Tag: Obesity

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Mayor Wharton, Common Table Health Alliance Challenge Locals to Burn One Million Calories

MIllionCalorieBurnLogo2014.jpg

Memphians are being challenged by Mayor A C Wharton and Common Table Health Alliance to collectively burn one million calories this Saturday (September 27th).

The challenge comes in the form of the 2nd annual “Commitment to Fitness Million Calorie Burn 5K.” Registration for the 5K will begin at 7:30 a.m. at Highpoint Church (6000 Briarcrest). The race starts at 9 a.m.

Participants will hit the ground running at Highpoint Church and travel through the East Memphis Ridgeway Loop and Shady Grove community.

In addition to the race, the event will feature a one-mile “Family Fun Run,” live music, food, yoga and Zumba demonstrations, blood pressure screenings, and a post-race awards ceremony.

“Memphis and Shelby County continue to be challenged by social and economic factors that drive many regional health indicators to the bottom third of most national and state health rankings, and 
our childhood obesity rates are some of the highest in the country, a key indicator of early diagnosis of juvenile diabetes,” said Renée Frazier, CEO of Common Table Health Alliance, in a statement. “While these statistics are startling, adopting a healthy, active lifestyle is a simple solution to this growing problem.”

According to the Tennessee County Health Rankings, adult obesity in Shelby County is 35 percent — the highest it’s been in the last four years.

Obesity rates in Shelby County Schools, however, appear to be declining. According to data from the Tennessee Department of Education, 35.7 percent of Shelby County public school students were considered overweight or obese, during the 2012-13 school year. The average for all Tennessee public school students that year was 38.5 percent.

Obesity isn’t an issue that only impacts Memphis but Tennessee as a whole. In 2013, the state was ranked as the 10th most obese place — tying with Michigan — in the nation, according to the health report “F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future.” Furthermore, Tennessee is one of 13 states that have an adult obesity rate above 30 percent.

Wharton and the Common Table Health Alliance hope the Million Calorie Burn 5K helps bring more awareness to the city and state’s obesity epidemic, and also encourages people to live healthier by eating better and being more active.

The first 200 participants who register for the race will receive a free Nike goody bag. All participants will receive a Million Calorie Burn 5K t-shirt.

To register or learn more about the Million Calorie Burn 5K, contact Common Table Health Alliance at (901) 684-6011 or click here.

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News News Blog

UTHSC Professor Receives $1.6 Million Grant For Obesity Research

Dr. Kristen O’Connell

  • Dr. Kristen O’Connell

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a cheeseburger and fries or cold milkshake on a hot summer day, but over-indulging in delights like these can lead to an undesirable outcome: obesity. And unfortunately, this medical condition affects one in three adults in America.

A University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) professor has been awarded a million dollar grant to research the causes of obesity.

Kristen O’Connell, assistant professor for UTHSC’s Department of Physiology, along with her research team, received a $1.6 million grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, a subsidiary of the National Institutes of Health.

O’Connell will use the grant, which will be distributed over a five-year period, to support a project titled, “Modulation of AgRP Neuronal Excitability: Role of Diet and Body Weight.” The goal of the project is to identify the changes that high-calorie diets have on the neural circuits that control appetite and food intake.

“We hope to better understand the molecular basis of these changes, as well as how quickly they occur and whether they are reversible,” said Dr. O’Connell in a statement. “Our results will hopefully lead to better, safer therapies for obesity and appetite control. In addition, we would like to learn how environmental factors, such as diet, influence flexibility in these key areas of the brain that control appetite, and ultimately identify ways to restore appropriate control of hunger and food intake.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than one-third (or 78.6 million) of U.S. adults are obese. And 17 percent of children and adolescents aged 2 to 19 years old are obese.

Obesity is associated with dramatic changes in the parts of the brain that control appetite, according to the UTHSC. These changes may compound the difficulty that many people have in losing weight and keeping it off, since the brain is effectively telling them they are hungry, even if there is no reason to be.

Obesity-related conditions (also the leading causes of preventable death) include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer, according to the CDC. The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the U.S. was $147 billion in 2008. The medical costs for people who are obese were $1,429 higher than those of normal weight.

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Memphis is America’s Fattest City!

Here we go again. Yet another magazine with yet another city-ranking survey in which Memphis looks embarrassingly bad. This time, it’s Forbes Magazine, and it’s fat. Yep, according to Forbes, Memphis is “America’s Fattest City.”

According to Forbes: “Researchers have found that [Memphis] residents are aware of the area’s obesity problem, currently affecting 34 percent of its population. Among the causes they blame: high rates of poverty and a culture of Southern hospitality and food that values certain types of dishes–many of them fried–over healthier choices. Memphis actually sits on the western edge of a web of Southern cities along with Birmingham, Ala., and Atlanta, that also landed on our list.”

To read more about the survey’s methodology (hanging out at Tops Barbecue?) and to see a list of America’s fattest cities (in pictures, yet), check out Forbes.com.

For a more serious look at the problem, see Preston Lauterbach’s story from June’s Memphis magazine.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Mississippi is Number One — For Obesity

(AP) – Experts say Mississippians need to skip the gravy, say no to the fried pickles and start taking brisk walks to fight an epidemic of obesity.

According to a new study, this Deep South state is the fattest in the nation. The Trust for America’s Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention, says Mississippi is the first state where more than 30 percent of adults are considered obese.

Aside from making Mississippi the butt of late-night talk show jokes, the obesity epidemic has serious implications for public policy.

f current trends hold, the state could face enormous increases in the already significant costs of treating diabetes, heart disease and other ailments caused by the extra poundage.

“We’ve got a long way to go. We love fried chicken and fried anything and all the grease and fatback we can get in Mississippi,” said Democratic state Rep. Steve Holland, chairman of the Public Health Committee.

