A new survey finds that one in three homeless people in Boston
are clinically obese, a number that casts in relief the strange
reality of food in the 21st century United States. Not long ago,
malnourishment was embodied by emaciation. Now it’s far more
likely to be hidden in folds of fat. “This study suggests that
obesity may be the new malnutrition of the homeless in the
United States,” wrote the researchers, led by Harvard Medical
School student Katherine Koh, in an upcoming Journal of Urban
Health study. The findings are the latest and most dramatic
illustration of what’s called the “hunger-obesity paradox,” a
term coined in 2005 by neurophysiologist Lawrence Scheier to
describe the simultaneous presence of hunger and obesity. Around
that time, a vernacular sea change occurred, with “hunger” and
its connotations of starvationreplaced by “food insecure,” a
term more descriptive of people who might consume enough raw
calories but not enough nutrients. The paradox fit with a
general modern relationship in the