Obesity

So there are so many things that I love about East TN. There is so much to do close by, the weather is great, the people are friendly, I could write a list a mile long. However, two things that I don't like about it is that we are one of the fattest states and one of the most medicated. A new article came out today and TN is the second most medicated state in the nation.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

In the second-most medicated state, Tennessee, there were 16.9 retail prescriptions filled per capita. More than 65% of adults in the state can be classified as obese or overweight, and 10% of all adults have diabetes. Alabama, Kentucky and Arkansas round out the top five.

It really made me think! 16.9 per capita? Are you kidding me? Think about how many people in the state aren't on any medication. There are lots of people under the age of 25 that aren't on any and there are still several healthy people that don't take any meds (i.e., Travis and I). That means that there are a lot of people that take even more than 16.9 prescriptions. This is crazy! It is almost unbelievable. This is an average....which means for every person taking under 16.9 meds there is someone taking more. I am astonished.

I read msnbc.com every day. Almost every single day there is an article about obesity. Obesity causes more risk for heart disease, cancer, miscarriage, diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure and cholesterol just to name a few. It also affects your children's health as well as your mental and emotional state. I sometimes get disgusted when I think about how people smoke (sorry to my friends that are smokers) when there is all this information out there about how bad it is for you. Why would anyone ever even try a cigarette? BUT THEN...I think...I am no better! I read articles every day about the health downfalls of obesity yet until now I wasn't willing to do anything about it. Actually, I think that obesity is worse than smoking as it has an effect on my areas of the body and leads to more co-morbidities.>

I am so glad that I am doing something about it now! The next question is what can I do to help the people of Tennessee? My wheels are turning....any suggestions??