Contradictory Obesity Trends
I remember years ago, always hearing about the perils of living in the South in terms of obesity. There were certain Southern states that were deemed to have the highest rates of obesity, and there were certainly some that should have been. One of the major ones I heard about from friends who had lived there was Alabama. Louisiana was apparently not as bad compared, even with major Cajun cooking. But from what I was told, in Alabama, everything is fried! Likewise, Georgia has cornbread, barbeques, peach cobblers and pies, and a 21.1% obesity rate. Just 10 years ago, Georgia’s rate was 9.5%, and that is not to say they didn’t have all the same foods. So what is the difference?
Well, whatever has come to be, it has changed everywhere. Some would blame it on the rise of McDonalds, busy schedules, and quick fixes for meals. We are now too lazy to make peach cobbler, cornbread, barbeque, etc. Instead, we depend on fast food chains to make even fattier foods for us. In 1970, just a few years ago really, McDonalds had one size of French fries. Now, that size would be called medium. But of course we had the documentary “Supersize Me” and since they still have huge portions of fries most choose. You could have technically bought two of the small ones, but now that we have bigger ones, people don’t feel so piggish when they just order one. It’s simple numbers really. It encourages a smaller rate of self awareness.
One could also say that Bill Gates made us fat. After all, he is the biggest computer and technology mogul in the world, and now we do all our shopping, eating, newspaper reading, and traveling using that technology. So technically, all the active things we used to do are now done in front of a computer in that same old chair. But ironically, obesity rates are higher in states where people have a smaller number of computers. Even after you make the appropriate allowances for income and so on, it is still true.
Then there’s smoking habits. After all, smoking is an addiction, and when many try to stop, they turn to another addiction, which is often food. They eat more, because some were actually replacing food with cigarettes for oral fixation. Now they need something else for oral fixation fulfillment. In 25 states surveyed, the rates of obesity did rise by 55% when smoking fell during the 90’s. But at the same point in time, obesity rates still rose in the 25 states where smoking rates were on the rise. They actually increased by a larger number, 59%.
Essentially you are getting the idea. The factors that we all commonly blame for obesity do not actually hold up often times in the harsh light of day. We think it’s simple, but yet the facts counteract the assumptions we have about things, the assumptions that seem to based on some kind of logic.