Obesity Report: 'Different Degrees Of Terrible'

Aug 27, 07:04 PM

Current Headlines: By William Hathaway, The Hartford Courant, Conn.

Aug. 27--Connecticut is home to fewer obese adults than all but three other states -- yet more and more youth across the nation are carrying excess pounds, a new national study released Monday shows.

Despite Connecticut's relative position nationally, obesity experts say there is nothing comforting for any state to be found in the survey by the Trust for America's Health.

"I really don't think state rankings matter much, they are all different degrees of terrible," said Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University in New Haven.

"Mississippi has a terrible problem, but they are just a little worse off then we are."

The South, led by Mississippi with 30.6 percent of adults being obese, was once again the fattest region in the country, while the Northeast and the West tended to be on the slimmer side.

In a state-by-state comparison, Connecticut -- with 20.6 percent of adults being obese -- tied for 47th place with Hawaii. Only Colorado, Vermont and Massachusetts had lower percentages of people meeting the definition of obesity -- having a body mass index greater than 30.Obesity rates rose in 31 states and declined in none, according to the report, which compared data collected from public health departments between 2003 to 2005 to those collected from 2004 to 2006. Connecticut's adult obesity rate posted a slight increase, up from 19.7 in the earlier period.

But it was the increasing number of obese youth that continue to be of most concern to experts.

Connecticut's youth did not fare as well as the state's adult population, coming in 37th among all states. The obesity rate among 10 to 17-year-olds was 12.3 percent, compared to a national average of 14.8 percent for the age group.While experts had no easy explanation for the differences between the adult and youth rankings here, the overall national trends cited in the report are clear. In 2004, 15 percent of American youth between the ages of 10 and 17 were obese, about three times the percentage of obese youth in 1980.

"Given the terrible food we feed them and a lack of physical activity, we can't be surprised they are getting fat," Brownell said.

Connecticut has one of the more aggressive public policy positions on youth obesity in the country. Many schools have adopted new exercise and nutrition programs and the state legislature last year banned sale of sodas and provided economic incentives for schools to remove fattening foods from school menu.

There are also state programs that encourage communities to provide places to exercise and restaurants to supply healthy menu options, said Christine Parker, director of the state Department of Public Health Obesity Prevention Program.

Although it may be years before officials know if such programs work, they need to be implemented quickly, she said.

"We know this is a serious public health crisis and needs to be addressed imnmediately," Parker said.

Critics of such programs say government is acting like a nanny and obesity is a problem that is best addressed by the individual and their parents.

Brownell, however, argues that obesity education "has been an utter failure" and that the environment needs to be changed to help children remain thin. Among Brownell's suggestions are finding ways to make healthy food less expensive and limiting marketing of unhealthy food to children.

"We can not do this one-on-one any more," Parker said. "It has becomes too much of a problem."

Contact William Hathaway at whathaway@courant.com

-----

To see more of The Hartford Courant, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.courant.com/.

Copyright (c) 2007, The Hartford Courant, Conn.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.