Diet

Poll Watch: Thousand Oaks, California is One of the 10 Least Obese Metro Areas in U.S.

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Good News for Thousand Oaks and I certainly am trying to do my part but am unfortunately still obese. But, gosh I am trying to lose the extra weight, eat right and exercise regularly.

More than 20% of Americans were obese in 174 of the 188 U.S. metropolitan areas that Gallup and Healthways surveyed in 2010. In the most obese of these metro areas — Evansville, Ind.-Ky. — 37.8% of residents were obese, compared with 12.9% in the least obese place — Boulder, Colo.

Nationwide, 26.6% of American adults were obese in 2010, unchanged from 2009, but higher than 25.5% in 2008. The average obesity rate in the 10 most obese metro areas surveyed in 2010 was 34.1%, compared with 17.4% in the 10 least obese metro areas.

Gallup tracks U.S. obesity levels as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, using Americans’ self-reported height and weight to calculate Body Mass Index (BMI) scores. BMI scores of 30 or higher are considered obese.

The 2010 metro area findings are extracted from Gallup’s 2010 Daily tracking data set of more than 200,000 U.S. adults, aged 18 and older. Gallup categorizes U.S. metro areas according to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s definitions for Metropolitan Statistical Areas, and reports on all MSAs for which there are a minimum of 300 interviews available.

There is quite a bit of good information at the Gallup site, including Gallup’s U.S. City Wellbeing Tracking interactive. Check it out.

But, what is the bottom line of this information?

Good health habits have a clear connection to low disease rates and to higher wellbeing in general. Boulder, the least obese metro area of those surveyed in 2010, also has the highest overall wellbeing score in the United States. In Boulder, 65.2% of residents say they exercise for at least 30 minutes three or more days per week, more than in any other metro area. Exercise and healthy eating, in addition to helping maintain a healthy weight and prevent certain chronic diseases, have important emotional benefits.

The consequences of high obesity rates for cities come in many forms: higher healthcare costs, lower workplace productivity, and unhappier residents. For cities where more than 3 in 10 residents are obese, these problems are even more pronounced and are even more likely to continue from one generation to the next.

Government and business leaders at the city level are in a unique position to tackle the obesity problem. They are the most familiar with their community’s strengths and weaknesses and can use their knowledge to create policies and programs to target efforts to help reduce obesity in their area.

And, indeed if we all wish to lead happier, more productive and healthier lives, we must all do our part.

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Health

Poll Watch: Full Time Good Jobs with an Employer Linked to Higher Wellbeing

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According to the latest Gallup Poll:

Gallup’s global surveys reveal that people with “good jobs,” those who are employed full time for an employer, tend to have the highest wellbeing of those in the workforce. They are more likely to be “thriving” than those who are self-employed, employed part time looking for full-time work, or unemployed.

Worldwide, individuals employed full time for an employer tend to report the highest evaluative wellbeing, with 29% thriving. Those employed part time and those who are unemployed do not fall far behind. Self-employed respondents report the lowest evaluative wellbeing, with 14% thriving.

This is noteworthy in dentistry in that most dentists are self-employed in America.

In advanced economies, self-employed folks continue to lag behind in wellbeing.

I can only surmise that although self-employed business owners have their own fate, so to speak, in their own hands, that the stress of it all, leads to lower wellbeing. But, this is of course, in developed countries.

Quality of life issues and the type of employment you have are intertwined. As worldwide business eventually ramps up after the global recession, it is a consideration that must be made.

One of the most important factors contributing to an individual’s wellbeing is his or her employment status. Globally, the difference in wellbeing between those who have good jobs and those who are self-employed is significant. In terms of one’s wellbeing, the worst job in the world is to be self-employed in a developing country. At 12% thriving, the self-employed in the developing world have the lowest wellbeing of any group. Many of the world’s poor are forced into growing or making things to sell on a street corner, working for themselves out of desperation. The picture is different in the developed world, where the self-employed are more likely to be entrepreneurs out of opportunity.

