The other morning I was greeted by an unsettling headline on the front page of my daily paper: “A quarter of Arizonans estimated to be obese” topping a story in which the Director of the State Department of Health Services stated, “Obesity is getting worse and worse every year. It’s astonishing, really.”
For the past year and a half, the majority of my weekly blogs have cited all sorts of statistics pointing out that Americans today are fatter and less active than ever before while offering advice from leading experts on the benefits of physical fitness, proper nutrition and living a healthy lifestyle as a way to get overweight people to mend their ways.
The latest report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 25.5 percent of Arizona’s population are obese, placing the state in the middle of national rankings. Going back to 1995, only 13.3 percent of the State’s population were considered obese. From a national perspective, 72.5 million U.S. adults are obese, and no state has met CDC’s goal of reducing obesity prevalence by 15 percent by 2010.
Fewer than one-third of adults exercise at least three times a week. Two-thirds of Arizonans age 65 and older have reported themselves as obese. We have quoted a U.S. News & World Report article that revealed nearly one-third of our children and adolescents are overweight or obese and either suffering from or at risk of serious chronic illnesses like diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
We’ve been able to cut down on the incidence of smoking, so now we must be even more aggressive in attacking the Nation’s most serious health problem. There aren’t a lot of easy answers, but understanding the consequences of being overweight or obese should provide the motivation to get us to make better decisions as to what and when we eat and how we lives our lives.
Get Up! Get Active! Get Involved! Get Healthy!
~Wid
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The Grand Canyon State Games is a multi-sport Olympic Festival providing a showcase for the talents and aspirations for Arizona and America's youth regardless of age or ability and to share many of the great attributes of our state. In fact we have had a 3 year old come down the mountain in our Winter skiing event and a 99 year old gentleman throw the javelin in our Track & Field event. We truly have something for everyone.
