spread of obesity

Here is a fun little interactive map of how the obesity epidemic has spread over the past 20 years or so. The 1991 to 1995 change was fairly alarming, as was the 1997 to 2001 change.

So the 1985/baseline map - this is when I was 7 years old or so. I had one family member who was obese, and people would actually comment on it. It was an oddity. In 1991, I was 13, and this person was still an oddity - and I can remember specific instances of biased treatment of this person. But just after 2001, I moved to the South. I was amazed by how this same family member would be considered "normal" or within a normal-ish range where I was living in Texas & Mississippi.

The most interesting thing about this map, that I see, is that 1985, half the states didn't even collect data on obesity. In 1991, 3 states still didn't collect the data. In 1991, the highest obesity rate was 20-24% (found in 4 states). In 2004, only 7 states had an obesity rate under that 20-24% that had been the highest rate 13 years earlier. Its really scary. I don't even want to see the projections for the future. I'm not even sure I want to know where we are now in 2007.

And we wonder why health care costs are out of control...

I don't know what the solution is. The transfat bans are a place to start, but thats not an answer, just a mere piece of the puzzle. I wonder how strong the correlation is between 'cheap credit' and obesity... if credit is easier to obtain, maybe people who previously had to walk places are buying cars. Or maybe as credit was easier to get, more people bought houses and moved out to the suburbs where they had no where to walk to and in turn had to start driving everywhere. I guess that way to figure that out would be to look at the areas that have had giant suburban building booms over the past 10 - 15 years, and see how that correlates to the spread of obesity map.

Maybe cheap credit is hazardous to our health?