Health security

Obesity Epidemic Getting Worse, What Happens When You Don’t Do Enough

Here’s the thing with major problems. If you don’t take them seriously enough, they get worse. And worse and worse and worse. On Thursday, the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) released the 16th annual “State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America” report, and surprise, surprise, the obesity epidemic in America has gotten worse.

Just take a look at how many states had adult obesity rates of at least 35% in 2018, based on the report: nine. That’s Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and West Virginia. That’s two more states compared to the seven that equaled or exceeded the 35% level in 2017. Oh, and back in 2012, the year the very first Avengers movie came out, not a single state had adult obesity rates that exceeded 35%. These numbers came from TFAH’s analysis of data from sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).

Is America doing well? Not with adult obesity rates close to 40% and childhood obesity rates close to 20%. Saying that “everything’s going great” would be reminiscent of this scene from the movie Thor: Dark World...