Federal Help Urged to Combat Obesity

Aug 28, 07:46 AM

Current Headlines: By Joshua Norman, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.

Aug. 28--Mississippi's kids might not be the country's fattest, but its adults are.

The Magnolia State, spiritual home of the catfish fry, was ranked the most obese state for the third year in a row in the fourth annual "F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America" report released Monday from Trust for America's Health.

The report's authors said it should act as a rallying cry for the beginning of a major cultural change accompanied by legislative support to stem a major health care crisis.

An obscure group of TFAH's opponents called the report a senseless scare tactic.

An estimated 30.6 percent of adults here are overweight and Mississippi has the eighth highest rate of overweight youths (ages 10 to 17) at 17.8 percent, the report stated.

Of adults in Mississippi, 31.6 percent report that they do not engage in any physical activity. The national average is 22 percent.

"We find this report to be a devastating indictment," said Jim Mark of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which frequently undertakes anti-obesity initiatives. "We're treating it like a mere inconvenience. We need to change the norms in our society about healthy eating and physical activity."

Mark said the obesity crisis is one of the more important reasons for spiraling health care costs and high rates of diseases like hypertension and type-2 diabetes.

Jeff Levy, executive director of TFAH, said the recently failed grocery and tobacco tax swap in Mississippi could have been a great example of one way to combat obesity. Cheaper groceries and more expensive cigarettes have been proven to go a long way toward combating the obesity crisis.

However, Levy and Mark said it was going to take all kinds of measures to reverse a national trend, in which no state saw a decrease in obesity rates last year.

"This is going to require more than any single intervention," said Levy. "It is going to require all the sectors, all the parts in our society."

However, J. Justin Wilson, a researcher at the Center for Consumer Freedom, a nonprofit group funded by companies in the restaurant and food industry, said government regulation is inappropriate in the obesity battle.

"There's no denying we're getting fatter," Wilson said. "It's a lifestyle choice. It's not a problem. They want to change the way we live our lives. On the issue of obesity, everyone knows how to lose weight, they just choose not to."

Mark and Levy said the federal government should help regulate things like school lunches and vending machines, providing healthier choices for kids, and allowing for lower grocery taxes, because healthy food can be more expensive.

High poverty, obesity, hypertension and diabetes rates are all linked, Levy said, which is why government intervention, among other things, is required.

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