Obesity Up, Not Down in Last Decade

Apparently health organizations (I believe commissioned by the US government), gauge Americans success on several different scales, as it relates to things like premature and underweight births of children, blood pressure, obesity, dental care, diabetes, and basically anything you can think of that is one of the bigger health concerns here in the US, or happens to be at near epidemic levels.

Actually, the news isn’t as good as you’d think it might be with all the advances in medical technology and increased awareness of what it actually takes to be a healthy person these days. In fact, it’s gotten worse, which to me is alarming when we are supposed to be advancing as the human race becomes more and more evolved.

For one thing, children who are born underweight have actually increased. This fact stunned me, especially with the advances in prenatal care we have today. I wondered if it was because we cannot afford to give the poor and disadvantages the same prenatal care, or that they don’t have the proper coverage, and hence their babies don’t receive the same attention that those with coverage would?

This wasn’t the only fact that stunned me.  The other one had to do with obesity, which it seems like we never get good news about any more.  Instead of going down, as was predicted and was the goal for the health organizations tracking our various progress on vital health issues, obesity numbers went up as follows. A decade ago, about 25% of all adults were considered in the obese weight range.  That number in itself was pretty staggering for me to look at.  The goal was to have the obesity rate for adults at 15% by the end of the decade, aka 2010.  Well, we did not make that mark, in fact, we back pedaled to the tune of about 9%.

About 34% of all adults are now considered obese.  This is a huge problem, and one that needs to be addressed as part of preventive health care and education, because not only are too many adults obese, but too many also suffer from obesity related illnesses, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer and diabetes.  These obesity related health issues could take a dramatic drop if we just made sure that not so goshdarn many of us fell into the heavy category.

However, if the past is any indication, it looks like these numbers just may keep increasing over the subsequent decades. Unless we really put a stop to people eating tons of processed, highly salted, fatted and sugared foods, which is pretty darn near impossible since it’s been ingrained in our culture and our very being.