F …as in Fat

July 7, 2009 bhealthy 8 comments

For the past two consecutive years, 48% of the States in America saw a rise in obesity. Not one state in the U.S.A had any decrease in the rate of obesity as of August 2008. After reading the Trust for America’s Health 5^th Annual “F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing in America” report, I couldn’t help but share the information found through this CDC survey and my thoughts as well.

In every single state except Colorado, at least 20% of adults are obese. If this wasn’t alarming enough, 44.4% of children in Mississippi are obese. In case that did not “hit home”, this indicates nearly half of all the children in that state are obese!

I live in the 16^th most obese state in America, North Carolina, which had obesity rates rise for the 3^rd year in a row. Approximately 9% of North Carolinians have Type 2 Diabetes, a disease directly associated with obesity.

The future of America depends on the health of our country, which unfortunately has a society that is more concerned with the death of alleged child-molesting, cosmetic-enhanced Pop-stars and adultery-committing NFL players than it is with solving the obesity epidemic or economic crisis for that matter.

Our health care costs have been increasing due to this obesity epidemic and even though communities have started taking action, the country’s response has been close to nothing. While acknowledgement of the issue is wide-spread, implementation of helpful policies and programs are lacking. Some of these beneficial programs include:

- Ensuring every adult and child has access to coverage for preventive medical services, including nutrition and obesity counseling and screening for obesity-related diseases, such as type 2 diabetes
- Increasing the number of programs available in communities, schools, and childcare settings that help make nutritious foods more affordable and accessible and provide safe and healthy places for people to engage in physical activity; and
- Screenings for Body Mass Index of children and adolescents. Twenty states have passed requirements for body mass index (BMI) screenings of children and adolescents or have passed legislation requiring other forms of weight-related assessments in schools. Five years ago, only four states had passed screening requirements. BMI is a basic guideline for how healthy your weight is based on your height & age.

Are you overweight? Do you know what your BMI is?
Check out the chart below to find out…

You can also calculate it more specifically here: http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-cholesterol/bmicalc.jsp and use these guidelines from The American Diabetic Association’s Categories for Body Mass Index (BMI):

Category = BMI