By SALVATORE BUTTACI
Last year, the Trust for America’s Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention, published its findings on obesity in America. While Mississippi rated number one with 30.6 percent of that state considered obese, West Virginia, nearly that high, came in second.
On the other end of the 1-to-50 spectrum, Colorado earned the leanest score of 17.6 percent. By the way, Virginia was number 23 on the research group’s obesity list with a score of 24.5.
In all, the obesity rate climbed in 31 states and not one state could boast a decrease!
Even more dire was a study done last year by The Centers for Disease Control, which released a figure of about 32 percent for the occurrence of diabetes in America, higher even than that of the Trust for America’s Health.
It is time we admit this national health crisis can only worsen year by year if we sit back and let it continue to happen. Especially here in West Virginia. We must do all we can to reverse a perilous trend that affects adults and children alike.
Obesity is an open door to life-threatening diseases like heart trouble and diabetes, which is steadily growing in leaps and bounds.
Those afflicted with diabetes? 20.8 million children and adults in the United States, or 7 percent of the population! And as if that were not frightening enough, six million of them are unaware they even have the disease. The number of people considered pre-diabetic reaches an astounding 54 million people!
Responding to this health problem, some will insist one’s weight is a personal matter. If a person chooses to eat unhealthy foods and to avoid physical exercise, that is his or her concern. It smacks of the same weak argument employed by cigarette smokers, but the facts speak for themselves, regardless of how one chooses to rationalize them: There is a steep price to pay for doing harm to one’s body. It is our responsibility to keep ourselves healthy so that the quality of life can be maintained well into old age.
Another argument in defense of keeping obesity at the status quo is that healthy eating is too expensive. Fast foods are more affordable. That is true, but quite false in the long run.
Sometime ago I approached several managers of various fast food eateries in Princeton, suggesting they add to their menus wheat bread and alternatives to potatoes and white rice. I explained how many of us with diabetes cannot eat most of the fast foods sold, and that with the number of diabetics growing so quickly, it made sense for fast food stores to consider their health and the stores business. These managers all nodded their heads.
One thought the idea a good one. Three said the menus are the same in all their branches. Another claimed no one ever mentioned before the need for diabetic menus.
To win the war against diabetes requires the cooperation of everyone: The general public, the corporate sector, the government.
The death rate attributed to this disease since 1987 has increased 45 percent and still climbing. It is now the fifth leading cause of death in America at a time when the percentages of people dying from cancer, stroke, and heart disease have been falling.
Last year, medical expenditures for diabetes amounted to $116 billion while the economic cost rose to $58 billion — spelled out in workdays missed, compensations paid, and lost productivity due to young deaths.
West Virginia is rightfully the state of the Wild and Wonderful. We can beautify it even more if we lose unhealthy weight by eating properly and exercising daily.
We can eventually challenge those lean and healthy states with all-time low ratings of obesity and diabetes.
Or we can let obesity and diabetes beat us!
Salvatore Buttaci is a resident of Princeton, W.Va.
