Just so those who read this know, I am not referring to anyone in particular in writing this post (except possibly myself). Living the past three months in the South have taken me back to plates and plates of memories and nostalgia after being in California for so long.
My first reaction was initally, "Wow, people are actually noticeably larger here - I'm sure glad I've been eating Californian for a while. I can't wait to continue eating chalk-like breakfast bars and smaller portioned everything here in Tennessee." Well that lasted about a week before I was face first in french fries covered in cheese and bacon, gravy spilled over chicken fried chicken, and a small herd of sonic #2's with tots. You may cringe at that list but I have seriously eaten all of those things in the past month.
Couple this with another one of Southerners favorite activities, not moving, and we start to have a problem here. Personally, I like to blame the extreme humidity, that invisible shroud of insta-sweat waiting for you in the outdoors. It sucks to go from door to car to door and have realized that you've worked up a little sweat doing so. Others may disagree but it's a lot easier to go take a run or play outside when you live in San Diego or Colorado where there are more fun things to play and less heat slash humidity.
The reason I'm writing this is not to dog on the South, I love it here - there are definitely some issues that are clearer to me now than before I spent time in Cali. Forgotten jewels would include the existence of forests, empty freeways, lightning bugs, and genuinely friendly strangers. Subtract earthquakes and add tornadoes. Although obesity doesn't discriminate, my people have decided to show it a little too much southern hospitatlity:
The latest Calorielab United States of Obesity Test Results:
State: Obese/Overweight
1. Mississippi 68.1%
2. West Virginia 68%
3. Alabama 66.6%
4. Louisiana 65.2%
5. South Carolina 65.3%
....are you seeing the trend here?
6. Tennessee 67.4%
7. Kentucky 69.1%
8. Oklahoma 65.1%
9. Arkansas 65.6%
10. Michigan 64.3%
Pathetic right? I guess my initial reaction was correct, people are actually larger than on the west coast.
Honorable Mentions:
41. California 59% - 5 spots closer to being the thinnest state as of last years numbers
51. Colorado 55.7% - Thinnest. 51st because evidently someone called the District of Columbia a state
After reading this article, feeling quite disheartened at the state of the union, and devouring some comfort food, I found another article. This time, obesity was broken down county-by-county across America. I rejoiced at the discovery:
County: Towns: BMI
1. Marin County, CA: Novato San Rafael: 24.48
2. San Francisco County, CA: San Francisco: 24.86
3. Williamson County, TN: Brentwood, Franklin: 24.90
4. Maury County, TN: Spring Hill: 24.90
5. Boulder County, CO: Boulder: 24.94
6. Douglas County, CO: Castle Rock, Parker, Highlands Ranch: 25.34
Are you kidding me? Williamson County? The county I am from?? I couldn't and still can't believe that my county is truly the third thinnest in the nation. If so, it does not bode well for the rest of the nation. I mean I expect to see California and Colorado on the list but it is pretty random to see anything from Tennessee ranking in the top anything in terms of fitness. I was pretty pumped and my day got better.
So I've written a lot now, and I would write more...but I have to go work out...that's what people in Williamson County do...work out all the time.
2 comments:
While in Europe, I began to notice the degree to which I frantically shoved my meals into my face was much faster and more violent the those skinny frenchmen. I was ashamed of myself and my country at that moment, yet inspired to slow down my consumption, make an effort to cease eating when content, exercise restraint and discipline at the table, and, ultimately, to start wearing the pants in the relationship between my mind and my taste buds.
if you're not fat, then you hate freedom. Do you hate freedom carter?
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