Image via Wikipedia

In my previous post I shared a press release reporting the results of the 2011 F as in Fat report on rates of obesity in America. In a nutshell, the trends are depressing, and a lot of great thoughts were posted in the comments section, many of which I agreed with strongly. Based upon the response to that post, I wanted to share my thoughts on the topic – let me be clear at the outset that I am neither an expert on nutrition nor a particularly shining example of someone who has an ideal diet.

Weight control is a constant battle for me. I have a moderately large framed body type that seems to build tissue very easily – this applies to both muscle, and unfortunately, fat. I have found throughout life that I build muscle very quickly when I do strength training, but I also seem to lose it quickly when I slack off. Same goes for fat. If I let my diet slip, I can pack on the pounds seemingly overnight, but if I maintain control, I can take the weight off pretty quickly as well. My suspicion is that much of this is genetic – for example, my brother is a weight lifter, and his biceps are the size of my quads!

Given my apparent physiology, I have to be very careful about balancing my food intake and exercise output in order to maintain or lose weight. I fluctuate a lot, and typically go through an annual cycle where I gain a few pounds in the winter, and take them off as I get more generally active in the summer. Last summer into early fall I reached a post high-school low of around 162 pounds (I’m 5’10”), and I attribute my Boston Qualifying performance at the Smuttynose Marathon last October in large part to the fact that I was running pretty light compared to any of my previous marathons. Much of the energy expended while running is involved in supporting and propelling body weight (74% by some estimates), and shedding pounds can make a big difference in your efficiency. Right now I weigh in around 170, which is still almost 20 pounds under what I was when I became a serious runner back in 2007 (I’ve run on and off throughout life, but never with the regularity or intensity that I do now).

For me, running has surely played a part in my ability to lose weight, particularly when I first started running big miles. However, nowadays it seems to play a bigger role in weight control, and tweaking my diet is the bigger factor when it comes to gaining or losing pounds. Running serves as a counterbalance to my dietary lapses more than anything, and has helped prevent me from reverting back my condition of 4-5 years ago.

Putting all of this into the context of the obesity epidemic that is gripping this country, the big question seems to be why we are gaining so much weight. Many are now pointing the finger at refined carbs as the big evil via their role in spiking insulin and stimulating fat deposition – if you haven’t read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes, it’s an eye-opening book. My wife is a staunch advocate of the Michael Pollan, whole-food approach to eating – I’m working through Pollan’s In Defense of Food right now, and it’s another fantastic read. She has a dietary willpower that I could only dream of – in our 15 years together I don’t think I’ve ever seen her eat a french fry or potato chip (the two biggest dietary offenders according to a recent study out of Harvard).

Personally, I think the amount of refined carbohydrate in our diet is a huge culprit, and a lot of the blame can be place in the hands of the government’s dietary recommendations from the 1970’s and subsidies provided for corn production. However, from a personal standpoint, I think it unwise to simply point the finger at carbs and not continue to emphasize that many of us simply tend to eat too much. From personal experience, my greatest successes when it comes to weight loss have been when I have actively counted my calorie intake. There’s a great app called Lose It! for the iPhone that allows you to track your intake by inputting the caloric value of everything you put in your mouth. I don’t use this regularly because I lack the discipline to keep up with it, but I find that doing it for a few days every now and then really helps to get me back on track with my intake. When you are completely honest (and I mean completely and brutally honest!) with yourself about just how much you put in your mouth, it’s amazing to find out how quickly your intake can add up. It’s very easy for me to accumulate several hundred additional daily calories by finishing off my kids’ table scraps or having a second helping at dinner, and this can quickly negate or even outstrip the several hundred calories that I might burn on a run. More than anything, portion control seems to be my bugaboo, and I constantly need to remind myself that every scrap of food I eat counts.

The national obesity epidemic is a problem with a fairly easy solution – eat less, eat better, exercise more. The problem is these things are incredibly hard to implement, and all of them take immense effort for most people. I’m pretty well convinced that lifestyle change is the answer to the question of how we combat the obesity epidemic, but how we get there on a broader scale is the challenge. Each of us can start by trying to be the best example that we can, and I finish this post with a renewed commitment to eating better – I simply can’t continue to keep relying on my running to save me from my lapses.

