The image of poverty in Europe is outdated. It still conjures up visible hunger, thin bodies, and empty plates. Yet, in reality, modern deprivation has evolved and, today, it looks very different compared to what it did a century ago. It no longer always looks like absence. In fact, it increasingly looks like excess. The modern food industry in Europe has created a population fattened on cheap, ultra-processed foods.
As prices continue to inflate and wages fail to grow alongside them, Europeans are drawn more and more to food that is low in nutrients and high in calories. But when the impoverishment of the working class is pointed out, it is often dismissed on the basis that the supposedly suffering appear to be perfectly well-fed. The visibly starving working class has not disappeared because inequality has been solved. It has been replaced by a population sustained on calorie-dense, nutrient-poor products that are cheap, accessible, and relentlessly marketed. In this sense, Europe is not starving its working class. It is force-feeding them.
The Myth of Personal Responsibility
Some will argue that the foods one consumes are a matter of personal choice, and that if only one showed greater responsibility, then one would not become unhealthy or overweight. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of both human rationality and the way in which we interact with the society we are a part of. It is not a case of personal failure; it is systemic design. Fresh produce, high-quality protein, and foods with minimal processing require the time and stability to prepare, the money to afford, and the accessibility of shops full of good options to choose from.
Most working-class families lack at least one of these requirements. The result is predictable. Diet-related illnesses rise, energy levels drop, and long-term health deteriorates. Individuals are not responsible for the affordability of food that is good for them, having jobs and family lives that allow them to prepare it, or the fact that shops often promote the worst foods with two-for-the-price-of-one deals and other similar schemes. The system is manufacturing dependence on ultra-processed foods, then it shames the dependent.
When these outcomes become visible, the narrative shifts. Obesity is framed as evidence of laziness or poor discipline. If bodies are larger, the logic goes, scarcity cannot be real. This argument is both cruel and convenient. It allows structural inequality to be recast as individual failure. The consequences go beyond health. Public discourse still links poverty to visible scarcity, yet modern deprivation is far more insidious.
The New Face of Deprivation
The population is being fed just enough that they are able to work long, hard hours, yet they have no energy or even desire for leisure when they are outside of the workplace. The foie gras analogy is not just provocative - it is accurate. Ducks are force-fed to maximise output, not wellbeing, and the logic is strikingly similar when lower-income communities are flooded with ultra-processed food that prioritises profit over nutrition.
These products are cheap enough to fill a stomach but poor enough to starve a body of nutrients. A society that fattens its population for profit, then mocks them for the consequences, is actively weaponising food against the people it claims to serve. There is a political function to this stigma. If poverty no longer looks like starvation, it becomes easier to deny. A person with an overweight body does not fit the traditional image of deprivation, even if their diet consists of the cheapest calories available.
In this sense, food is not just sustenance. It is a mechanism through which inequality is normalised. Cheap food absorbs economic pressure. It keeps households afloat in the short term. But it transfers the long-term cost to public health systems and to individuals whose opportunities are constrained by preventable illness. It hinders them from fulfilling their potential by making them sluggish and unable to work to retirement age, or even as early as their twenties.
For a generation already squeezed by housing crises, wage stagnation, and inflation, the cost of eating well is not just financial, but political. Cheap food is not a solution but a tool. And those who profit rarely face the consequences. Europeans deserve food that nourishes without stigmatising, a system that values health as much as convenience. Until we confront the politics of what we eat - the subsidies, marketing practices, and price structures that turn citizens into foie gras - the conversation about obesity, health, and cost of living will remain a cynical blame game.
A Different Path Is Possible
Not all systems in the world function this way. Japan, for instance, shares many structural similarities with Europe, such as dense urban living, long working hours, and high living costs. It is also a country that suffers from inequality and the consequences of it in much the same way we do, but one thing that it has not imported is our food habits. Its food environment makes healthy choices accessible and even more convenient than ultra-processed fast food.
Asian cultures often have unhealthy approaches to work and a hierarchical structure that is undesirable, but it has an environment that at the very least makes it easier to eat well. It demonstrates that obesity is not a matter of the choices the working class makes. It is a matter of the environment they inhabit. It is because the policies, market structures, and cultural norms in place make nutritious options the default rather than the exception.
Europe prides itself on social standards and public health protections. Yet its food environment tells a completely different story. A system that makes unhealthy calories the default for lower-income citizens, then mocks them for the visible consequences, is not neutral. It is political. The real question is not why large parts of the working class eat poorly. The question is why the system is stacked against them - and how long we will continue pretending that it is a matter of choice rather than design.
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