Americans Earn an "F" on Weight-Related Health Report Card

New research paints an ugly picture of a growing (literally) national problem. According to a recent study, in 38 U.S. states, more than one-quarter of residents are obese, and eight states have obesity rates above 30 percent.

That's a whole lot of really big people, especially when you consider that in 1991, no state had an obesity rate above 20 percent. In 1980, the national average of adult obesity was 15 percent. Now, the average nationwide adult obesity rate is 34 percent.

These damning statistics have led the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to give Americans a failing grade for weight-related health. A new report by the organizations is named "F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2010" (PDF).

The report also tells us, disturbingly, that adult obesity rates rose in 28 states over the last year, and only declined in one, a place which isn't even a state: Washington, D.C. If that isn't bad enough, we also learn that adult diabetes rates increased in 19 states over the past year, and in eight states, more than 10 percent of adults are now suffering from type 2 diabetes.

Those figures are dismal, but there is a tidbit of good news amidst the gloom. According to the report, a new poll found that 80 percent of Americans admit that obesity is a significant and growing problem for our country, and half of all Americans think that childhood obesity is a crisis so bad we should be investing in ways to stop it right now.

Recognizing a problem and taking proactive steps to fix the situation are two different things, however. It remains to be seen whether the average American who sees obesity as a problem will be willing to both change the way he or she eats and demand that companies and governments take responsibility for creating the junk-food universe we live in.

A perfect example of how difficult it is to eat healthy in our country comes from a recent adventure of mine: a road trip. If I wanted to stop along the highway for a snack or lunch, chances were slim to none that I'd find anything even remotely healthy in a place I could quickly and easily get it. Now it might seem that it's asking a lot to have something fast and convenient as well as fresh and healthy, but I remember stopping alongside a mountain road on a bus trip through Nepal to eat fresh vegetable curry served up by a rickety food stall. It doesn't get much quicker, healthier, or more convenient than that.

If Nepal can do that, America should be able to as well. The question is whether we have the will. Or to put it more bluntly, whether reports like the one that gives us a big, fat F will scare us into it before it's too late.

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