Mississippi County", Debbie Elliott reports that Holmes County is one of the poorest places in Mississippi, and the statistic shows that about forty-two percent of the residents in this county are obese. Even though there are not too many students, the bus is still crowded because most of the students are overweight and each of them would fit in accurately two to three seats on the bus (Elliot). Calvin Head, the county's director, reports that the population in Holmes County was considered as the most obese although they were given an opportunity to grow organic foods such as peas, butter bean, tomatoes and may more (Elliot). According to Head, "the idea behind the farm initiative" is used to educate people in this county the way to eat healthy, the origin of the products that they are eating, and the influence it is having upon them (Elliot). However, lack of nutritional planning has caused the residents at Holmes County to unexpectedly become obese (Elliot). Even though obesity seems like an unreasonable effect of poverty to most of us, it does happen in reality. When we talk about poverty, starvation is the first image that occurs in our mind. However, the article above has proved to us that obesity is also an effect of poverty because people do not have enough money to buy them nutritional foods instead of fast food which is affordable to them. Although people understand the fact that fast foods are not beneficial for their health, they cannot despite the fact that fast foods could provide them enough energy, and the illustration of fullness much longer than the nutritional ones. Therefore, obesity is the first major effect that poverty brought to people nowadays.

Not having money, people lose the opportunity to get a good job. Since the economic recession occurred in 2008, the rate of unemployment has been increasing not only in the United States but the whole world. Many few people like Barbara Ehrenreich who left a wonderful life to experience a "low-wage