Image via Wikipedia

I spend a lot of time writing about topics like running shoes and running form here on Runblogger. Ultimately, though I enjoy the scientific debate involved when discussing research, as well as the fun I get to have when testing out new shoes, my primary motivator for writing this site is a simple desire that people run happy and without injury.

I am a strong believer in the health value of physical activity and exercise, and I developed an Exercise Physiology course at my College in order to better educate my students about the benefits of being active. At the end of each semester I finish that course with a series of lectures on exercise, obesity, and health. One of the reports that I reference in those lectures is the F as in Fat report from the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The report details obesity and health related trends in the United States, and the 2011 data have just been released. I wanted to share the press release here because I think it’s important, and the trends that we are seeing here in America are not good.

I encourage you to share this report widely, as those of us who have seen personal health transformations resulting from getting active are among the best advocates for lifestyle change. If you have a blog, tell your own story (I have shared my own story of transformation here), or go to the Trust for America’s Health website and copy and post the press release (you can find it here). Spread the word, be an advocate for activity and a healthier lifestyle, and be an example for your friends and family.

Without further adieu, here is the press release containing a summary of the results from F as in Fat 2011:

F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2011

Adult obesity rates increased in 16 states in the past year and did not decline in any state, according to F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America‘s Future 2011, a report from the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).  Twelve states now have obesity rates above 30 percent. Four years ago, only one state was above 30 percent.

The obesity epidemic continues to be most dramatic in the South, which includes nine of the 10 states with the highest adult obesity rates. States in the Northeast and West tend to have lower rates. Mississippi maintained the highest adult obesity rate for the seventh year in a row, and Colorado has the lowest obesity rate and is the only state with a rate under 20 percent.

This year, for the first time, the report examined how the obesity epidemic has grown over the past two decades. Twenty years ago, no state had an obesity rate above 15 percent.  Today, more than two out of three states, 38 total, have obesity rates over 25 percent, and just one has a rate lower than 20 percent. Since 1995, when data was available for every state, obesity rates have doubled in seven states and increased by at least 90 percent in 10 others. Obesity rates have grown fastest in Oklahoma, Alabama, and Tennessee, and slowest in Washington, D.C., Colorado, and Connecticut.

“Today, the state with the lowest obesity rate would have had the highest rate in 1995,” said Jeff Levi, Ph.D., executive director of TFAH. “There was a clear tipping point in our national weight gain over the last twenty years, and we can’t afford to ignore the impact obesity has on our health and corresponding health care spending.”

Obesity has long been associated with other severe health problems, including diabetes and high blood pressure. New data in the report show how rates of both also have risen dramatically over the last two decades. Since 1995, diabetes rates have doubled in eight states. Then, only four states had diabetes rates above 6 percent.  Now, 43 states have diabetes rates over 7 percent, and 32 have rates above 8 percent. Twenty years ago, 37 states had hypertension rates over 20 percent. Now, every state is over 20 percent, with nine over 30 percent.

Racial and ethnic minority adults, and those with less education or who make less money, continue to have the highest overall obesity rates:

• Adult obesity rates for Blacks topped 40 percent in 15 states, 35 percent in 35 states, and 30 percent in 42 states and D.C.
• Rates of adult obesity among Latinos were above 35 percent in four states (Mississippi, North Dakota, South Carolina, and Texas) and at least 30 percent in 23 states.
• Meanwhile, rates of adult obesity for Whites topped 30 percent in just four states (Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, and West Virginia) and no state had a rate higher than 32.1 percent.
• Nearly 33 percent of adults who did not graduate high school are obese, compared with 21.5 percent of those who graduated from college or technical college.

More than 33 percent of adults who earn less than $15,000 per year were obese, compared with 24.6 percent of those who earn at least $50,000 per year.

“The information in this report should spur us all – individuals and policymakers alike – to redouble our efforts to reverse this debilitating and costly epidemic,” said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A, RWJF president and CEO. “Changing policies is an important way to provide children and families with vital resources and opportunities to make healthier choices easier in their day-to-day lives.”

This year’s report also includes a series of recommendations from TFAH and RWJF on how policymakers and the food and beverage industry can help reverse the obesity epidemic.

