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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe 10 Most Obese States in America (And the Right-Wing Policies That Promote Poor Health)
http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/10-most-obese-states-america-and-right-wing-policies-promote-poor-health***SNIP
1. Mississippi
Mississippi topped Gallups list of the U.S. most obese states with a 35.4% obesity rate. In other words, one in three Mississippi residents is obese (which is defined as having a body/mass index of 30 or higher). And Mississippi is as Republican as it gets: not since Jimmy Carters victory in 1976 has a Democrat carried Mississippi in a presidential race. The U.S. most obese state is also its poorest, and Mississippis healthcare crisis only makes matters worse: one in five Mississippi residents lacked health insurance in 2013. Regardless, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (a Republican) remains a vehement opponent of the Affordable Care Act, refusing any type of Medicaid expansion via Obamacare in his state. The people who need healthcare reform the most in Mississippithe obese, the uninsured, the poor, the unemployed or underemployedare the very people Bryant and other Republicans have turned their backs on.
2. West Virginia
West Virginia has long been a poster child for white rural poverty in the United States, and it isnt hard to understand why. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, West Virginia (which was 92% white in 2012) had a poverty rate of 17.6% from 2008-2012 compared to 14.9% nationwide. In some West Virginia counties, life expectancy is only slightly higher than it is in Ghana or Haitiand the fact that West Virginia has the second highest obesity rate in the U.S. (34.4% in Gallups poll) certainly isnt helping West Virginia residents live longer. West Virginia does have a Democratic governor (Earl Ray Tomblin) and Democrats (many of them center-right Blue Dogs) presently dominate West Virginias state senate. Nonetheless, Republican ideas are widespread in West Virginia, and Republican Evan Jenkins (a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives) has been campaigning on repealing the Affordable Care Act. Given West Virginias obesity and poverty rates and frighteningly low life expectancy, rolling back healthcare reform is the last thing that state should be doing in 2014.
3. Delaware
Although the least obese states in Gallups poll were generally either swing states or blue states (including California, Hawaii, New York and Connecticut), Gallup considers Democrat-dominated Delaware the third most obese state in the country thanks to an obesity rate of 34.3%. Very much a blue state, Delaware hasnt given its electoral votes to a GOP presidential candidate since George H.W. Bush, Sr.s victory over Michael Dukakis in 1988. Delawares obesity problem cannot honestly be blamed on Republicans, but arguably, it reflects the growing inequality in the Democratic side of America. Democratic America ranges from ultra-gentrified, upscale places like Seattle, San Francisco and Manhattan to the most blue-collar parts of Delaware, and blue-collar America has been slammed hard by the current economic downturn.
***SNIP
4. Louisiana
Right behind Delaware when it comes to obesity is the heavily Republican Louisiana, which has an obesity rate of 32.7% in Gallups studyand Louisiana has also had, according to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2012, a poverty rate of 19.9% (the third highest in the U.S.). A state with as much poverty and obesity as Louisiana is a prime example of why healthcare reform needs to go forward, yet Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (a possible candidate in the 2016 GOP presidential primary) has called for repealing Obamacare. Obesity and all the problems that go with it, from heart disease to high blood pressure to Type 2 diabetes, are better controlled when one has adequate access to healthcare, and Republicans like Jindal only make it harder for the poor to see a doctor.
Heidi
(58,237 posts)xchrom
(108,903 posts)***and we could have a good schmooze
Heidi
(58,237 posts)Happy Thursday, my dear, and a beautiful Easter weekend!
xchrom
(108,903 posts)marions ghost
(19,841 posts)Better to just keep everybody in poverty and suffering.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)but it goes much farther beyond that. Arkansas might have a high obesity rate, for example, but it's not just poor people. A lot of my former classmates are overweight, but they are not "poor", but many of them are or were inactive. They forgot all about their bicycles as soon as they got their driver's licenses, and many of them spent their high school nights "burger joint hopping". After graduation, a lot of them got jobs just sitting around all day, and because they were making money, they wanted to "live well"-- which meant rich cuts of meat, lots of restaurant meals, high-dollar booze, and so on. A few of them also had a genetic disposition for being overweight, no matter how much they exercised.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)the pattern you talk of--eating out, booze and beer, too many pizzas, and no exercise--is also a problem for the more affluent.
The American diet of high fat and carbs is ingrained from an early age. My friends from other countries can't believe the huge servings in restaurants here.
The lifestyle is definitely a problem.
safeinOhio
(32,735 posts)was impressed with the few over weight folks I saw on the street. Also, I have never seen so many parks and bike paths.
madville
(7,412 posts)Don't recall seeing any obese people. It's a rich area so that has some merit I think that obesity is poverty related, I also don't recall seeing a single obese person on the ski slopes.
frylock
(34,825 posts)however, they have been making improvements. for instance, they've set up bike lane buffers on a road near my home with a speed limit of 50 mph.