What a shame. Chris Joyner reports that, for the third year in a row, Mississippi is The Fattest State in the USA.
The annual rankings, by online nutrition site CalorieLab, Inc., are based on three-year averages of data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One third of the Magnolia State is obese and more than two-thirds are either overweight or obese.
The leanest state in the nation is Colorado, with just 18.4 percent obesity. California dropped the most weight over last year’s rankings.
The Tubby Ten:
1. Mississippi
2. West Virginia
3. Alabama
4. Louisiana
5. South Carolina
6. Tennessee
7. Kentucky
8. Oklahoma
8. Arkansas
10. Michigan
I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, given that every time I see a photo of Gov. Barbour or a videoclip of local newscasters, they’re all at least 100 pounds overweight. But you know, it does shock me. In the Mississippi of my childhood, fat people were rare.
Put down Hands off those Cheetos, you lot! Dammit, I’ll miss you if you croak!
we’re number one! We’re number one! We’re number one!
You tell me the USA aint the best country in the world. Our poor people are fat.
Michigan? What is there to eat in Michigan?
eating in Michigan: There’s Zingermans. There’s sour cherries. It’s famous for wild mushrooms.
It’s true Slim… obesity is found more among the poor. Why? It’s a lot cheaper to feed a family hot dogs and mac and cheese for $5 when it’s the only $5 you have.
Eating healthy is expensive. All the “good” food – fish, fresh veggies, lean meats, are the most expensive foods out there.
And there’s the guilty factor when you’re on foodstamps. You feel like if you try to buy decent food people will look at you and whisper. I know. When my husband first left me with our 3 kids to raise, I was on foodstamps while I went back to school. Horrible feeling. If I picked up some fish, people would raise a brow. Plus, I did have to stretch them as far as I could.
Plus we got our generation of video gamers older now, who spent most of their childhood on a computer and all the awesome southern cooking. Way back when, you worked your tush off so you could eat that food and be ok. Now we eat our fried chicken and lay on the couch.
Medicaid and insurance companies MUST start dealing with this proactively and start paying for weight loss surguries and diet programs. Far better that now than the tons of medical bills from all the illness associated with obesity. And as our food bills increase, it’s only going to get worse.
I agree with lydia, I barely knew where to find my room at bedtime since I stayed outside every waking moment during my childhood. I’m amazed at friends who now say their children only come out of their rooms to leave the house or grab a plate of food. Some even have microwaves and friges in their bedrooms!
Which reminds me . . . I’m reading a most wonderful book, the one Jane’s momma, Judy H. Tucker, and Charline R. McCord co-edited — Growing Up in Mississippi. Must admit to being surprised how good most of the storytelling is, even though we’re talking the Storytelling State. So many of the writers describe what you just did, OWIL.
My kidhood was about half-and-half: I was outside a lot to be sure, but also inside a lot, because I loved reading so much.
I’m going to dissent on the notion that prepared/processed food is cheaper if you are cooking it and eating it at home.
One of the issues is the subsidizing and “pushing” of corn syrup in every frigging thing. Remember Earl Butz? We can thank him for that.
“All the "good" food – fish, fresh veggies, lean meats, are the most expensive foods out there. ”
Sez who? Give me some ribs/bbq beans/sweet corn on cob/tater salad (my meal this evening), fried catfish (with fixins — hush puppies, french fries, slaw, slice of onion,), seafood or chicken or wild game gumbo, bbq chicken leg quarters or pork tenderloin (with same fixins for ribs as above), ham and pinto beans w/cornbread, fried chicken and soul food fixins (field peas, squash, skillet fried corn, collard greens, cabbage, green snap beans, butterbeans, cornbread, etc. ), grilled venison backstraps or tenderloin smothered in Hoover sauce while slow cooking and stuffed with cheeses and brown sugar (so, so damned good), grilled chicken wings smothered in Hoover sauce, grilled duck wrapped in bacon, boiled shrimp with spicy new potatoes, cajun sausage, and sweet corn on the cob, breakfast of fried eggs, bisquits, bacon, sausage, grits, and hash browns, etc. etc. etc. —- they are all “good” and inexpensive as well. Too good perhaps. That is why we are all so damned “fat”. LOL.
MS may be the fattest (with obviously the best cookin’ which seems to go hand in hand with the eatin’), but we are also the most generous. Mississippians, as a percentage of income, donate more money to charity than any other state in the country. And people that give generously to their fellow man, and are well fed, are generally happy folks.
AFOTL, that was kind of my point..good as in good for you. hehe.
But you made me hungry!
And it’s true. There’s wisdom behind the words “fat and happy.”
We were talking about this today, a few thousand miles away from “The Tubby Ten” zone, in the context of breast feeding. Do you think there’s a link between junk milk and junk food? Ronnie Mac et al don’t feed your body to function, they feed the desire for oral gratification.
Afotl’s menu was mouthwatering but full of salt, sugar and fat.
I have dear friends my age, twice my 160 lbs, whose knees/hips are crumbling and lives severely limited by continual consumption of more calories than they burn.
As for the concept of fat, happy, charitable people, that’s great, but fat don’t mean well fed and I’ve eaten great meals as the guest of people who have to run around in the shower to get wet. (Not that they had one)
Be proud to be a Mississippian by all means, but why be proud to be self disabling?
Great comment, Rodney, on several scores.
Thanks Lotus, I appear to have pressed the button twice. Please rescue!