The recommendations for policymakers include:

1. Protect the Prevention and Public Health Fund:  TFAH and RWJF recommend that the fund not be cut, that a significant portion be used for obesity prevention, and that it not be used to offset or justify cuts to other Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) programs.
2. Implementing the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act:  TFAH and RWJF recommend that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issue a final rule as swiftly as possible regarding school meal regulations and issue strong standards for so-called “competitive” food and beverages – those sold outside of school meal programs, through à la carte lines, vending machines and school stores.
3. Implementing the National Physical Activity Plan:  TFAH and RWJF recommend full implementation of the policies, programs, and initiatives outlined in the National Physical Activity Plan.  This includes a grassroots advocacy effort; a public education program; a national resource center; a policy development and research center; and dissemination of best practices.
4. Restoring Cuts to Vital Programs:  TFAH and RWJF recommend that the $833 million in cuts made in the fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution be restored and that programs to improve nutrition in child care settings and nutrition assistance programs such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children be fully funded and carried out.  If fully funded these programs could have a major impact on reducing obesity.

“Creating healthy environments is key to reversing the obesity epidemic, particularly for children,” remarked Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey. “When children have safe places to walk, bike and play in their communities, they’re more likely to be active and less likely to be obese. It’s the same with healthy food: when communities have access to healthy affordable foods, families eat better.”

Additionally, for the food and beverage industry, TFAH and RWJF recommend that industry should adopt strong, consistent standards for food marketing similar to those proposed in April 2011 by the Interagency Working Group, composed of representatives from four federal agencies – the Federal Trade Commission, CDC, Food and Drug Administration and the USDA – and work to implement the other recommendations set forth in the 2005 Institute of Medicine report on food marketing to children and youth.

Report results for individual states can be found here (scroll to bottom of the page).

I’ve recently been listening to a podcast by a friend and fellow minimalist and dailymile runner named Ted Beveridge (@AirForceTed on Twitter – see picture at left). Ted is an amazing runner with an inspirational personal story of weight loss accomplished by getting active and changing his eating habits. His podcast, You Don’t Have to Run Alone, details his running adventures, his love for military aircraft, and lately, his thoughts on food and the epidemic of obesity currently occurring in the United States.

I was listening to one of Ted’s “Food Rants” on a recent episode of his podcast (Episode 19 to be exact – here’s the Itunes link), and was impressed by his willingness to express his emotions on the topic of childhood obesity as forcefully as he did. He is a guy that truly cares about the welfare of our nation’s young people, and he gave a passionate explanation in that episode regarding why the obesity epidemic is potentially even a problem from a national security standpoint.

I felt compelled to send a message to Ted regarding his rant, and he was kind enough to place it as the opening segment to his latest episode (#22), in which he and Megan from the Run Vegan Run podcast discuss their thoughts on nutrition and obesity. Ted’s podcast is well worth your subscription, but at the very least I recommend that you check out episode 19 and episode 22. I’d love to hear what you think!

First, here are a series of maps showing obesity rates (BMI >30) by state from the years 1985-2008. This is not an encouraging trend (light blue = good, red = bad).

Obesity in the United States – CDC Maps from 1985-2008 from Runblogger on Vimeo.
CDC Maps Showing Obesity Trends in the United States from 1985-2008. For these maps, obesity was defined as a BMI of greater than or equal to 30. Maps are from http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html#State.

Next, here is a map showing CDC data on obesity rates in the United States by county in 2007 (click the image to view a larger version):

Next, here is a map showing CDC data on diabetes rates in the United States by county in 2007 – notice a trend here (click the image to view a larger version)?

