One of my mom's former jobs was working with low income families as a nutritionist. She would try to show these families buying healthier food (fruits and veggies e.g.) was cheaper in the long run. She would also tell the kids about fruits and veggies. I don't know how successful she was. They do make the high fat, high processed carbohydrate food much cheaper and it's easy to fall back on that unfortunately. America is a place where more is better in terms of portion size as well. Often, you see more and you eat more and don't listen to your own body's signals of fullness and then the more you do that, the less your body sends those signals. It's a vicious cycle.
Also, my sister can be guilty of buying easy to make foods. She doesn't like to cook and she's a single mom and is very tired at the end of the day. Her oldest (17) gives her grief about it at times.
She and Brianna (the 17 year old) have gone to this place a couple of times that you can put together meals that you can keep in the freezer and take out and cook as a quick (and probably healthier meal). She doesn't keep a lot of other junk food in the house though.
