Is Your State Making You Fat???

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  • dedicated2014
    dedicated2014 Posts: 36 Member
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    Forgive my spelling. I probably am spelling all these wrong.

    The Highest pollution states are: Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, California and Alaska

    The Highest Obesity States are : Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, and South Carolina

    Only five of those overlap. Michigan, Indiana, Texas, Alabama and Louisiana

    I would say this argument doesn't hold water. While everyone wants to believe this and it sounds quite nice, I would say your eyes are fooling you when you look at the maps.

    Also, the highest obesity state in the whole of the US doesn't make it onto both lists.

    Yes, this. People keep using words like causation and relationship. This is not a statistically significant relationship. There's not even a correlation, let alone causation.

    Exactly.
  • etoiles_argentees
    etoiles_argentees Posts: 2,827 Member
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    Remember, only a few participants are for the nhanes obesity reports/cdc are gathered from the mobile exam center, most are self reported. Last time they had the mobile set up for Florida it was above Jacksonville, near Georgia. Parked at a Walmart next to Mcd's.
  • Docpremie
    Docpremie Posts: 228 Member
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    "In statistics, a spurious relationship (or, sometimes, spurious correlation) is a mathematical relationship in which two events or variables have no direct causal connection, yet it may be wrongly inferred that they do, due to either coincidence or the presence of a certain third, unseen factor (referred to as a "confounding factor" or "lurking variable")."

    My favorite example of this type of reasoning involves storks & babies in Europe.
  • 1ConcreteGirl
    1ConcreteGirl Posts: 3,677 Member
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    Remember, only a few participants are for the nhanes obesity reports/cdc are gathered from the mobile exam center, most are self reported. Last time they had the mobile set up for Florida it was above Jacksonville, near Georgia. Parked at a Walmart next to Mcd's.

    Excellent point, I really appreciate the extra context, but that was surely not the only one in the state.
  • _DaniD_
    _DaniD_ Posts: 2,186 Member
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    Thank you so much for posting this. I was thinking of visiting a friend in the States - so glad I saw this post first. It's extremely polluted where she lives. It's really not worth the 5 lbs I will likely put on while visiting her.


    But baby I already told you I'd help you burn those lbs off if you came to visit me!

    I'm sorry. This changes everything. You will have to come to Canada now. We have negative pollution here, you actually start losing weight the moment you breathe your first breath of Canada.

    I just had the best idea ever. If anyone wants I will gladly package and ship fresh Canadian air for a decent price.
  • homerjspartan
    homerjspartan Posts: 1,893 Member
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    I don't know why you think this is solid information. It is sad that you are making this correlation. I live in Detroit, where the economy is bad. Based on this you are asking people to move away from us since we are a "fat" state. This will further reduce the tax base and make it harder to survive. Less jobs. Housing market will get worse. Businesses will continue to close. And it is all funny to you. Why are you taking food from my family? Why?
  • craigmandu
    craigmandu Posts: 976 Member
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    Thank you so much for posting this. I was thinking of visiting a friend in the States - so glad I saw this post first. It's extremely polluted where she lives. It's really not worth the 5 lbs I will likely put on while visiting her.


    But baby I already told you I'd help you burn those lbs off if you came to visit me!

    I'm sorry. This changes everything. You will have to come to Canada now. We have negative pollution here, you actually start losing weight the moment you breathe your first breath of Canada.

    I just had the best idea ever. If anyone wants I will gladly packed and ship fresh Canadian air for a decent price.

    Just put a fan in the nearest pipeline, so we all get to benefit!
  • amyk0202
    amyk0202 Posts: 667 Member
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    Thank you so much for posting this. I was thinking of visiting a friend in the States - so glad I saw this post first. It's extremely polluted where she lives. It's really not worth the 5 lbs I will likely put on while visiting her.

    Maybe your friend would agree to meet you in a different state. If you explain the compelling research done by the OP, I bet they would agree.

    I think people would definitely lose weight if they moved from a "fat" state to a "skinny" state. Especially if they loaded all their stuff into a wheelbarrow & pushed it to their new home. I do worry about all the pollution they might breathe in while walking though. Maybe invest in a gas mask before making the journey.
  • TeachTheGirl
    TeachTheGirl Posts: 2,091 Member
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    http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eigl45hfh/1-minneapolis-minn/

    We got this, Minnesota.
  • CoachSamB
    CoachSamB Posts: 40 Member
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    I don't necessarily disagree that it is definitely easier for those with cushy lifestyles to afford higher quality food, etc. Then again, those with high paying jobs probably work a LOT to make that kind of money and have LESS time for working out and being active. The bottom line is this. You can lose weight even if you eat Doritos, or not so healthy food. You just have to monitor what you're taking in, and eat less. If you can afford steak every meal, or baked chicken with steamed vegetables every meal, you STILL have to monitor.

    So a person's salary will not dictate their size. It might make it easier, but EVERYONE is responsible for themselves. I agree with the individuals saying "I MADE ME FAT." Exactly right. Period.

    MONITOR YOUR EATING AND EXERCISE. Period.
    The first graphic is problematic because of the lack of population in the states that are not showing much weight gain. Of course Wyoming is going to show fewer tons gained over the year than New York. There are also economic reasons why some places have more obese people than others. Obesity is more prevalent amongst poor and working class individuals.