Poverty and obesity often go hand in hand, doctors say, because poor families stretch their budgets by buying cheaper, processed foods that have higher fat content and lower nutritional value.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee – a self-described “recovering foodaholic” who lost 110 pounds several years ago – explained during a Southern Governors’ Association meeting in Biloxi last weekend that there are historical reasons poor people often fry their foods: It’s an inexpensive way to increase the calories and feed a family.

Dr. Marshall Bouldin, director of the diabetes and metabolism center at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, told the Southern governors that if the Delta counties were excluded, “Mississippi would wind up being about 30th in diabetes problems in the United States.”

Mississippi’s public schools already are taking steps to prevent obesity.
A new state law enacted this year requires schools to provide at least 150 minutes of physical activity instruction and 45 minutes of health education instruction each week for students in kindergarten through 8th grade. Until now, gym class had been optional.

The state Department of Education also is phasing in restrictions on soft drinks and snacks.

All public schools are currently banned from selling full-calorie soft drinks to students. Next academic year, elementary and middle schools will allow only water, juice and milk, while high schools will allow only water, juice, sports drinks and diet soft drinks.

The state Department of Education publishes lists of snacks that are approved or banned for sale in school vending machines. Last school year, at least 50 percent of the vending offerings had to be from the approved list. That jumped to 75 percent this year and will reach 100 percent next year.

Among the approved snacks are yogurt, sliced fruit and granola bars, while fried pork rinds and marshmallow treats are banned. One middle school favorite – Flamin’ Hot Cheetos – are on the approved list if they’re baked but banned if they’re not.

State Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds said he hopes students will take home the healthful habits they learn at school.

“We only have students 180 days out of the year for seven hours in a school day. The important thing is that we model what good behavior looks like,” Bounds said Monday after finishing a lunch of baked chicken.

Bounds ate at a Jackson buffet that’s popular with state legislators. On Monday, the buffet included traditional, stick-to-your-ribs Southern fare: fried chicken, grits, fried okra, turnip greens.

Dr. William Rowley, who worked 30 years as a vascular surgeon and now works at the Institute for Alternative Futures, said if current trends continue, more than 50 percent of adult Mississippians will be obese in 2015.

Holland, who helps set the state Medicaid budget, said he worries about the taxpayers’ cost of treating obesity.
“If we don’t change our ways,” he said, “we’re going to be in the funeral parlors … because we’re going to be all fat and dead.”

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News The Fly-By

Fat Farm?

CREDIT: davidcrehner | dreamstime.com

In Memphis, many things seem super-sized — the musical legacy, the portions of barbecue ribs, and, well, the butts.

In 2004 — the most recent numbers available — 26 percent of Memphians were overweight or obese. That means that over one-quarter of the city’s population is at an elevated risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, hypertension, and heart disease.

A recent New York Times article by Michael Pollan suggests that America’s obesity epidemic may be linked to the 2002 U.S. Farm Bill and the $25 billion in agricultural subsidies it provides to farmers each year. The bill, which gives financial assistance to those who grow certain commodity crops (namely, corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, and cotton), is due for renewal this year.

Many junk foods are made from those subsidized commodities. Pollan argues that the government subsidies lead to the overproduction of those crops, thus driving down prices. In the end, it’s cheaper for a consumer to purchase a Twinkie (ingredients include wheat flour, corn syrup, and partially hydrogenated soybean oil, among other things) than vegetables. And that can mean a huge difference for shoppers on a budget.

“Cost is a large consideration,” says Marian Levy, a dietician with Healthy Memphis Common Table, a group dedicated to improving the health of Mid-Southerners. “It’s been shown that families with lower [income] levels have … a higher association with obesity.”

But Mid-South farmers say the argument that subsidies indirectly cause obesity is ridiculous.

“[The obesity argument] is about as illogical as blaming General Motors for highway deaths,” says Stanley Reed, a cotton and grain farmer from Marianna, Arkansas, about 60 miles southwest of Memphis. “There’s got to be some personal accountability in how you use products and how you consume food. If someone was giving away Brussels sprouts, most people would still prefer to buy a cheeseburger. They may know it’s worse for them, but they like the taste.”

Farmers also say the subsidies are necessary to protect the country’s future food production. Supply and demand drive market prices, but at planting time, farmers cannot know what the market will be like when they harvest their crops.

“These [subsidies] are designed to give farmers a safety net in the event that prices tumble to an incredibly low level,” says John Alter, a fifth-generation farmer who grows rice, soybeans, wheat, and corn on 2,000 acres in Dewitt, Arkansas, about a two-hour drive southwest of Memphis.

Local farmers are hoping that the subsidy program in the 2007 Farm Bill mirrors that of the 2002 bill, but food-justice activists like Pollan hope for a bill that “makes the most healthful calories in the supermarket competitive with the least healthful ones.” He’s not alone.

“Taking an honest look at the current state of agribusiness in the United States is vital to the health and welfare of Americans,” says Congressman Steve Cohen. “The prevalence of obesity, particularly childhood obesity, is alarming, and yet historically, the Farm Bill has not provided incentives for local farmers producing fresh, healthy produce. Rather, it has been designed to support big agribusiness. … We must step back and rethink outdated programs that no longer serve our citizens and, indeed, may actually be harming their health.”

Even Shelby County Farm Bureau president Tommy Morrison says that a bill guaranteeing fair prices would trump the need for subsidies.

“We’re getting the same prices we were getting 20 or 30 years ago, and you know what a car costs today compared to 20 or 30 years ago,” says Morrison. “The middlemen and the retail folks aren’t paying the farmer any more for food that they ever have, and they’re making a killing off consumers. The American consumer is being manipulated.”