Is Your State Making You Fat???

rassha01

I'm in San Francisco, we're about to ban happy meals. Bye bye, obesity! We're about to be the skinniest state, EVAR.


Edit: Cause typo. :grumble:

I hope you are being sarcastic. Banning Happy Meals will not help people become thinner. You need to educate people on making better choices instead of treating them like they are too dumb to make their own decisions and the government has to do it for them.

According the the McDonald's website, Happy Meals are 700 calories total, on average.

It seems obvious that all the people not eating those 700 calories will lose weight.

But then they will starve!!!

Faye_Anderson

I've never been to America and I was morbidly obese, who can I blame? :sad:

fuhrmeister

I'm in San Francisco, we're about to ban happy meals. Bye bye, obesity! We're about to be the skinniest state, EVAR.


Edit: Cause typo. :grumble:

I hope you are being sarcastic. Banning Happy Meals will not help people become thinner. You need to educate people on making better choices instead of treating them like they are too dumb to make their own decisions and the government has to do it for them.

According the the McDonald's website, Happy Meals are 700 calories total, on average.

It seems obvious that all the people not eating those 700 calories will lose weight.

You need to educate people to make better choices. Taking one bad food choice away won't stop people from finding other bad choices. For example buying other meals at McDonalds with more cals for thier children.

dedicated2014

No. I made myself overweight. No portion control, general apathy, and a lack of information regarding nutrition and food are to blame - not pollution. Besides, according to those charts, I live in a "pollution" state, but not an "obese state", so there's no connection there...

AmberLee2012

If we had warm weather all year around in Michigan that might make a difference but it might not. I've often wondered that myself. My husband and I walk or bike almost every nice evening after work all summer. In the winter we sit home and watch TV. I'm hoping that I can keep my exercise habits up through the summer and come winter next year I will be able to keep it going indoors.

iWaffle

One other interesting note is how the obesity map seems to somewhat follow the political leanings of the United States. Compare for example this map showing political leanings state-by-state with the map of obesity in the United States.





It would be interesting to see which states were being heavily lobbied by the fast food industry and which congressmen that these lobbyist had connections to. It makes sense that the fast food industry would want to target the states with the highest populations since their return on investment would be the highest in these states. It's just a matter of statistics as to what part of the population would be more inclined towards eating out in a busy lifestyle and applying your leverage to plant the most outlets in those areas.

I've also seriously been studying the release of Harlequin romance novels kept in stores vs. the number of Baskin Robbins and Cold Stone Creamery type ice cream stores within a 100 mile location. I think that I have enough evidence to suggest that some of these major stores are tracking the sales of women's feminine hygiene products and placing signs near the front of the store promoting the sale of ice cream and chocolate at non-sale prices because they believe they stand a better chance of hitting your pocket book if you're moody and hormonal.

KaleidoscopeEyes1056

I've never been to America and I was morbidly obese, who can I blame? :sad:

You can blame Ohio too.

RobynDCrossman

I think your correlation is incorrect.
Those are cultural norms.

(Says the girl from New Orleans.)

babynun

I guess I should be obese and place all the blame on Alaska?

It can be tough living here if you're not active during the winter months but that's still no excuse. No one places food in your mouth unless you're dependent on someone to feed you, right? You can't blame the State, the person sitting next to you, your friend, your spouse...etc. Take responsibility and face whatever demons you have head on.

shadow2soul

I have no one to blame for my weight gain other than myself. I let myself get this way and I am the one who has to fix it. I was very active and thin up until a few years ago. Then I stopped working out, but continued to eat as if I was working out. This of course caused me to gain weight, but its my fault. I'm not going to blame Missouri, or anything else for that matter. I did this to myself.

charlesnapolitano

LOL who else can we blame?

logicman69

I'm in RI. I would never move from here. I love the fact that everything is so close, but the variaty in so great for a small state. Beach, city, country... we got it all!

Plus some really great seafood!

pastryari

DAMN you, I was saving that one to use.
FINE, I still have this one.

1ConcreteGirl

I've never been to America and I was morbidly obese, who can I blame? :sad:

You can blame Ohio too.

NO!

This obviously doesn't apply to people from other countries. I don't know how their pollution statistics and obesity statistics overlap. However, it is pretty clear that these two maps I showed overlap at a number of points.

bcattoes

I've never been to America and I was morbidly obese, who can I blame? :sad:

I think you should blame America anyway.

norrisski

We are fat as a nation because we eat too much processed food, expect our portions to be supersized, and don't move our body. Colorado use to be the healthiest state but even it has moved up to the <25% category. Go to the cdc.gov website and check out the maps for the trends from way back. And we are passing our bad habits on to the rest of the world.

springs47

I think its a little bit of culture, but mostly personal responsibility. BUT in the south, food isn't just something to keep you from starving to death, its a social activity. That is just the culture.

rassha01

There is no evidence to support the idea that pollution CAUSES obesity. As someone already stated (but you guys clearly ignored), correlation does not mean causation. Pollution may be more common in places that also have high obesity rates, but that doesn't mean one is the cause of the other. They may both be results of another underlying cause, such as a less-educated populace. (Less-educated people tend to have higher obesity rates, and also to not vote for environmentalist measures, such as pollution-reducing ones.)

I find it much more likely that the obesity and pollution are both consequences of low education, than to believe pollution is somehow magically making people fat. Come on, guys. Enough with the witch-doctor hoopla.

I would maybe believe that there is a correlation, not causation. I could see that maybe the areas with higher pollutant levels are more industrialized and therefore would have a higher incidence of eating fast food.

iulia_maddie

pilarter

It's very good of you to look into reason that are making people fat. However, you'd need to do some further research to prove that the two are linked, and that in fact the air pollution is causing the obesity (and not the obese people taking a car causing pollution for example). There are also a number of reasons which could cause both, or it might be coincidence. You might want to look at specific area's. For example, are people who live next to the freeway fatter than those who live further away?

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying that your research so far does not warrant saying that air pollution (let alone your state) is making you fat. It'd be very premature to move before doing further research.

This.
This is not research, you found a potential match, now you must prove it right before assessing conclusions. More, you need to prove directionality: what´s causing what.