U.S. obesity rates on rise
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Americans are getting fatter in every state, with the exception of Oregon, and those living in the southeast are the most likely to be obese, according to a report issued on Tuesday.
Mississippi had the highest rate of obesity, with 29.5 percent of adults classified as obese in 2004. In Colorado, the slimmest state, just 16 percent of adults are obese, the Trust for America’s Health found.
Oregon’s rate of 21 percent was unchanged.
“We have a crisis of poor nutrition and physical inactivity in the U.S. and it’s time we dealt with it,” said Shelley Hearne, executive director of the group.
An estimated 119 million Americans, or 64.5 percent, of adults are either overweight or obese and the rate has been rising steadily every year. The percentage of obese adults rose from 23.7 percent in 2003 to 24.5 percent in 2004.
More than 25 percent of adults in 10 states are obese, including in Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana and South Carolina, the survey found.
Experts agree the problem is difficult to solve. Americans are surrounded by rich and tasty food, do not need to exercise as part of daily life and have many sedentary pursuits such as watching television and using the computer.
The nonprofit group’s report said federal obesity programs are not yet extensive enough and found there are not enough local policies addressing community design issues, like sidewalks and suburban sprawl.
And school meal programs focus on getting the maximum calories into children, as opposed to balanced nutrition, the report found.
FAST-FOOD AND SCHOOLS
Another report released on Tuesday offered one possible reason why more Americans are obese.
Dr. Bryn Austin of Children’s Hospital Boston and colleagues found that fast-food restaurants in Chicago cluster themselves within a short walking distance of schools.
Writing in the American Journal of Public Health, the researchers found the nearest fast-food restaurant was 0.3 miles away from half the city’s schools, or just over a 5-minute walk. Seventy-eight percent of schools had at least one fast-food restaurant within half a mile (just under 1 km).
“Our cities are saturated with fast-food purveyors. Now we are finding that the concentration of fast food is even worse in school neighborhoods,” Austin said in a statement.
“This means that five days a week, we are sending our schoolchildren into environments where there is an abundance of high-calorie, low-nutritional-quality, inexpensive food.”
In the same journal, Kristen Harrison of the University of Illinois and colleagues reported that convenience or fast foods and sweets made up 83 percent of foods advertised during children’s television programming.
But a report involving 3,000 girls at 24 schools found some good news.
Dr. Russ Pate of the University of South Carolina and colleagues found a female-focused physical-education program using dance, martial arts and aerobics helped girls become more active.
They found that 45 percent of the girls who took physical education in schools using the Lifestyle Education for Activity Program, or LEAP, reported 30 minutes or more of physical activity a day, compared to 36 percent of girls at schools not using the program.
Revision date: July 8, 2011
Last revised: by Tatiana Kuznetsova, D.M.D.
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