Obesity In America Continues To Expand

[Health Dr. 2]

Obesity in America Continues to Expand
By Steven Reinberg
Tuesday 23 August 2005

Obesity rates continue to climb in every state except Oregon, and government policies and actions offer little hope of reversing the trend, according to a new report Tuesday from the Trust for America's Health.

The report, F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing in America, 2005, found that Mississippi is the heaviest state, while Colorado is the least heavy.

More than 25 percent of adults in 10 states are obese - Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana and South Carolina.

"Across the board, we have every state failing to meet the national goal of 15 percent or less of the population being obese," Shelley Hearne, executive director of the Trust for America's Health, told a press conference.

"Bulging waistlines are growing, and they are going to cost taxpayers more dollars, and it's going to cost us in years of life and quality of life, regardless of where you live," Hearne added. "We can, and must, do better to start to turn around this obesity epidemic."

Added study co-author Parris Glendening, president of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute: "About 119 million Americans are either overweight or obese. That's 64.5 percent of adult Americans."

Excess weight is known to cause a variety of health problems, including heart disease, hypertension and diabetes.

The number of obese American adults rose from 23.7 percent in 2003 to 24.5 percent in 2004. The US Department of Health and Human Services set a national goal that obesity would be reduced by 15 percent by 2010. An estimated 16 percent of active duty US military personnel are obese, and obesity is the biggest reason for discharging soldiers, Glendening noted.

In addition, people on food stamps are more likely to be obese compared with higher income individuals, Glendening said. "There is a link between obesity and those with lower incomes and less education," he added.

Glendening said that to fight the obesity epidemic, a combination of individual responsibility and government policy is needed.

"While it is indisputable that individual behavior - eating less and exercising more - is critical to addressing obesity, the government and private industry also have important roles to play in setting policies and taking actions that make it easier to help people make healthy choices," he said.

The report criticizes government policies as insufficient and too narrowly focused to have a significant impact on countering the obesity problem.

"The bottom line is that there is a lot more that could and should be done to help people with nutrition and exercise," Glendening said.

Glendening and Hearne believe that both state and federal governments can institute policies to help Americans shape up. They include combating suburban sprawl by increasing recreation space, and improving nutrition and physical education in schools.

"To really see a change in people's health, these programs must grow significantly," Glendening said.

"We have a crisis in poor nutrition and physical activity in this country," Hearne added. "It's simple math: we are eating more and exercising less. And it's time we deal with it in a much more systematic and realistic way."

An outside expert put it even more starkly.

"Obesity is arguably the gravest public health threat in the United States today," said Dr. David L. Katz, the director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine.

Obesity is among the root causes of almost every major chronic disease you face, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, breathing disorders and cancer, he added.

"This new report indicating that we are not doing enough to control obesity should come as no surprise," Katz said. "We are, in fact, doing quite a lot to make obesity worse. New technologies that decreases our physical activity; new processed food products that combine tasty calories with poor nutrition; time wasted on silly distractions such as fad diets, and policies and politics that squeeze physical activity and opportunities for good nutrition out of the typical work and school day all conspire against us."

Katz said that it will take a massive and comprehensive effort to turn around the array of "obesigenic" factors that conspire against everyone.

"But the effort will be worth it," he added. "Without it, we face rising rates of chronic disease for as far ahead as we can see. That is simply not a future any of us can accept."

[Guest]

People are still behaving like food sluts inspite of the warnings. As long as gluttons are enabled to gormandize on a regular basis they will continue to remain gluttons because they are being rewarded for their gluttonous ways.

I reject the idea of blaming the food industry. There is no doubt that they are exploiting the gluttony epidemic but the cause of the gluttony epidemic is gluttony.

Suggesting that the government solve this problem is niave at best. Government only creates problems. All governmet can do well is tax and wastefully spend. The government is a money glutton.

Our problem is cultural. It has become exceptable to be a glutton in America. We lean folks share some of the blame. We see a fat person and we look the other way. We may think things like what a disgusting slob but out of poloitical correctness we remain silent. When we see some fat mom loading all sorts of crap food into her shopping cart we think "No wonder those kids of her's look like mini blimps and she looks like the Hindenburg but we say nothing.

