The United States of Obesity
Updated: July 2, 2006 1 | 2 | Next » Print Article Email Article RSS / Courtesy of Supermarket Guru
A new study conducted by a group called Trust for America's Health (TFAH), which describes itself as a "non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to saving lives by protecting the health of every community and working to make disease prevention a national priority," says that 24.5 percent of American adults can be classified as obese – which means having a body mass index higher than 30.
The 10 states with the highest obesity rates are Alabama (28.9 percent), West Virginia (27.6 percent), Louisiana (27 percent), Tennessee (27.2 percent), Texas (25.8 percent), Michigan (25.4 percent), Kentucky (25.8 percent), Indiana (25.5 percent), South Carolina (25.1 percent) and, ranking as the most obese state in the nation, Mississippi, with 29.5 percent of its population classified as obese. The study noted that the propensity for girth is more pronounced in the southern US.
"We have a crisis of poor nutrition and physical inactivity in the U.S. and it's time we dealt with it," said Shelley A. Hearne, executive director of the trust.
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The least obese states were reported to be Colorado, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont and Montana. (Hawaii was not ranked in the study.)
Only one state – Oregon – did not show an increase in obesity rates over the past year.
TFAH also said that its study showed that more than 52 percent of adults in each and every state of the union are either obese or overweight.
While the federal Centers for Disease Control Prevention (CDC) does not rank the states the same way as TFAH, the CDC does report that two decades ago there was not a single state where more than a fifth of the population was obese – and now more than 40 states have reached and exceeded that obesity level.
The CDC also is questioning the TFAH study's methodology, saying that the samples varied from state to state, and that many states use differing measurements in determining obesity rates.
The TFAH study also showed a mixed bag in how the various states are trying to educate their children in order to reverse this trend.
For example, only six states have set nutritional standards tougher than those established by the US department of Agriculture – three of them in the past year. Two of them, though – Kentucky and South Carolina – made the list of ten most obese states. So the evidence would suggest that legislators and citizens there are trying to do something about it.
However, more than 20 states in the past year have introduced legislation that would have addressed the school lunch/nutrition issue -- and none of those bills have been passed. Only four states – Arkansas, Illinois, Tennessee and West Virginia -- screen children to see if their body mass index exceeds acceptable levels. And only 23 of the 50 states have received funding from the CDC with which they can develop anti-obesity initiatives (though, to be fair, 39 states applied for funding…which ran out).
The problem is clear: the nation is fat and getting fatter…and short of a kind of national hysteria, there is no credible, concerted effort taking place on a national scale to deal with the problem.
We're not talking about the wringing of hands and the gnashing of teeth, with people blaming companies and companies blaming parents. We're talking about a consistent, logical, measured approach to nutrition education that emphasizes personal responsibility, moderation and exercise. We're talking about a national dialogue and a countrywide educational effort that will raise people's consciousness and create real cultural change.
Without such an approach, the statistics will just grow more alarming as the national waistline expands.