The biggest losers
Published September 29, 2015
Editorial by Greensboro News-Record, September 29, 2015.
For once, it seems, South Carolina fares better at something we don’t want to be as good at.
The Palmetto State’s obesity rate of 32.1 percent places it at 10th the nation. At 29.7 percent, North Carolina ranks 24th in the latest report on obesity released by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
That’s lower than every Southern state except Virginia (28 percent, or 41st nationally) and slightly below the national average.
Among its other Southern peers, the Tar Heel state looks almost svelte by comparison: Arkansas leads the nation at 35.9 percent, followed by No. 2 West Virginia (35.7 percent), No. 3 Mississippi (35.5 percent), No. 4 Louisiana (34.9 percent), No. 5 Alabama (33.5 percent), No. 10 South Carolina, No. 11 Texas (31.9 percent), No. 12 Kentucky (31.6 percent) and No. 14 Tennessee (31.2 percent).
Still, North Carolina’s fair-to-middling national ranking is nothing to brag about. The state’s obesity rate has increased nearly 10 percentage points since 2000. It was 20.9 percent 15 years ago and only 12.3 percent in 1990. And it’s still rising.
This means the best news about obesity rates in North Carolina is that they could be worse. The whole country is in lousy shape. Overall, 22 states have obesity rates above 30 percent. Nearly 35 percent, or roughly 79 million, U.S. adults are obese. Nearly 70 percent are either obese or overweight. No state ranks below 20 percent in adult obesity rates. Colorado is least obese, at 21.7 percent.
And, despite a recent downtick in childhood obesity, the national rate remains alarming, affecting 12.7 million children and adolescents ages 2-19.
North Carolina places seventh-highest for its incidence of obese 2- to 4-year-olds living in low-income families.
This does not bode well for their futures. Obesity typically leads to serious illnesses, including heart disease, hypertension, cancer and diabetes.
The sobering numbers affirm a growing trend in health care to stress prevention and healthier lifestyles. “The focus in the future is on keeping you well rather than just treating you when you are sick,” Cone Health CEO Terry Akin said in a July News & Record op-ed.
The report also affirms greater concern and awareness in Greensboro and other communities about food deserts, where, in certain neighborhoods, access to healthy and affordable groceries is limited, if not altogether absent.
It affirms efforts to use community gardens, food trucks and even a cooperative grocery store in northeast Greensboro to close that gap.
It affirms the city’s expansion of its sprawling greenway network, which seeks to link the more than 90 miles of walking trails and bike paths into a more practical means for travel, not simply recreation. The centerpiece of it all, the Downtown Greenway, is gradually taking shape one impressive stretch at a time.
It affirms, yet again, the importance of awareness and education. For instance, in families in which the adult head of household has completed college, the incidence of obesity among children is halved.
Finally, these numbers affirm a component of the Say Yes To Education Initiative in Guilford County, which includes health care among its support services.
Beyond the obvious health benefits of reducing obesity are significant savings in health care costs. One figure places the annual total at $190 billion, or more than 61 percent of health care spending.
They include inpatient and outpatient care, time and productivity lost from work, lower wages and higher insurance premiums.
Memo to those Americans who take haughty pride in “exercising” your right to eat unhealthy diets and live unhealthy lifestyles: You’re costing us all.
