A few weeks ago, I was at a local mall about to indulge in a piece of Godiva chocolate -- a sinfully sweet, sinfully expensive, rare pleasure of mine -- when a brother stepped up to the kiosk and started haggling with the candy salesgirl.

“Why is this candy so much?” the brother wanted to know, incredulous at the notion that I’d just spent five bucks for three pieces of the chocolate-drenched confections. “Man, that’s crazy. I could go to Publix [a local supermarket] and buy myself whole bags of Almond Joys or Snickers for that much … you’re spending that much, and you’ll be through eating it by the time you’re home.”

That’s the idea, I told him.

I explained to him that I was trying to stick with a fitness plan, and that my strategy for controlling my voracious sweet tooth was to make myself go through a lot of trouble and expense for designer chocolate like Godiva -- the kind that was too expensive for me to buy enough to take home and eat all night and into the next week. Nonetheless, Brother Man looked at me like I was as nutty as the chocolate-covered pecan and caramel pieces that I had just bought. He walked away, perhaps to Publix.

If he did, that’s too bad. Because black men -- and for that matter, black people – are the last folks who ought to be buying candy in bulk.

According to a report issued by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies’ Health Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. two years ago, black men struggle disproportionately with tooth decay. Fifty percent of black men have untreated cavities and decay, compared to 28 percent of white men. Black men also lead all other demographic groups when it comes to oral cancer, and they die more frequently from it. Then, on top of that, a majority of black men tend to be without dental coverage and are ineligible for Medicaid.

And when it comes to the lack of dental coverage, they’re about to have a lot of company.

Because of pressure to pare Medicaid costs, many states are either drastically cutting back -- or eliminating altogether -- dental coverage for adults. As of last year, 26 states have decided to provide no dental care for grown people, or to provide it only in emergencies -- such as to prevent them from yanking out an aching tooth with a pair of pliers.

But the problem of bad dental health and dwindling options for care for people who can’t afford it has wider implications than just pain and death -- as if that isn’t enough. For those folks, especially those of us who have been struggling to get into a job market that is heavier on service jobs and jobs that require a person to be seen more than ever, having decaying or missing teeth isn’t just an inconvenience.

It’s a liability.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics just reported that of the top 25 jobs that are growing these days, retail sales is number one. Waiter and waitress jobs were also on that list. Those are the kind of jobs that don’t usually go to people with rotten and missing teeth.

Years ago, in fact, a restaurateur in my neighborhood told me that as much as he’d like to hire some of the people who wanted to get a break from the labor pools, he couldn’t because the only jobs he had were jobs waiting tables, and everyone who came to him about working there had no teeth. Their teeth, no doubt, were likely lost through the ravages of alcohol, drugs, bad diet, poverty and neglect.

That’s sad.

Now, I hate to dim the chocolate and sweets euphoria that some folks may have in the wake of Valentine’s Day. But the Medicaid cuts in dental care for adults got me to thinking about that brother at the mall. It got me to thinking about how not only poor, but even middle-class black people tend to bargain away their health in their very reasonable requests to get more bang for their hard-earned bucks. Like everyone else, many of us have been brainwashed by a culture of all-you-can-eat and supersizing.
 
But now it’s time for us all to begin to understand that when it comes to battling obesity and tooth decay, we must dispense with the idea that more is better. Those five bucks I spent for those three pieces of designer chocolate, for example, wasn’t the best bargain for my wallet, but it was a far better bargain for my waistline and my health. If nothing else, it’s a strategy that I hope will spare me the costs of prescription drugs and hospitals in later years that tend to come when people allow themselves to become overweight and obese. It is also one that I hope will allow me to keep my teeth into my old age.

More of us need to look at such self-preservation strategies. Our lives and our livelihoods depend on it.

Especially since the government won’t be stepping in as much to help us.