Obesity rates rising, Mississippi's still fattest

Is anyone looking at the root cause of this obesity? For one, the cheapest food for these people in these economically depressed areas of the country are starches, macaroni, ramon noodles and MacDonalds all of which is loaded full of perservatives and chemicals. These food companies are now targeting the poor to unload their crap. I live in northern California and have noticed the difference between the poor and the weathy and the quality of food they have access to. Con Agra, ADM and Cargill are the largest private corporations in the country, yet they produce the majority of the low grade food these poor people eat. We need to reverse the 40 year trend of factory farming in this country and start to enforce the anti-trust laws that have driven out the small farmer globally. We need small organic food producers that provide us with high quality pesticide free food.

How many people with limited economic means can eat healthy? If you have a family of four, in order to eat heatlhy- fruits and vegetables (organic) there is not one refridgerator that can accomodate 3-4 servings of fresh fruits and vegetables which will perish in a couple of days.

Exercise is another issue. Where is it safe enough in these poor neighborhoods to go exercise? And its too humid/cold to want to exercise in these areas. (Alabama/Michigan) If the Federal government is serious about health then they need to get their preventive incentives to work. Health care spending accounts should cover gym memberships or reduced memberships. They need to cover diet aids (fat blockers) and other weight-reduction methods plus cover anti-smoking medications. Access to more healthy resturant chains would also help.

People eat because they are economically depressed and because they are fat they are depressed which leads to more over-eating of comfort foods (starches/carbos). They need help and the government and the entrepreneurs of this country need to address this problem. EPA needs to come down on Monsanto (pesticides) and other food manufacturing companies to clean up their act .

If you have a backyard plant a garden. It will save you money and provide the exercise you need and is a great stress reliever. We are all crammed in these cities living like a bunch of rats. With technology there is not reasons why we have to live like this when we could re-populate the middle of the country , provide tech/green jobs and have a big enough yard to grow food and have kids a safe place to run around .

Before spending tens of billions to prevent/manage everyone with and without obesity through community "sidewalk" programs, doesn't it make more sense to address the specific groups who are obese? say, African Americans, Hispanics, and rural white women? One way to begin managing specific groups with obesity is addressing the cultural issues involved: the cultural permissive attitudes towards obesity; the deliberate food choices, I mean going out of you way to eat fatty food and lots of it, with real life examples of consequences; parenting classes for all who give birth to reduce the number of obese infants, to reduce the number of obese toddlers, to reduce the number of obese children who become obese adolescents who become obese adults; and finally, and most importantly, address the considerable burden that emotional depression plays in causing the behaviors that lead to overfeeding infants and oneself. The depressed emotion and
"thats for them not me" attitudes lead to obesity and are not the result of obesity.

Just looking at the map without looking into the details.

You notice the more fatter states are the Red States aka states known for voting Republican.

BTW, you can still eat healthier, it called eating less.

Instead of drinking 32 oz or 64 oz of Cola, about about drinking 12 oz of OJ or Apple Juice.

Eating few serving of fruits verus a box of Fruit Loops

If you eat average share of smaller portions cost as must as a big box of unhealth processed food with High Fructose Corn Syrup.

You want to curb obesity. Simple: turn off the TV, IPOD, Wii, Xbox, Computer, etc. and break out the bat and baseball, basketball, empty can (for kick the can) full ones really make a mess, walk the dog, go for a jog, etc.

Like some of you, our family lived on pasta and potatoes because it was cheap. And I still do (need the carbs). But we also burned all those calaries and then some by lunch time. Of course we didn't have IPODS, video games or computers either.

We as parents are failing our kids by not kicking them out the door at 7am. We sit in front of the TV and eat like pigs and wonder where they get the behavior from. I am just as guilty of this too.

We, as a nation, have gotten comfortable and lazy. I am constantly amazed how few young people are jogging in parks, active in sports, etc. these days. I see more 40+ joggers than under 30 every day.

I am very curious what those who are actually obese think about all this.

If you want to know something about this issue, then I suggest you inform yourselves. I suggest Google or Yahoo and try "obesity, gender, age, and race." See what you you come up with. I am informed and I am qualified. There are no simple answers. And the data, when presented as I have, is not politically "correct" but it is accurate. Unless and until we address issues directly as I have above, then this complex problem will not address the needs of people who are obese, who are making their children obese, and delay focusing limited resources on solutions. For those with an agenda to bad mouth fast food restaurants and their menus such as imposed calorie counts on menus, or wish to berate people who eat red meat, etc., you I say are truly clueless as to the substance of the issues and, when interjecting your biases, you are distracting others from informing themselves with information that is known, and not speculated upon.

I'm from Abalama and am so skinny it hurts to sit down....so there.....

No one here has read "Food Politics" have they. I grew up on a farm that never made a dime because it giving all the profits made to Monsanto for pesticides to grow cheap food for ADM and Cargill who by the way along with the commodities market which hoses the farmer even more because farmers assume all the risk for the product and DO NOT GET TO SET THE PRICE for their product...what business does not get to set the price of their product? This is totally insane. So my father and brother detoxed their soil, fed and animals and have gone organic NOT NATURAL which is not organic . You have to qualify for a seal and meet strict regulations so consumers get it through your head natural is not organic....The are making money in organics by by-passing the commodities market all together.....I know about food, I have grown it....I know the biochemistry of food... What you don't know is how the genetic makeup of a person will process that food therefore in the future, specific diets will be prescribed based on your genetics....Not every diet will give you the same results in every person...then they need to have obesity chart based on genetic make group. My daughter is 160 lbs 5 foot 9 inches is not fat but has denser bones- she is biracial...so a more in depth studies on how food affects different genetic pools is needed.