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Initiatives haven't solved obesity
Published Thursday, July 2, 2009
JACKSON (AP) — Mississippi’s health care community still hasn’t found the secret to reducing the state’s nation-leading obesity rate despite numerous legislative efforts and millions of dollars in funding, a top medical expert says.
‘‘We’re doing all these things and it’s not helping,’’ said Dr. Richard DeShazo, chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, commenting Wednesday after a new study ranked Mississippi No. 1 in obesity rates among states.
In the report from the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Mississippi’s obesity rate was 32.5 percent. It was the state’s fifth consecutive year ranked at the top in the study. Mississippi also had the highest rate of overweight children aged 10 to 17, at 44.4 percent.
The other states with rates above 30 percent in the report were West Virginia with 31.2 percent, Alabama with 31.1 percent and Tennessee with 30.2 percent.
DeShazo, a professor of pediatrics who has practiced medicine for 30 years and once served on the American Board of Internal Medicine, said the key to fighting obesity is changing behavior. But he said that’s difficult to do, particularly among adults.
‘‘The problem starts in childhood,’’ he said in a telephone interview. ‘‘We’re now seeing 300-pound teenagers, which we’ve never seen before. It’s no secret what’s going to happen to them. Do parents want their children to grow up and die early? No. They just don’t know.’’
Recognizing the health problem is also a budgetary issue, lawmakers have passed measures aimed at spurring healthier lifestyles. Those laws included requiring 150 minutes a week of physical activity for public school students and healthier school menu options.
In the just-ended legislative session, lawmakers approved a bill that authorizes the public employees’ health insurance plan to pay for gastric-band surgery for up to 100 obese state government workers a year.
Gov. Haley Barbour and his wife, Marsha, became the face of a walking campaign sponsored by Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Mississippi, which administers the health plan for state employees. Back in 2006, Barbour said he would set the example by getting himself in shape, but in recent months the governor’s weight has fluctuated.
Barbour’s spokesman, Dan Turner, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment about the report.
But the issue is about more than quality of life. Treating obesity-related illness in Mississippi has cost about $750 million, based on the latest figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
‘‘The state Health Department has very little money to take on this,’’ said Dr. Mary Currier, the state epidemiologist.
Currier said the state’s health agency relies heavily on grant funding, and currently has allocated $292,533 for diabetes prevention and $440,734 for heart disease. Currier said there’s no funding specifically for obesity prevention.
In the Mississippi Delta, one of the country’s poorest regions, the Delta Health Alliance is using $125 million in federal funding to address a myriad of health issues, including diabetes and obesity. No one associated with the alliance could be reached for comment on Wednesday.
DeShazo said nearly every school at UMC, including the School of Dentistry and Allied Health, have programs or projects aimed at curtailing obesity or obesity-related ailments, such as heart disease or sleep apnea.
Still, Mississippi is usually among the top three states for rates of heart disease, diabetes and strokes, he said.
Mississippi isn’t the only state struggling with fat. The report said obesity rates had increased in 23 states over the last year.
‘‘It’s amplified here because of our peculiar situation. So many people don’t have health care, are undereducated and don’t have access to healthy food,’’ DeShazo said. ‘‘We don’t think our people want to be obese. We think they just don’t have the information at hand to let them know how to live in a healthy way.’’
Comments
Posted by frogprincenessntz (anonymous) on July 2, 2009 at 10:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Here are some suggestions to start a better program, but they will not be popular. Since they are linking many cases of obesity to being poor, there are specific ways to help. Replace food stamps with commodities once again, but make them healthy ones this time. Low fat cheese, butter substitutes made from soy as these have shown progress in lowering cholesterol, lower fat milk, sugar substitutes, and unsweetened cereals would help the less advantaged make better food choices. Institute regular exercise programs in all head start or early start programs targeted at the poor. Make the drop off points for these programs further away from the streets to make the parents walk more. Solicit prizes to be given away at the end of each term for the family that shows the greatest improvement or weight loss; this gets the family pulling together towards a goal which improves more than just their weight. Teach the children that being fat does not make you a bad person, but losing weight makes you feel so much better. The hassel given to obese people offers more harm than motivation. Many times, they seek the comfort of food to replace the interaction of others they preceive as looking down on them. Start with the very young and teach them new ways of eating and exercising, and hope you reach a few of the older obese at the same time. Until the mindset is changed, the rates will not improve. The next hurdle to attack is the manufacturing segment. Have them reduce the sugar content of their products. Especially make cereal producers cut the sugar in kid's cereals. The products actually taste better...try it out yourself. Next time you make a dessert that calls for sugar, try cutting the amount down by at least one-third. People rave over my cooking, little knowing that that is one of my secrets. This is just a few ideas that might help. The absolute biggest help would be to stop putting the obese down and recognize that some people will never be as skinny as some of the emaciated models we see today and that that end of the spectrum is as unhealthy, if not more so, than obesity.
