Does the government and public agencies distort poverty numbers?

No, they don’t.

Keep in mind that poverty and obesity are affected by a range influences. In my town, low income areas are losing grocery stores left and right. If you are poor, have to use public transportation, and have to travel outside of your neighborhood to buy fresh food, would you be tempted to just buy fast food instead? Especially since a fast food meal is cheaper than buying fresh produce?

You should be careful about judging people based on their “stuff”. I can find some awesome designer labels at a thrift store for about a 10th of the original price – if I’m job hunting, it’s a valuable investment. My cell phone is a hand-me-down from my mom. You (and I) have no way of knowing what a person’s story is, but we make judgements anyway.

Have you considered the possibility that they wear all their best stuff to the store precisely because they know people like you will be judging them, and that they may be scrimping in places you can’t see from that high horse your apparently feel the need to ride around everywhere?

My sister was working a minimum wage job raising 3 kids and got food stamps and section 8 housing.
Even at the minimum wage job she was expected to look professional.
She finally started going home and putting on grubby clothes to go grocery shopping because of judgmental people who either gave nasty looks or smart remarks. This caused her to have to spend even less time with her children.
Every time she got a raise her food stamps went down and her rent went up (as well as her payroll tax burden.) It was so bad that once she asked her boss not to give her a raise because she couldn’t afford it.
There is a reason that obesity is higher in the impoverished and part of it has to do with access as @syz said and also because they are more vulnerable to marketing tactics. Our society encourages empty calories and treats our most vulnerable like cattle to be fattened. Consider our corn subsidy policy if you want evidence.
Yes there is individual responsibility but when you look at how pervasive the problem is you have to realize that we have a cultural issue.
Judging doesn’t fix anything.

When I went to the free health clinic, the few times I could stand to be there, I noticed that same exact thing. How do they do it? I was envious to a point. Most of them had the hippest cell phones, threads, and this….BIG tattoos. I never have had a tattoo but I know they ain’t cheap, even the smallish ones. So who’s paying for all this stuff? Stuff I could never peel off any money to get. I don’t want any ink on my skin and I have a basic cell that works fine and my clothes…well thats another story. What have I done wrong in my life?