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Originally Posted by Sheepy
I don't think my country is great but Ive read america's population is between 40 and 70% either overweight or obese so i would say obesity is a larger (see what i did there? ) problem and demands the more focus.
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What we seem to have in the US are interesting divides in the population. Clusters of populations with obesity (usually associated with low-income) are interspersed with enclaves of the health-conscious. The two don't seem to interact anywhere near often enough. Peer pressures in healthy enclaves encourage the people there to remain slender. Some states are worse than others - in California, Nevada and Utah I saw more fit individuals than I do in Ohio, but here in Ohio the population in Cleveland appears to have more overweight individuals compared to Cincinnati. I see obesity as a national epidemic that should be dealt with using regional solutions. City, county, and state politics should take the lead on addressing the issue rather than counting on federal top-down approach. It seems that the causes for obesity could be highly regional, unique to the dietary and exercise habits of those local to the area. Families and communities need to work together to encourage healthy eating habits.
The other night I watched an episode of a new show called "Extreme makeover: weight loss edition." The episode focused on a young woman who was morbidly obese (400+lbs) who was a PE teacher for elementary school students. THIS is a problem: choosing people to teach young children how to be fit, who are not fit themselves... how could they ever consider someone like that qualified? No wonder why we have so many issues with obesity. These things make me sick.