Posted by EnKiKur (Marty Ellerbe) on July 2, 2009 at 10:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)
First we need to identify the obese, mark them with something. Say, a star or something so we know who they are.
Then let's put them in community service camps where their diet can be strictly controlled and they can engage in healthful, useful activity under government and medical supervision.
Budgetary efficiency demands we find a final solution to this problem of fat people. They are a scourge on society, parasites who are underproductive and who consume more than their fair share. We must help them be better people. If we don't they may die too young, before they've had a chance to contribute a fair amount of income, social security, and medicare taxes.
Yes, we can create the kind of change all of us would like to see. We can create the kind of new world order all of us would like to live in. Yes, we can!
Posted by EnKiKur (Marty Ellerbe) on July 2, 2009 at 10:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The obese have a right to have discipline imposed on them. It is our duty as global citizens to do for them what they will not do for themselves.
Strength through unity, freedom through work!
If you know of an obese person or if you know someone you suspect may become obese, please aid them by reporting them to your state health authority.
Posted by frogprincenessntz (anonymous) on July 3, 2009 at 1:45 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Your kind of sarcasm is exactly what obese people do not need. This is not the area where you need to be slapping on Obama. The things you have said are exactly what some narrow-minded people think. I cannot think of an obese person that I know who did not have an infectious laugh always at the ready until they encountered our warped society. It could well be the stress caused by said society that shortens their life span, and not the weight at all.
I have seen many obese people eat and let me tell you, they could not keep up with my two young grandsons in an eating contest. One is 21 and the other 17 and both wear size 28 jeans, but the 17 year old has trouble keeping them up. My father would say "they ate so much it made them poor to pack it."
Posted by Yeahuhuh (anonymous) on July 3, 2009 at 9:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I think we should mark the conspiracy theorists, first, before any serious problem-solving effort. No need for an X or a number -- blowing off one of those blue dye packs like they use for bank-robbers would be good -- then everybody who saw them from a distance would know they were in for some real time-wasting and avoid even approaching them.
Since we cannot impede their freedom of speech, we should send them to a very remote location where they cannot dull down the legitimate responses. We could offer them a tax-free life in a Shangrila to get them on the helicopter - the sheriff's office could use the copter, fly them out on a sandbar, then report their new residence (see census story) to the census folks and it would be efficient mutiplexed government.
Census would add them to our total of occupied acres, we get more federal dollars, the blue notes would get to talk unimpeded, and would not be bothered by other members of society -- they could have it their way!
On a more serious note, some type of help by someone to deal with obesity issues could be a real money saver for our society and help people to be far happier. A great many of us -- me included -- carry around too much excess simply out of habit. The help need not be draconian or obnoxious -- it could simply be well designed.
Of course, people like me who feel they simply choose the habits that put on weight would need to simply choose something else -- but those who needed more help could get it. At present, it can be hard even finding a good snack that is not a concoction of nearly pure fat and sugar.
Unless I am mistaken, the gov't still subsidizes sugar prices to make sugar cheaper so as to use it to stimulate the economy.
Posted by SableSkye (anonymous) on July 3, 2009 at 12:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)
An easier solution would simply be to hold health and fitness seminars. Have someone like askRocco to set up boot camps across MS, have a nutritioist there to discuss healthy foods and portion control. You cannot force obese people to go...if someone doesn't want to change, then that's up to them.
The number of overweight children was alarming, nutrition classes should begin earlier in school, and not be held by an obese teacher who doesn't set a good example. PE should be required, but don't force kids to play sports during PE. Some children just don't have the coordination, and would just give up on any physical activity. All it takes is a little creativity to get the kids going!
And btw, the previous posts were awesome. I love sarcasm, it's my weakness.
Posted by EnKiKur (Marty Ellerbe) on July 3, 2009 at 1:49 p.m. (Suggest removal)
One hundred years ago this same national problem of fitness was addressed by government. They've been working on it for 100 years:
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/...
Highly recommended, from the University of Florida, a slideshow:
http://medinfo.ufl.edu/other/histmed/sto...
The "Black Stork":
http://medinfo.ufl.edu/other/histmed/sto...
(please stay off the chimney)
Black abortion rate now 5 times the white abortion rate.
Old habits die hard, don't they Yh?
Posted by Yeahuhuh (anonymous) on July 3, 2009 at 2:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)
What did I write yesterday -- we start by a simple assessment of people trying to do good then all of a sudden we are talking about black abortionist eugenics freaks?
The awful truth -- if they can put you in jail for smoking flowers, and they can take a woman's children away for having too many boyfriends, they can put you in jail for appearing in the natural human state, and they can tax your property more because you got out and mowed it, why wouldn't it be OK for folks to notice that obesity costs society and individuals life and limb?
My only wonderment Enkik is that -- you have such a powerful mind -- don't you feel under-applied? It's like lecturing to the rising floodwaters instead of filling the sandbags or getting the wagons loaded.