Now lets take a look a CDC data on heart disease death rates by US county from 2000-2004 (click the image to view a larger version):

And we’ll finish up here with a CDC map showing the percentage of adults by state who meet minimum government recommendations for physical acitivity in the year 2007. These recommendations can be met by:

i. Participating in moderate-intensity activities for at least 30 minutes/day, at least 5 days/week.
-these activities include brisk walking, bicycling, vacuuming, gardening, or anything else that causes small increases in breathing or heart rate

ii. Participating in vigorous-intensity activities for at least 20 minutes/day, at least 3 days/week.
-these activities include running, aerobics, heavy yard work, or anything else that causes large increases in breathing or heart rate

Here’s the physical activity map (click the image to view a larger version):

As someone who teaches about the positive health benefits of exercise, but who also has seen firsthand these benefits to my own body, these maps concern me greatly. It seems pretty clear that the least physically active areas of the country are also the most obese, and most prone to diabetes and death from heart disease. There are certainly socioeconomic factors involved here that complicate things, but these data are still compelling. It is for this reason that I encourage anyone reading this to be an advocate for exercise. Set a positive example for your families, your neighbors, and your community by getting active – it will benefit you, and it will benefit them. Even if its as small a thing as lacing up a pair of shoes and heading out the door for a walk, all of us have the ability to be the positive examples that this country needs. Be that example.

To meet some people who have set amazing examples by getting active, check out this post: Losing Weight Through Exercise and a Healthier Lifestyle – Stories of Personal Transformation

A lot of so-called Twitter “experts” have published “do’s and don’ts” guides for the on-line social networking service.  Among the things I frequently see listed as a “don’t” is posting of your workout data (here’s an example from The Oatmeal). Quite to the contrary, I use Twitter almost exclusively to connect with running friends, and posting of workout data and race results is more than expected, it’s one of the main reasons why we are all there.

I have found the Twitter running community to be home to a huge number of very supportive, motivational, and inspirational people, many of whom I would consider to be good friends.  Recently, several of us discussed the idea of starting a weight tracking group so that we could use to offer each other support as we each try to reach or maintain our respective weight goals.  Rather than sign up at yet another website (I’ve already reached social media overload with the few sites I participate in), we decided to do this within Twitter itself, and this post is just a quick summary of what we plan to do in case you’d like to join.

So here’s the scoop:

1. If you’d like to join in, simply tweet your starting weight at any time along with the hashtag #WLMon.

2. Every Monday, tweet your current weight along with any change (+ or -) from the previous week.  Always add the hashtag #WLMon to any tweet you want to go to the group.

3. If during the week you have any weight loss/maintenance related tweets, simply add the hashtag (#WLMon) and send it off.

4. If you reply to anyone’s #WLMon tweet, you can either include or not include the hashtag – you choose.

If you’re not familiar with hashtags, in most Twitter clients you can click on them and it will pull up all of the tweets that have used that particular tag. I use Tweetdeck, and when I click a hashtag it actually creates a unique column for that particular tag – in this way I have a way of grouping and seeing only those tweets containing the tag when they come through.

That’s really all there is to it – hopefully we can support and motivate each other to reach our weight goals for 2010. Feel free to send this post link along to anyone you think might be interested in joining – we’re all in this together!

We all have our reasons for why we started to run.  For some of us, it’s the personal challenge of trying to accomplish a goal as seemingly impossible as completing a chosen race, whether it be as small scale as a local 5k or as large scale as a marathon.  For some of us, the motivation to run stems from a desire to get healthy – to change our bad personal habits and maybe set an example for our kids.  For others, there is a simple element of vanity – we’re unhappy with the possibly overweight person we see staring back at us in the mirror, and we feel the need to do something serious about it.  For me, the decision to become a runner involved all of these factors, but the ones I want to focus on here are the latter – running for health and weight loss, and yes, a touch of vanity.

A controversial article came out in Time Magazine in early August that questioned the efficacy of exercising to lose weight (“Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin,” by John Cloud). Reading this article was frustrating, because the argument it was trying to make ran contrary to my personal experience, as well as the experiences of so many that I have read about on-line and/or been told about in person. The basic premise of the article can be summed up by the final paragraph, quoted below:

“In short, it’s what you eat, not how hard you try to work it off, that matters more in losing weight. You should exercise to improve your health, but be warned: fiery spurts of vigorous exercise could lead to weight gain. I love how exercise makes me feel, but tomorrow I might skip the VersaClimber — and skip the blueberry bar that is my usual postexercise reward.”

