August 28. It gets “better” — the Washington Post reports today that D.C.’s kids are the fattest in the nation.
Sometimes, when I button my waistband, I think that getting fatter is a part of moving into middle age. My BMI only qualifies as “overweight” not “obese” but a lost weekend with Ben and Jerry might push me over the line.
Seems an AP story (USA Today link) — good for a planned slow news day, who knew about the Gonzales departure? — today shows how far and how fast obesity rates have increased.
Loosen the belt buckle another notch America: Obesity rates continued their climb in 31 states last year. No state showed a decline. Mississippi became the first state to crack the 30% barrier for adults considered to be obese. West Virginia and Alabama were just behind, according to the Trust for America’s Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention.
Oof. There are a lot of trim people in D.C., but when I see a trim family, I admit to evesdropping to guess if they’re foreign.
I’ve been reading a lot of sociological studies that suggest this is an inevitability, and that given our lifestyles and the kind of food we eat (not to mention the incredibly high failure rate of diets), we’re just going to be fatter, period.
The cynical Kurt Vonnegut part of me says, well good. We can’t all live to be 95 anyway. We don’t have the money or the room for it.
Oh, but finding out your BMI is horrible… well it was for me. But then I was talking to a police officer who rides a bike for the city and he said his BMI is obese… so perhaps the scale is wrong because he looks amazing.
Most BMI scales do contain the disclaimer about body builders and other muscular types. Their BMI will register as overweight or obese even though they are in great physical condition. I’ve seen quite a few trail running ultra-marathoners who were large and muscular and register on the heavy side of the BMI scale but yet they are running 50km or more in a single race. The pace is a bit slower but they are built for endurance rather than speed.