I read an article the other day about obesity rates in the United States and how our future as a nation is threatened—at least in part—by the yearly rises in the majority of the states of our union. The article is entitled “F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2010” and you can still find it online if you want to read it or check out the statistical data of some of the findings.

A couple things bother me about the state of health in our great nation and our analysis of it. First off, the obvious: we keep getting fatter. Although we’ve been tracking the health of the nation for decades and the data continues to point at the ugly truth that we get fatter year after year, this “getting fatter” is killing more and more people every year, and those who do not die get diabetes, heart conditions, strokes, blah blah blah… Even though this is no longer a mystery that our health, our family’s health, our friend’s health and our neighbors’/acquaintances’ health is declining at a steady rate and directly in proportion to our eating habits, we do nothing to stop and/or reverse this. It is pure insanity that we know EXACTLY the problem but instead of changing the cause (our food intake and lack of exercise output) we instead spend billions looking for better pharmaceuticals to keep us from dying so that we can continue our old unhealthy habits. When I say we need to do something about it, I'm not saying that we need new government programs or funding or subsidies for gyms or anything else outside of YOUR HOUSEHOLD.  You need to do something about right in your life, your family's life, and your friends' lives.

The second thing that gets me fired up is the way we’ve simplified the calculations to measure obesity. I wrote a couple weeks back about my disgust over the BMI (body mass index) and how it improperly categorizes individuals’ health based on a ratio of height to weight. When I wrote about this, I thought how ridiculously lazy our scientists have gotten if they actually think that they can judge someone’s health based on a BMI calculation b/c using this formula categorizes nearly all athletes (both amateur and pro), nearly all body builders and weight lifters (both amateur and pro) and many others who are phenomenal shape as either grossly overweight or obese. Now that I am looking at the majority of the United States, I understand where our scientists are coming from b/c such a tiny fraction of the country actually sees the inside of a gym (different from those who have a gym membership) that the BMI may be very accurate in nearly all the cases it is used! This is amazing to me b/c being 6 foot, 210 lbs and a body fat of 5.25% makes one OBESE, although this person is in the best shape of his life.

Lastly, and maybe the scariest part of this study, is seeing how this is affecting our youth. The youth that is supposed to be our future. The numbers are shocking. I don’t want to get into the data but you can look for yourself. Here’s my rant: Our youth look up to their parents and do as their parents (not as their parents say), both good and bad. You as a parent, regardless of whether or not you give a crap about your own health, owe it to your children to MAKE them consumer nutritious food and be active, otherwise you are contributing to their health issues and pushing them closer to the grave. Activity isn’t Playstation or even Wii. Activity is getting their heart rate up, sweating, playing, etc. Nutritious food isn’t chicken nuggets at McDonald’s drivethru instead of the cheeseburger. Nutrition is homemade meals with lean proteins and greens. Get serious and think about it.