Let's not sugarcoat our words: The report released yesterday by Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is just more fodder for the notion that Americans are disgustingly obese people who simply cannot stop stuffing their dumb faces with fake, horrible, lardaceous foods. The proof is in the pudding, so let's take a quick look before somebody comes along and licks the pudding bowl clean. Here are just a few of the new numbers from the report, which is titled "F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2011."
* Two-thirds of all adults and about one-third of all children and teenagers are "overweight or obese."
* Florida ranks 29th in the U.S., which is better than most Southern states. Southerners, it turns out, are the citizens most likely to eat like imbeciles: nine of ten states with the fattest folks are situated below the Mason-Dixon line.
* 26.1 percent of Floridians can be characterized as "obese" or "the sort of person you don't want to sit next to on a plane or bus or anywhere, really."
* Mississippi nabbed the top spot for highest adult obesity rate (34.4 percent) for the seventh year in a row. Alabama, Tennessee, and Oklahoma are getting fatter faster than any other states.
* 33 percent of adults who made less than $15,000 per year or did not graduate high school were found to be obese. Gee, I remember the good old days when poor people ate less than everyone else.
* Colorado, at 19.8 percent, had the lowest obesity rate and is the only state in the nation under 20 percent. Twenty years ago, not a single state had an obesity rate over 20 percent. We may note that medical marijuana is legal in Colorado, which sort of dampens the notion that pot-fueled munchies have anything to do with Americans turning into human tubs of lard.
* Black adults in Florida have a 38.8 percent obesity rate, compared with 24.1 percent of whites.
* Obesity contributes heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and is even an indicator of poor birth outcomes: according to the Fetal and Infant Mortality Review, obesity "was prevalent in 32 percent of infant deaths in Northeast Florida between 2005 to 2009." In other words, the only thing more dangerous for a Florida baby than having a mother who is obese is having a mother who is Casey Anthony.
We'll leave you to chew on this info -- but please, don't swallow.
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