As I was reading the MSN headline I was shocked and appauld by what I was reading! We as a society are literally killing ourselves with food.
It made me that more determined to inform people on living a healthier lifestyle, by making small changes in your diet you will have huge successes! We need to make this our mission to come together as a nation and educate ourselves on overall wellness!
Read for yourself below:
U.S. Obesity Epidemic Continues to Spread
A new report outlining how obesity threatens America’s future reveals that
obesity rates climbed over the past year in 16 states, and not a single state
reported a decline in the proportion of excessively overweight residents.
The report, released Thursday, also found that more than 30
percent of the people in 12 states are obese. Four years ago, only one state
could make that claim.
Twenty years ago, “there wasn’t a single state that had an
obesity rate above 15 percent, and now every state is above that,” said Jeff
Levi, executive director of Trust for America’s Health, which compiled the
report.
“We have seen a dramatic shift over a generation,” he added.
“This isn’t just about how much people weigh, but it has to do with serious
health problems like diabetes and hypertension. These are the things that are
driving health care costs.”
With the exception of Michigan, the 10 most obese states are
in the South. The Northeast and West reported the lowest obesity rates. In
addition, in eight states, more than 10 percent of adults suffer from type 2
diabetes, according to the report.
Mississippi, where 34.4 percent of the people are obese, has
the highest obesity rate. Other states with obesity rates above 30 percent
include: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma,
South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. Thirty-eight other states
have obesity rates above 25 percent.
For the second year in a row, obesity rates rose in Illinois,
Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, Rhode Island and Texas.
And, for the third year straight, more residents of Florida,
Kansas, Maine, Oklahoma and Vermont tipped the scale toward obesity.
Colorado, with an obesity rate of 19.8 percent, is the only
state where the rate is less than 20 percent, the investigators found.
Other highlights of the report include:
- The number of adults who do not exercise
rose across 14 states. - Obesity among men is up in nine states,
but dropped for women in Nevada. - Obesity prevalence varies with education
and income. The least educated and the poorest had the highest rates of obesity;
college graduates had the lowest.
More than one-third of children and adolescents are obese or
overweight, with the highest prevalence in the South. However, the new data
indicate that obesity among children and adolescents may have leveled off,
except among the heaviest boys.
“This generation of kids could have shorter life spans,
because people are getting diabetes and hypertension much earlier,” Levi
said.
The solution is simple, he added: Eat less, exercise more. “We
have reconstructed our lives so that we don’t build in physical activity. We
have neighborhoods and communities that are food deserts, where the only food
you can find is unhealthy fast food,” he said.
Samantha Heller, a dietitian in Fairfield, Conn., called
childhood obesity “a complex, multi-faceted problem that needs to be tackled
from many different angles.” She said she wished the report offered ways to
educate parents and caregivers about healthy eating for children.
Parents and caregivers make approximately 75 percent of the
food decisions for children, Heller said, so it is essential that they learn
about healthy, affordable foods and meals for children that make sense to them.
“Overall, I am hopeful that the report will help motivate food
companies, local and state governments, schools and communities to generate a
good head of steam to help stem the tide of childhood obesity,” she added.
Obesity expert Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention
Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn.,
called the report “a reminder that obesity ranks among the most urgent public
health problems of our time. While efforts to reverse obesity trends are
proliferating, the tide has not yet turned, and more needs to be done.”
The report makes it clear that interventions need to be
tailored to diverse settings, Katz added. “I support the view that the root
cause of epidemic obesity is everything about modern living, and that it will
take the aggregation of a lot of effective programming to change our course,” he
said.
Levi noted that the federal government was introducing
programs to stem the obesity crisis, but “we need to fund these programs
adequately,” he said.
“We now know the pieces that need to be put into place [to
reduce obesity],” he added. “Some of them are about what we as individuals do,
but a lot of it is also about what we as a community come together to do,” Levi
stated.
The list below, from the Report F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future, shows
the percentage of obese adults in all 50 states:
State | % | State | % | |
Mississippi | 34.4 | Maine | 26.5 | |
Alabama | 32.3 | Washington | 26.4 | |
West Virginia | 32.2 | Florida | 26.1 | |
Tennessee | 31.9 | Alaska | 25.9 | |
Louisiana | 31.6 | Virginia | 25.9 | |
Kentucky | 31.5 | Idaho | 25.7 | |
Oklahoma | 31.4 | New Hampshire | 25.6 | |
South Carolina | 30.9 | New Mexico | 25.6 | |
Arkansas | 30.6 | Arizona | 25.4 | |
Michigan | 30.5 | Oregon | 25.4 | |
Missouri | 30.3 | Wyoming | 25.4 | |
Texas | 30.1 | Minnesota | 25.3 | |
Ohio | 29.6 | Nevada | 25.0 | |
North Carolina | 29.4 | California | 24.8 | |
Indiana | 29.1 | New York | 24.7 | |
Kansas | 29.0 | Rhode Island | 24.3 | |
Georgia | 28.7 | New Jersey | 24.1 | |
South Dakota | 28.7 | Montana | 23.8 | |
Pennsylvania | 28.5 | Vermont | 23.5 | |
Iowa | 28.1 | Utah | 23.4 | |
Delaware | 28.0 | Hawaii | 23.1 | |
North Dakota | 28.0 | Massachusetts | 22.3 | |
Illinois | 27.7 | Connecticut | 21.8 | |
Nebraska | 27.6 | District of Columbia | 21.7 | |
Wisconsin | 27.4 | Colorado | 19.8 | |
Maryland | 27.1 |
Find More on MSN Health
or by clicking on the link below:
http://health.msn.com/healthy-living/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100275061>1=31036
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Fit Chic