Foodie Rant - Properly Sauced? Try Properly Ripped Off.
Oprah-geddon: Winfrey To Quit Show In 2011
Daley Blames - Who Else? - The Media For Oprah-geddon
NYT Preps For Chicago Edition
Chicago Gets Googled
Last week, we mentioned the children of the state are getting fatter. Now, another study says that Illinois' adults are, too. According to data released by the CDC, 26.4 percent of Illinois adults are obese. Overall, the Southeast has the highest rates with Mississippi and Alabama coming in at #1 and #2, respectively. (Way to go, SEC country, making me proud of my homeland). But, seriously, the new results show a very troubling trend. As the Trib explains:
The CDC found that in 2008 Illinois was among 32 states where 25 percent or more of adults were, to put it bluntly, fat. Officially, obesity counts as having a body mass index - a ratio of weight to height - of 30 percent or higher.To put that in perspective, two decades ago no state counted more than 15 percent of adults as obese. That hurdle was passed in 1991 by four states, including Michigan.
In 1996, three states, including Indiana and Kentucky, passed the 20 percent mark. In 2001, Mississippi became the first state where at least 25 percent of adults were excessively heavy. Four years later, three states - Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia - topped 30 percent.
And locally? Illinois is definitely following the overall trend.
In 1985, as far back as the current CDC report goes, fewer than 10 percent of Illinoisans were obese. Two years later, the figure jumped to 10 to 14 percent. In 1994, it rose again to the 15 to 19 percent range. Five years later, obesity rates in Illinois soared to 20 percent or more. Then, last year, rates climbed again, to the 25 to 29 percent range.
Besides contributing to illnesses like diabetes and heart disease, obesity also spikes the cost of health care.
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tsk tsk.. for shame.
*chows down on chicken wrap dripping with chipotle mayo*
"You ain't fat! You ain't nothin' ... You ain't nothin'!"
At the same time, it's important to note that BMI is not an accurate indicator of obesity. You can have an extremely HIGH number if you're, say, a body builder, and an extremely low one if you have low bone density.
Most recently, NPR did a little segment on the many faults of using BMI as a way to classify...
Good starting point: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106268439
no it's not important.
you really think those hundred budybuilders who qualify as obese (remember, this is not the overweight category, this obesity) throw off that percentage by anything significant?
This is such a hugely embarrassing problem (no pun intended)...we have become the freakshow nation of the globe. I can't believe it's gotten this bad...
Oh, I completely agree that a larger percent of our population is larger than other countries' citizens. However, BMI is being used to lump (no pun intended) people into groups for health care purposes. Should two people of the same height and weight be classified in the same group if one has more muscle mass because they work out every day while the other classifies her "workout" as the four block walk to get her Grande Vanilla Latte?
I just have issues with all the factors BMI leaves out of the equation. If my health care is going to be determined based on some broad, bogus category, well...
I used to read nn old tasteless humor mag in England. Once they sponsored a contest: Send in a real photo of the biggest arse in all of England. After many many entries, a winner was declared. However, the winner was later disqualified when it became apparent from the background that the winning arse photo was taken at DisneyWorld in Florida. This was considered cheating cuz everybody knows Americans have the fattest arses on the planet and no English arse could fairly compete with that.
26.4 percent? That just happens to be my BMI. Small world.
I blame the fat midwesterners who move to this city and feel like it's ok to be as disgustingly large as they are so long as all of their friends are fat too.
So have that Kuma Burger and wash it down with a 900 calorie beer - it's ok so long as your friends join you in killing yourself, right?
900 calorie beer?
There's no way to assess this, of course, but I would bet money that Chicago natives are larger, on average, than Chicago transplants. Most people who move to a city like this are younger and of a mindset that makes them more body conscious. Natives, on the other hand, tend to be extremely complacent. There's a reason, after all, the stereotypical Chicago "da bears" guy looks the way he does.
But it's more fun to blame outsiders - midwesterners in particular.
And really, I think there are so many fat people here that people come here and say "fuck it I don't have to diet to fit in, everyone here is fat anyway"
I really think we need to have a city-wide weightloss challenge.
Depends on a lot of factors, including age and where the transplants are coming from.
When I left my rural Ohio hometown at age 17, my peers and I, with our teenage metabolisms, were all about the same size. Now, those who stayed there are... bigger. By a lot. I'm about the same size (give or take 10 pounds, but I'm not 17 any more).
I walk 2-3 miles a day, just going to work and running errands and stuff. Since they live in the sticks, they're in their cars to do the same things. Over 10 years, that minor difference in daily habits shows.
Since a lot of Illinois is rural (but not many people are doing manual farm labor), and suburbs seem to avoid building things like sidewalks, I think that's got to be a factor. Nobody walks anywhere.
I am a transplant who moved here largely because of the ability to live without a car. I wanted a large, walkable city. It's not fun, sometimes (February, I'm talking about you here), but I definitely end up burning a lot more calories. If I could only stop going to Mr. Beef...
Also, I will say that people are on average 10 pounds heavier than I have seen on either coast. It's gross.
I doubt it.
Maybe they just wear less horizontal stripes.
So wait, you're telling me that fat kids turn into fat adults? Say it ain't so!
So, with these stats, it is fair to say that the people posting about the Fat Disgusting people at the Taste of Chicago are painting an accurate picture.
While the Chicagoist feature "Whaccha Wearin'" is basically a side show of jackasses that don't represent what Chicagoans really look like.
Yes.
I think people with fat kids should be charged with child endangerment
and look how Chicagoist totally fosters fatness as a way of life! They promote The Trough of Chicago and Kuma's free food
while totally ignoring Logan Square's Tour de Fat!
Regardless of one's views on smoking it's safe to say the government has done almost all it can to kick them around. As long as we're going to have a government that punishes that which it does not like let's take it a step further. Tax the hell out of high fructose corn syrup, white bread, etc. Ingest that crap and not only do you get a ton of empty calories but you are hungry an hour later.
Illinois is on a very fast track to overtake the Deep South states.
High Fructose Corn Syrup was promoted by farming corporations as a cheaper alternative to cane sugar since the mid-1960s. As a result, heavy tariffs were levied against importing sugar sometime in the late 1970s. Food manufacturers then got right in line and switched to HCFS to save money.
HCFS is in dozens of products. and it's POISON. Stop drinking American-produced sodas.
So the blessed warm damp humid weather of New Orleans always awakens the Shakespeare in my dank'n dark soul This whole conversation reminds me of what our brotha Hamlet said about Kings( Americans in this case) over eating. See in the end its not about
"where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain
convocation of POLITIC WORMS worms are e'en at him...we fat all
creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for
MAGGOTS: your fat king and your lean beggar is but
variable service, two dishes, but to one table
That's the End"!
Man, I love that! No matter who we are King or Begger
we are just maggot food, us Americans will just feed more maggots!
B*tches, Happy Friday