Posted by EnKiKur (Marty Ellerbe) on July 3, 2009 at 3:48 p.m. (Suggest removal)
You can't see the trees for the forest Yh. Those eugenicists are still around and going strong and they had the most wonderful intentions.
A healthy, strong society, overseen by an enlightened government wielding the power of legislation to shape people's lives in the best way for them, what harm could there be in that?
Those eugenicists weren't just after blacks. And they weren't just white either. They had the help of the black intellectual elite who, just as the white elite, wanted to improve their race too. Lets see, now wasn't Oprah Winfrey one of the luminaries, along with David Rockefeller, George Soros, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, and Ted Turner, and others, who held a secret meeting to discuss the world's population problem and how to combine their wealth to fight it? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/nyregi...
This meeting took place at the Rockefeller University and at the home of Sir Paul Purse. Here are some of the trees you don't want to look at. The Rockefeller Foundation funded the Eugenics Records Office that later turned into the Human Genome Experiment and Planned Parenthood. It also funded the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Germany that worked out Hitler's racial hygiene program and conducted experiments similar to Rockefeller's university. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation routinely sterilizes girls and aborts their babies in Africa and Asia.
Instead of using these billions they have to develop farming programs or build water delivery systems, schools and better hospitals they, along with the WHO and the World Bank concentrate on decimating those populations and destroying their culture- while promoting "cultural diversity" in the developed world. Cultural diversity is really homosexuality- why, if we could turn more people queer there would be less babies wouldn't there? Any third world country receiving World Bank development money has to do three primary things: institute a population control program, privatize their water systems, and develop a national security apparatus.
Population in developed countries naturally controls itself. This observation was made in the mid 1800's and is what led to the development of the eugenics programs to cut down on black and brown populations. So why not help these countries develop instead of conducting genocidal operations in them?
It is David Rockefeller and UNFPA who keep China's one child policy going, and that policy includes forced abortion, fines, and prison time for people who want two children. That's philanthropy in action; look at the good it has done- China now has most favored nation status with the UN despite severe human rights abuses. HIllary didn't want to discuss human rights on her last trip over there though. Money was on her mind.
Posted by Yeahuhuh (anonymous) on July 3, 2009 at 5:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Not only do I not accept (or reject) your source data -- having already discussed many issues with you and seen what you will bend and how -- I don't think I even agree with your premise upon which we occupy this planet.
You are a curious mix of gullible and savvy. But your over-riding theme seems to be driven by a need to deem others in coercive control. We all try to connect the loose ends in our lives, and have our special needs, but it's like you adopt the paranoia and mortality of the philosophical conservative but you have the intellect to see the contradictions in most of their lore. It seems to leave you little time or space for joy, IMHO. Maybe I am wrong.
If I accepted your contentions the message is clear I should not look past your conspiracies till they are routed. But they -- if even half real or ALL illusion -- are so big they will never be routed. I'd rather have a life of joy with my family, look for some attainable adventure, and die happy.
Far from a weakness, it is a pragmatism and a value judgment of what it means to experience goodness. If that makes me weak and foolish in your world, then it is only just as your diluting the good you could be in more present matters renders you misapplied in my world as well. I'm okay with that.
Posted by EnKiKur (Marty Ellerbe) on July 3, 2009 at 7:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Yeah, Yh, and it was pragmatism that has allowed the many evils of coercive government to exist all through history. All you have to do is be happy and go along with it and you'll be safe. Just look the other way when they are loading the cattle cars or pulling 24 week old babies apart in some woman's vagina.
Between 1930 and 1980 there were over 600,000 forced sterlizations in this country paid for by programs funded by philanthropists. While you have your family life of joy all these people were denied. While you have been allowed to experience life about 3 billion people were not allowed to since 1970, under the name of reproductive rights.
When Roe v Wade was passed back in the seventies the head of Planned Parenthood said that PP would give the voluntary experiment about thirty years before pushing for more coercive programs. Legalized abortion was their compromise for losing involuntary sterilization.
A government sponsored health insurance program would be a perfect vehicle for this type of program. There has been a recent academic re-awakening of interest in eugenics due to the possibilities offered by the Human Genome Project. Several European countries have legalized euthanasia. The trend is not toward goodness and light, unless you can somehow redefine goodness to mean allegiance to a culture of death.
Liberals as well as conservatives have supported these programs. W. E. B Dubois was recruited to assist in Sanger's Negro Project. You are naive if you think the same things can't happen again.
My data is not bent, it doesn't need any bending. It also doesn't take much effort to investigate for yourself.
Development in Africa and Asia of agrarian economies using modern farming methods would be a far greater blessing than killing off people. What development there is usually is industrial in nature, employing a few people working for incredibly low wages in factories owned by people like Gates, Rockefeller, Soros, and Buffett.
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