Traditional employment metrics do not always capture the complete jobs situation. Traditional unemployment does not include part-time workers who are looking for full-time work or individuals who are working for themselves in subsistence jobs. In the developing world, self-employed individuals may not only fail to make meaningful contributions to the formal economy, but also their jobs are not positively affecting their wellbeing. Gallup research reveals that full-time employment for an employer highly correlates with GDP per capita. Being employed full time for an employer is therefore a much better gauge of good jobs than unemployment, which has no statistical relationship to GDP per capita on a global basis.

As global leaders continue to make jobs their No. 1 priority, they need to use better metrics to assess whether they are actually creating good jobs. Good jobs not only have a significant impact on a country’s gross domestic product, but they also are fundamental to a country’s gross national wellbeing.

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Diet

Poll Watch: Obesity Levels Lowest in Colorado, Highest in West Virginia

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The 2010 Gallup Well-Being Index

According to the latest Gallup Poll.

Colorado, Hawaii, and Utah had the lowest obesity levels in the United States in 2010, although at least 2 in 10 adults were obese in each of these states. West Virginia, Mississippi, and Kentucky had the highest obesity rates, with more than 3 in 10 obese residents living in these states. The prevalence of obesity is nearly eight percentage points higher, on average, in the 11 states with the highest obesity levels compared with the 10 states with the lowest obesity levels — 30.5% vs. 22.6%, respectively.

A very interesting regionalization of obesity levels. I cannot help but think that this is based on culturally-based eating and food choice habits.

Here is the table:

So, what does this mean?

The implications of increasing obesity rates and the associated health outcomes of being obese are extensive for national, state, and local leaders. A recent Gallup study analyzed obesity data from 187 U.S. metro areas and found that if all of them reduced their obesity rates to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national goal of 15%, the U.S. could save $32.6 billion in healthcare costs annually.

The 2010 state-level findings underscore the connection between high obesity levels and diabetes diagnosis and highlight how widespread this problem is across the country. Obesity and diabetes rates in the U.S. have only worsened since Gallup and Healthways started tracking these conditions daily in January 2008. Strong leadership at the governmental, organizational, and individual level focused on changing health habits, including encouraging more frequent exercise and healthy eating, is needed to begin to reduce these costly and potentially deadly health issues.

There is much work to do to promote healthy diets and more frequent exercise for better health and longevity.

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Health

Obesity ALONE Increases Risk of FATAL Heart Attack

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Another excellent reason to change your lifeestyle and reduce your body weight.

Obese men face a dramatically higher risk of dying from a heart attack, regardless of whether or not they have other known risk factors for cardiovascular disease, a new study reveals.

The finding stems from an analysis involving roughly 6,000 middle-aged men, and it suggests that there is something about carrying around excess weight that contributes to heart disease independent of risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and arterial disease.

What exactly that something is, however, remains unclear, although the researchers suggest that the chronic inflammation that typically accompanies significant weight gain might be the driving force behind the increased risk.

“Obese, middle-aged men have a 60 percent increased risk of dying from a heart attack than non-obese middle-aged men, even after we cancel out any of the effects of cholesterol, blood pressure and other cardiovascular risk factors,” noted study author Jennifer Logue, a clinical lecturer of metabolic medicine with the British Heart Foundation’s Cardiovascular Research Centre at the University of Glasgow, in Scotland. “This means [that] obesity itself may be causing fatal heart attacks through a factor that we have not yet identified.”

Logue and her colleagues report their observations in the Feb. 15 online issue of Heart.

Read the entire piece.

I know I struggle with weight and am still obese – at least fifty pounds over weight.

However, I know it is important to change my lifestyle, if I want to live longer.

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Health

Do You Think You Can Be Obese and Healthy?

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Obese Vs. Normal Person

Well, not really.

Read all of this excellent piece by Dr. Peter Janiszewski.

The bottom line:

Although a fair number of obese individuals may have a perfect metabolic profile, it appears they may still experience negative consequences of their excess weight. Furthermore, weight loss achieved via lifestyle intervention appears to still bring about some metabolic benefit among previously healthy obese individuals. Given the numerous non-metabolic benefits of weight loss, all obese individuals certainly have something to gain from a modest reduction in body weight as achieved by a healthier lifestyle.

I am staying on my low fat diet and will continue to run/exercise – thank you.

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