I don’t like being a pessimist, but are we all just doomed? Every time I hear new news related to our health, it just keeps getting worse.
What’s really leading me to a gloom-and-doom outlook is that no matter how highly publicized our health problems are and what’s behind it all, we continue to get fatter.
A new report by the nonpartisan advocacy group called Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has revealed that not a single state in our Union can report a decrease in its obesity rate.
“Obesity is one of the most challenging health crises this country has ever faced,” said Jeff Levi, executive director of Trust for America’s Health.
One statistic really puts it all into frightening perspective. According to Levi, 20 years ago no state had an obesity rate above 15 percent. Now, Colorado is the only state below 20 percent. That means the state with the current lowest obesity rate would have had the highest rate back then. Dr. Jim Marks, senior vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, says that “state by state, obesity rates are unacceptably high.”
But wait, it gets worse. In this study, people self-reported their height and weight, and since people tend to understate their weight, obesity rates are probably higher.
The little nugget of optimism that can be taken from the report is that just 16 states reported an increase in their obesity rates, which was down from 28 states reporting so last year. That’s a little bittersweet, but we’ll take good news anywhere we can get it.
(via: ABC News)
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