    Sure, you've got your odd Kevin Smith and Chris Christie types, but if you look at the $100k plus a year salary folks, the obesity rates fall in 26% range with the poorest Americans suffering an obesity rate of 32% or more.

    This makes me wonder, what do the rich have that the poor don't?
    1. Adequate health care. This could be a huge factor.
    2. Less stress
    3. Vacation (see #2)
    4. Access to better quality food
    5. Time to prepare food
    6. Time and ability to afford "healthy" activities

    I think that if this was indeed the case, then to solve the obesity epidemic we must first solve the growing wealth gap in the US. You want fewer fat people? Then give the poor an opportunity to earn decent wages on just a high school education.
  • mmm_drop
    mmm_drop Posts: 1,126 Member
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    Yes, I absolutely blame where I live and take no blame at all.
  • 1ConcreteGirl
    1ConcreteGirl Posts: 3,677 Member
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    I don't know why you think this is solid information. It is sad that you are making this correlation. I live in Detroit, where the economy is bad. Based on this you are asking people to move away from us since we are a "fat" state. This will further reduce the tax base and make it harder to survive. Less jobs. Housing market will get worse. Businesses will continue to close. And it is all funny to you. Why are you taking food from my family? Why?

    Homer, obesity and pollution are no laughing matter.

    I believe the economy might actually improve if everyone moved away from states like Michigan and went to fresh-air states. Industry would be consolidated and the economy would start moving faster because all the economy things would be closer together. It's only logical.

    Good luck to you and your family!

    ETA: I do not know much about the economy, so this could be wrong.
  • Quattrone21
    Quattrone21 Posts: 49
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    Its to hot to be fat in Florida
  • etoiles_argentees
    etoiles_argentees Posts: 2,827 Member
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    Remember, only a few participants are for the nhanes obesity reports/cdc are gathered from the mobile exam center, most are self reported. Last time they had the mobile set up for Florida it was above Jacksonville, near Georgia. Parked at a Walmart next to Mcd's.

    Excellent point, I really appreciate the extra context, but that was surely not the only one in the state.

    Unfortunately it was 2 years ago. I selected but was denied when I got there and offered to report by phone. Waste of a drive. Oh well.:)
  • Cr01502
    Cr01502 Posts: 3,614 Member
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    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.

    These are some pretty big assumptions. Africa eats loads of processed food. Burger King, rice, sugar fried bananas, and frankly they aren't overweight. Have you been to Africa? Have you ever seen a Safari? There's not a whole lot of pollution there and the people are amazingly thin.
  • Liatush
    Liatush Posts: 627 Member
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    I'm in NY. There are more gyms around me than McDonalds, so that helps. I think NYers are very body-image/health aware. Blame fashion? I don't know.

    I also LOVE that most restaurants/starbucks/etc have their caloric contents on their menus, which is not something I see when I visit other states. While many people walk into a restaurant and get a salad to try and be good, many of those salads, I was surprised to learn, are close to or over 1,000 calories. It's definitely helped open my eyes to what's really healthy in these places, and in restaurants, generally.
  • ryry_
    ryry_ Posts: 4,966 Member
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    Didn't read the thread, but....
    Sarcasm?
  • TheWiseCat
    TheWiseCat Posts: 297
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    Remember, only a few participants are for the nhanes obesity reports/cdc are gathered from the mobile exam center, most are self reported. Last time they had the mobile set up for Florida it was above Jacksonville, near Georgia. Parked at a Walmart next to Mcd's.

    Excellent point, I really appreciate the extra context, but that was surely not the only one in the state.

    Unfortunately it was 2 years ago. I selected but was denied when I got there and offered to report by phone. Waste of a drive. Oh well.:)

    I ate 50lbs of lead shot and participated in that study. I thought the lead would help me win, but some of the other contestants registered higher weights =(
  • meeper123
    meeper123 Posts: 3,347 Member
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    I live in Alaska I have a hard time losing weight here for some reason until it started to warm up a bit not sure if that's connected I run and do almost all my workouts inside I don't blame this of course just wondering if it plays a part
  • homerjspartan
    homerjspartan Posts: 1,893 Member
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    I don't know why you think this is solid information. It is sad that you are making this correlation. I live in Detroit, where the economy is bad. Based on this you are asking people to move away from us since we are a "fat" state. This will further reduce the tax base and make it harder to survive. Less jobs. Housing market will get worse. Businesses will continue to close. And it is all funny to you. Why are you taking food from my family? Why?

    Homer, obesity and pollution are no laughing matter.

    I believe the economy might actually improve if everyone moved away from states like Michigan and went to fresh-air states. Industry would be consolidated and the economy would start moving faster because all the economy things would be closer together. It's only logical.

    Good luck to you and your family!

    ETA: I do not know much about the economy, so this could be wrong.

    Your logic is flawed. If everyone moved closer together and we condensed industry together, the pollution would rise and thus causing the population to balloon up. Then everyone would have to move again. Your theory turns the country into a binge and purge caravan. A mix of fat and thin roamers, wanderers, vagabonds. Call it what you will.

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