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Obese Southerners, Slim Westerners: A Big Fat Myth?

By John A. Tures
Associate Professor of Political Science
LaGrange College

July 22, 2008 — The Center for Disease Control just issued a report card, by state, for the nation’s weight.  As you might expect, it revealed that several Southern states (Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Louisiana) rank at the top of the list for highest population percentage of folks classified as obese.

At the bottom of the list is Colorado, noted as the “least obese” with 19 percent of the population weighing in as too heavy.  That’s certainly a far cry from the more than 30 percent total turned in by Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee, as reported by Mike Stobbe in his Associated Press article “Mississippi remains most obese state, CDC reports.”

The ink wasn’t even dry on the report before the speculation came flying in for reasons why the finding occurred, as opposed to a good hard look at the data.  Dr. William Dietz of the CDC blamed the South’s diet, rural population, and the presence of African-American women.  The latter two categories, he noted, have higher records of obesity.  Colorado, on the other hand, was praised for its culture of exercise.  “It has plentiful biking and hiking trails, and an elevation that causes the body to labor a bit more,” Dietz says.

Then I read “7 Slimming Tips From the Skinniest State” by Miranda Hitti from the WebMD Health News.  It not only provides “seven nuggets of Colorado’s weight wisdom” from James O. Hill, a PhD from the University of Colorado at Denver, but also takes shots at Mississippi’s “culture” in the context of weight problems.  “What does Colorado know that the rest of the country doesn’t?” Hitti writes.  Are Colorado and the South heading in the right direction?  Is the South heading in the wrong direction.

In 1990, Mississippi reported an obesity rate of 22% for men and 26% for women.  The average for Mississippi is now at 32.6% according to the CDC’s 2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).  So the trends are going up for Mississippi, no doubt.

As for Colorado, the news is bleaker than the CDC, WebMD, and the Associated Press are reporting.  According to the Colorado Health Report Card compiled by the Colorado Health Foundation, this Rocky Mountain State is on a rocky path toward weight gain.  The report states “Colorado is the leanest state in the country, but adult obesity rates are climbing here at a faster rate than the country as a whole.  The adult obesity rate has more than doubled in Colorado since 1990.”

Poverty alone be blamed for this crisis.  As the report notes “While obesity rates are higher for low-income Coloradans, even those in higher income brackets who can most afford a healthy lifestyle exceed the Healthy People 2010 target.”

The lesson is clear.  Mississippi may be the fattest state, but Colorado is putting on pounds a lot faster.  You can’t blame the Southern diet.  Poor people aren’t to blame.  And the US Census Bureau data shows that Colorado doesn’t have a large African-American population that could be blamed for their higher growth in obesity.