Gluttony is not a medical problem. It is a moral failing. They know what they are doing is wrong yet they continue to do it. By any standard legal or otherwise this is willful misconduct. Willful misconduct should be sanctioned.

I remember when it was acceptable to ridicule fat kids. Taunts like fat fat water rat, tubby 2 by 4 and get a load of fatso were not met with scorn but met with humor by the non fat and tears of the fat kids. Back then there were not to many fat people because they got shit for being fat.

By today's standard the stuff I have posted here sounds mean spirted but in a rational culture it would not.

If you are reading this and you are fat it is because you are a food slut and a couch potato. There is no excuse for being fat so stop looking for one. Admit that you are a food slut and change your behavior.

I am here to ridicule fat people. I am here to tell the truth on them. I am hear to hurt their feelings because if they had any feeling for their kids and for society they would act like responsible adults but seeing as how they chose not to behave responsibly I am here to say. "You don;t need another sandwich lardass!"

[Health Dr. 2]

Hi Ball

Being a Natural Health Practitioner I certainly realize and know all the excuses plus the facts concerning obesity and weight loss. Of course the media and medical profession do not always give good advice about how to lose weight and bring the body into health and wellness. Our food supply is full of chemicals, hormones (which actually can put on weight if there is over load) and toxins. Sugar has become the “legalized drug” of America as the average American consumes 100 lbs per year of sugar!

Unfortunately just because a person is thin does not make them healthy. Many thin people have just as many health concerns as people who are overweight.

If a person has hormone imbalance (including thyroid), metabolic syndrome, unusual stress or depression, weight will seem to multiply excessively even though food consumption is quite healthy, but seems very slow coming off. It does not always have to do with what you do or don't put in your mouth. In fact many people who go on diets do not lose weight simply because they don't eat enough and the body goes into starvation mode. They go on diets that are not healthy or encourage very low consumption of calories. And this can happen while eating healthy foods. Another piece to the puzzle, of course, is exercise and making sure that your body has the vitamins/minerals that it needs to function properly as some of these will not be provided by food.

Many times there is a medical reason for gluttony. I see it all the time in my practice.

Your comment about, in times past, it being acceptable to ridicule fat kids is inappropriate and very hurtful. I would submit to you that the reason we may not have seen so many over weight children in the past is because they didn't have computers, computer games or heavy access to TV. Children got out in the afternoons and rode bikes, played ball and had several recesses in school. Most schools don't even offer recess any more. In other words, they were encouraged to run, play and exercise. We have moved far away from this. Then add all the easy access to soda, candy, snack foods laden with sugar, etc. And the fact that most don't even get homemade meals. Meals are usually from the school cafeteria or from fast food joints.

Yes, an obese person must be willing to change their behavior. But calling names such as gluttons, mini-blimp, looks like the Hindenburg, food slut, etc. is not the way to accomplish this. People will become what you tell them. It is the same thing as a parent continually telling their child that he/she is dumb or that he/she can’t ever do anything right. Soon the child will be begin to believe it. This is emotional abuse to the extreme.

None of us are perfect and we all do things every day that may not be conducive to good health. Smoking, over consumption of alcohol, eating fast food, sodas, not exercising, over use of prescription meds, not dealing with negative stress and emotions, etc. are all things that we can control, but do not always choose to do so. The important thing is to educate ourselves about what really causes obesity and how we can begin the path to health. There are answers (although no magic bullets) and getting the body healthy and keeping it healthy is something that must be worked on daily.

I posted an email earlier encouraging posts that are respectable and considerate hoping that you would post in a more respectable way toward your audience. There are ways to get your point across without calling people names and making them feel inadequate as a person. Your "shock therapy" doesn't work and will not be allowed on this forum as it is a form of emotional abuse.

The negative emotions that you have posted are indicative of a personal concern that I would encourage you to work on. Because, you see, when we continually work on improving ourselves, we have no time to point out the flaws of others. I have no other choice but to remove you from the list. I wish you well.