It is not fit to be fat

Posted on August 29, 2007 in Sugar and Fat

The new [[obesity]] index has been published and if the fat rights movement is right, people in Mississippi are taking a stand for chubby beauty. Not. More than thirty percent of its residents (30.6%) have been diagnosed as obese. My own California placed 36th place with 22.7% of its adults fitting the criteria.

Fifteen years ago, no state was above 15%, according to officials from the Trust for America’s Health, a nonprofit group that prepared the report using federal statistics obtained through telephone interviews.

For the first time, the annual report included state-by-state figures on childhood obesity, showing the District of Columbia in the No. 1 spot with 22.8% of its children overweight and Utah last with 8.5%.

California is ranked 36th in adult obesity with 22.7% and 32nd in childhood obesity with 13.2%.

The report is “a devastating indictment,” said Jim Marks, a senior vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a healthcare philanthropy group that sponsored the study. “The nation is in the middle of a public health crisis that is deteriorating rapidly, and we are treating it like an inconvenience.”

Marks found the data for youth particularly discouraging.

“These children could be the first generation to live sicker and die younger than their parents,” he said.

Here are more facts:

Twenty-two percent of American adults report that they do not engage in any physical activity. Mississippi has the highest rate of inactivity at 31.6 percent and Minnesota had the lowest rate of inactivity at 15.4 percent.

Seventeen states require their school lunches, breakfasts and snacks to meet higher nutritional standards than the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) requires (6 states enacted new laws in 2006-07).

Twenty-two states have set nutritional standards for foods sold in vending machines, aý lacarte, in school stores, or in bake sales in schools (9 states enacted new laws in 2006-07), and 26 states limit when and where these foods may be sold on school property beyond federal requirements (6 states enacted new laws in 2006-07).

While every state has school physical education requirements, many are limited in scope or are not enforced.

Sixteen states screen students’ body mass index (BMI) or fitness status and confidentially provide information to parents or guardians (8 states enacted new laws in 2006-07).

There are those who confound the question by insisting that it is a matter of aesthetics, that fat people have the right to think of themselves as beautiful. These belong in the same category as those who believe that smoking is sexy or excessive drinking is a harmless party game. But I don’t put the blame squarely on their shoulders because the real cause is a food industry which is as out of control as tobacco was only fifteen years ago. The use of [[corn syrup]] as a sweetener, the magnification of restaurant portions, and the increasingly reliance on fast foods has made it hard to stay slim. The ones who are harmed the worst are the poor because, quite frankly, it is expensive to eat properly. (Include preparation time and price of food when you make this calculation.)

[tags]fat,fatness,obesity,obeseness,health and fitness,diabetes and obesity[/tags]