To me, any article that makes even the slightest suggestion that people skip exercise is ridiculous, and even borderline dangerous. Sure, there are times during my training when the workload that I put in is balanced out by the amount of food that I consume, and my weight remains more or less stationary. However, it generally only takes a small tweak to one or the other for the pounds to start coming off (or back on), and it can happen pretty quickly. The point I’m trying to make here is that exercise and diet are both important, and when it comes to weight loss, I truly believe that you can’t ignore one and focus solely on the other. To achieve lasting weight loss requires a combination of exercise and being conscious about your food intake. Stop exercising and you’ll probably gain weight. Keep exercising and dramatically increase food intake and you’ll probably gain weight. Decrease exercise and increase food intake and you’ll gain weight even faster (and who hasn’t experienced this during the winter holidays???). However, when you pay careful attention to both diet and exercise, it’s relatively easy to maintain weight or begin dropping off the pounds.  The point of this post isn’t to take apart the Time Magazine article (others have done this quite well – see episodes 140 and 141 of the excellent Fitness Rocks Podcast by Dr. Monte Ladner for example), but rather to tell a little of my own story and to direct you to the stories of others who have realized a dramatic personal transformation by adding exercise (in this case running) to their lives.

For me, one of the major impetuses for becoming a runner was a photograph.  It was May 2007, and I was at my college’s graduation ceremony (I teach in the Biology Dept.), and as is typical during such events, I had a number of pictures taken with graduating students.  In looking at some of them afterward, it became clear that I had really let myself slip – I was disgusted by what I saw (see picture at right – I never thought I’d post this!), and something needed to be done about it.

I had run on and off for several years, but never more than 2-3 miles at a time, and the one time I tried to run over 3 miles I nearly passed out.  Starting a new job and having 2 kids had eaten up my personal time, and exercise was one of the first things to go.  My weight was the highest it had ever been (pushing 190 lbs on my 5’10” frame), and I was largely sedentary.  I needed to change my habits, so I began to run, slowly at first, but in ever increasing amounts.  My wife and I made a pact that we would train for and run a 4-mile race in Maine that July, and train we did.  I began to increase my speed and distance, and successfully completed the 4-miler in 30:41, a pace of 7:40 min/mile.  After completing the race, I was hooked on running for good, and since then haven’t turned back.  In fact, I think there has been only one full week in the past 2.5 years where I have not run at all (due to illness), and most weeks I get in at least 20 miles (more than that lately).

My speed and distance increased dramatically with additional training, and I re-ran that same 4-mile race the following year in 26:04, a pace of 6:30 min/mile.  I’m not trying to toot my own horn here, but the pride that came with discovering a decent runner inside my formerly sedentary self was one of the primary factors that kept me going – I honestly didn’t know that I had the ability to do some of the things that I have done since those early days of running in 2007.  I now own a 5k PR of 18:51 (I struggled to pass the 21:00 3 mile test for varsity soccer in high school!), a half-marathon PR of 1:29:47, and have completed 3 full marathons with a personal best of 3:32:35.  Marathons 4 and 5 are set to be run in the next 3 months (Manchester, NH on Nov.1 and Disney in January).  If you had told me 2.5 years ago that these things could be possible for me, I would’ve said you were crazy.  The point I’m trying to make is that if I can do this, anyone can – I believe that we humans were meant to run, and all it takes is a bit of motivation and determination.  A simple photograph was enough to get me off of the couch and eventually running marathons – if that’s all it took for me, then maybe that’s all it would take for you.

Getting back to the topic of weight loss – my own weight now hovers around 170 lbs (high 160’s right now), which is about a 20 lb decrease from where I started.  There have been ups and downs for sure, but I’m in a good place now and I owe it all to running.  So when I read stories saying that exercise doesn’t lead to weight loss (like the Time article cited above), I just don’t buy it – my experience doesn’t support those reports. Here’s the side-by side for me (left = May 2007, right = October 2009):

Some might say that my story is anecdotal, that I’m just one data point that doesn’t fit the usual pattern, but I don’t buy that either.  My story is not unique – in fact, more often than not the runners I talk with on-line or in person share similar stories, and many of those are far more dramatic and inspirational than mine. With that, I’d like to share some of their stories, and provide further evidence that anyone can become a runner, and in the process realize a physical transformation that you might not otherwise think was possible. 

If you have a story that you’d like me to link to or share, please send me a link either via e-mail (use the Kontactr button below), by leaving a comment below, or via Twitter (I’m @oblinkin).  I look forward to reading your stories and sharing them here!

