This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Are Anti-Obesity Campaigns Contributing to Obesity?

So check out the attached maps... Zoom in on the first one --- All kinds of blue and pretty equal throughout the country, aside from the three white areas with no reporting.  Check out the last map --- Lots of red and pink only one blue and a few purples.  How many categories disappear off the map from 1991-2010??  Realize that these are obesity trends --- not obesity and overweight.  If it included overweight, these percentages would be higher.

Okay, okay ... I am not normally one to present doom and gloom ... I wanted to use these maps to show the reality of what happened in our country over the last 20 years (a relatively short time!).  This happened during a time when you could not go somewhere without hearing about some healthy eating suggestion or that we need to be more active --- that we need to FIGHT THIS WAR on obesity.

I point this out because we've spent more money on research, advertising and other media and provided more resources yet our obesity numbers continue to grow.  We're doing the right thing with education, right??  Why do you think this number is changing in the opposite direction of what we want?  How does it feel to be "fighting a battle"?  How many of you get excited at the thought of exercising and eating healthy .. uh for the rest of your life?  How many of you think of healthy foods almost as a punishment or some horrible thing you HAVE to do??  What if instead of ANTI-OBESITY we chatted PRO-HEALTH?  I welcome your thoughts....

Find out what's happening in Columbiawith free, real-time updates from Patch.


We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?