Little exercise, little fresh food in West Virginia

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1499143,00.html

West Virginia is used to indignity. Its Appalachian hills are a byword for poverty and its people derided as hillbillies. Now insult has been added to injury in what will be seen as an unwelcome first in the history of the United States.

A team of federal "disease detectives", normally sent to combat outbreaks of infectious bugs, has been dispatched to the state to chart its frightening obesity epidemic. Epidemiologists from the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) have never before been deployed in this fashion, and it reflects the growing anxiety about the threat obesity poses to the health of the nation as a whole.

Over two-thirds of American adults are overweight and 30% are obese, as are 15% of the country's children. The incidence of diabetes and high blood pressure is widespread and rising.

The figures for West Virginia are even worse. A quarter of the state's children are obese. There are no available clinical statistics for the state population as a whole. On the basis of what West Virginians told researchers about 27% are obese (with a body mass index of over 30), but the actual figure is thought to be nearer 35%. The prevalence of obesity has nearly doubled since 1990.

[MrSandman]

1. Why bother...

Look at our rates of cancer.

My guess is that this is related to lack of education and poverty.

I do agree, folks hereabouts appear to adore their 12 pack abs.

[MountainLaurel]

2. Environment is huge too

How many people walk on a regular basis, even to pick up a gallon of milk? And for how many people has a trip to McD's or one of those buffet places become a "treat" where people can stuff themselves with crap for $7.95? And then there's the crap produce available in the grocery stores, and the fact that fewer people have gardens (knowing what we do about the pollutants in the soil and water, who would?).

[MrSandman]

3. About 25-30% smoke Cigs.