Stories of Transformation Due to Running:

Brian
Three and a half years ago, at the age of 42, Brian weighed 260 lbs and was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes.  Since then he’s lost 100 pounds, and keeps the weight off with running.  You can read his about his personal transformation at: http://unclebooboo.livejournal.com/72803.html.

Greg Chance (@gchance on Twitter)
In 2003, Greg weighed over 250 pounds. He started walking, then running, and has now lost over 60 lbs and completed his first full marathon in May 2009.  You can read his personal story here: http://gregchance.blogspot.com/2009/05/shall-we-get-autobiographical.html.  You can also read the report from his first marathon here.

Lacy Jaye Hansen (@lacyjhansen on Twitter)
Lacy used dieting to lose weight after her pregnancy in 2006, took it too far, and used running as a way to get herself back on track and eating healthier.  You can read her story here: http://blog.lacyjhansen.com/2009/06/running-lite.html

Jay Parker (@jayparker on Twitter)
Jay has lost about 35 pounds since becoming a runner – you can see his before and after pictures here: http://www.dailymile.com/people/jayparker/entries/542390. Amazing!

Steve Poling (@drpoling on Twitter) 
Steve became a runner in January 2009, has lost 50 lbs in the last ten months, and will be running his first marathon in December.  You can read his story on his brand-new running blog at: http://drpoling.blogspot.com/2009/10/transformed-or-why-i-keep-running.html.

Tanya Reynolds (@tanyamr on Twitter)
Tanya decided to get healthy in 2008, the year of her 40th birthday. Using a combination of diet and exercise, she has lost over 85 pounds since early 2008, and has become an avid runner. She states that it took her 8-9 months before she truly developed a love for running, but has been going strong ever since. You can read Tanya’s story at: http://tanyareynolds.blogspot.com/2009/07/my-story-how-i-lost-85-pounds.html.

One of the flyers in my race packet from the 2009 Hartford Marathon was for a program known as the ING Run For Something Better. ING sponsors the Hartford Marathon (among others), and the Run For Something Better Program “helps fund running and fitness education programs in schools to show kids how exercise can help achieve good health.” Inspiring my own kids to be active is one of the reasons why I love to run, and I believe that healthy exercise habits that are developed in childhood will go a long way toward stemming the obesity epidemic that currently exists in the United States. With this in mind, I’ve decided to try and raise some money for this great program by running the 2010 Disney Marathon in honor of healthy kids. My goals are very modest (this is my first time attempting something like this), and if you’d like to donate to the cause you can visit my donation page for the ING Run For Something Better program here.

Below is a short video describing this program:

ING Run For Something Better “Sizzle Reel” from Inertia Films on Vimeo.
Inertia Films produced and edited a video for ING’s fitness program called “Run For Something Better Program” that helps fight childhood obesity.

Visit http://www.orangelaces.com for more information on the Run For Something Better program.

Just read a report on the state of obesity in America titled “F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America 2009“. The study, conducted by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, showed that “adult obesity rates increased in 23 states and did not decrease in a single state in the past year..In addition, the percentage of obese or overweight children is at or above 30 percent in 30 states.” Mississippi, Alabama, and West Virginia came out as the 3 most obese states (in that order). A statistic I found particulary shocking is that 44.4% of children in Mississippi are classified as obese – a sad state of affairs. I was pleased to see that my home state of NH came out 39th overall, and 4 other New England states (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont) were among the 5 least obese states. Colorado came out the best overall.

Given the lack of a decrease in obesity rate in any state, it’s clear that the obesity epidemic in America is not getting better. This is a huge issue for our health care system given the number of obesity related health problems (heart disease and Type II diabetes to name a few), and lets hope the Obama administration takes steps to improve this as they deliberate on a new health care bill. To read or print the full report, click here.

Thanks to @cyktrussel on Twitter for alerting me to this report.

Here are a few popular news articles about the obesity report:

Mississippi’s still fattest but Alabama closing in. By Lauren Neergaard, AP Medical Writer

Mississippi weighs in as fattest state for 5th year. Doug Stanglin, USA Today

If you have any thoughts on the solution to this problem (and it is a big problem), I’d love to her them!