April 16, 2014
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Obesity is a problem all over the country, but the problem is worse
in some states than in others. A recent Gallup study presented
state-by-state obesity stats and
while the research didn't get into politics, one need only scratch the
surface to notice that many of the more obese states lean Republican. Of
the 10 states Gallup cited as the most obese, eight went for Republican
Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election: Mississippi, West
Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and
Oklahoma (the exceptions in that top 10 are Ohio and Delaware, both of
which Obama won). And except for Montana—which came in at #1 for
thinness—all of the 10 states Gallup cited as the least obese are states
Obama carried (including Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Mexico,
California, Hawaii, Minnesota, Nevada, Colorado and New York).
This
is no coincidence: Republicans promote policies that tend to entrench
poverty, and obesity and poverty often go together. The
Republican-dominated states where obesity rates are the highest are
states where one is more apt to find more poverty, weak union
protection, an abundance of people who lack health insurance and a
strong opposition to the Affordable Care Act of 2010.
The
obesity epidemic in the U.S. can be attributed to a wide variety of
factors—not only poverty, lack of health insurance and inadequate access
to healthy food, but also everything from sedentary lifestyles to
stress. Obesity can’t be blamed exclusively on the conservative
policies; there is plenty of obesity in Philadelphia, Baltimore and
other Democrat-dominated cities. But Gallup’s poll clearly demonstrates
that obesity is widespread in red-state America, and GOP policies, from
opposition to healthcare reform to union-busting to cutting food stamps,
only exacerbate the problem.
Below are the 10 most obese states with analysis of the economic and political conditions in those states.
1. Mississippi
Mississippi
topped Gallup’s list of the U.S.’ most obese states with a 35.4%
obesity rate. In other words, one in three Mississippi residents is
obese (which is defined as having a body/mass index of 30 or higher).
And Mississippi is as Republican as it gets: not since Jimmy Carter’s
victory in 1976 has a Democrat carried Mississippi in a presidential
race. The U.S.’ most obese state is also its poorest, and Mississippi’s
healthcare crisis only makes matters worse: one in five Mississippi
residents lacked health insurance in 2013. Regardless, Mississippi Gov.
Phil Bryant (a Republican) remains a vehement opponent of the Affordable
Care Act,
refusing any type of Medicaid expansion
via Obamacare in his state. The people who need healthcare reform the
most in Mississippi—the obese, the uninsured, the poor, the unemployed
or underemployed—are the very people Bryant and other Republicans have
turned their backs on.
2. West Virginia
West
Virginia has long been a poster child for white rural poverty in the
United States, and it isn’t hard to understand why. According to the
U.S. Census Bureau, West Virginia (which was 92% white in 2012) had a
poverty rate of 17.6%
from 2008-2012 compared to 14.9% nationwide. In some West Virginia
counties, life expectancy is only slightly higher than it is in Ghana or
Haiti—and the fact that West Virginia has the second highest obesity
rate in the U.S. (34.4% in Gallup’s poll) certainly isn’t helping West
Virginia residents live longer. West Virginia does have a Democratic
governor (Earl Ray Tomblin) and Democrats (many of them center-right
Blue Dogs) presently dominate West Virginia’s state senate. Nonetheless,
Republican ideas are widespread in West Virginia, and Republican Evan
Jenkins (a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives) has been
campaigning on
repealing the Affordable Care Act.
Given West Virginia’s obesity and poverty rates and frighteningly low
life expectancy, rolling back healthcare reform is the last thing that
state should be doing in 2014.
3. Delaware
Although
the least obese states in Gallup’s poll were generally either swing
states or blue states (including California, Hawaii, New York and
Connecticut), Gallup considers Democrat-dominated Delaware the
third most obese state
in the country thanks to an obesity rate of 34.3%. Very much a blue
state, Delaware hasn’t given its electoral votes to a GOP presidential
candidate since George H.W. Bush, Sr.’s victory over Michael Dukakis in
1988. Delaware’s obesity problem cannot honestly be blamed on
Republicans, but arguably, it reflects the growing inequality in the
Democratic side of America. Democratic America ranges from
ultra-gentrified, upscale places like Seattle, San Francisco and
Manhattan to the most blue-collar parts of Delaware, and blue-collar
America has been slammed hard by the current economic downturn.
In
September 2013, Democratic Sen. Robert Marshall of Wilmington asserted
that Delaware needed to start creating a lot more high-paying jobs that
don’t require a college degree. Though Marshall didn’t mention obesity,
his point was relevant to a discussion of obesity because a lack of
quality blue-collar jobs contributes to poverty—which in turn, leads to
obesity.
4. Louisiana
Right
behind Delaware when it comes to obesity is the heavily Republican
Louisiana, which has an obesity rate of 32.7% in Gallup’s study—and
Louisiana has also had, according to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2012, a
poverty rate of 19.9%
(the third highest in the U.S.). A state with as much poverty and
obesity as Louisiana is a prime example of why healthcare reform needs
to go forward, yet Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (a possible candidate in
the 2016 GOP presidential primary) has called for repealing Obamacare.
Obesity and all the problems that go with it, from heart disease to high
blood pressure to Type 2 diabetes, are better controlled when one has
adequate access to healthcare, and Republicans like Jindal only make it
harder for the poor to see a doctor.
5. Arkansas
Although
Arkansas’ current two-term governor, Mike Beebe, is a Democrat, the
state on the whole remains very Republican-leaning—and according to
Gallup, it has the U.S.’ fifth highest obesity rate: 32.3%. The fact
that obesity and poverty go hand in hand is evident in Arkansas, which
had a
poverty rate of 18.7% in 2011 (according to the U.S. Census Bureau). Arkansas children, according to the 2011 Kids Count Data Book, are facing the
second highest child poverty rate
in the United States. In a state with all that obesity and poverty,
Republican State Sen. Nate Bell’s “solution” to those problems is to
fight Medicaid expansion and discourage Arkansas’ uninsured from singing up for Obamacare.
6. South Carolina
The
sixth most obese state in the U.S., according to Gallup, is South
Carolina (a Republican-leaning state that Obama won in 2008 but lost in
2012). South Carolina has a poverty rate of
17.6%,
according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Around 764,000 South Carolina
residents lacked health insurance in 2011 (according to a study
conducted for the South Carolina Department of Health and Human
Services), but Republican Gov. Nikki Haley has
rejected Medicaid expansion
via Obamacare in her state. In addition to helping keep South
Carolina’s poor uninsured, Haley has contributed to their poverty by
being fiercely anti-union: Haley infamously said, “I love that we are
one of the least unionized states in the country.”
7. Tennessee
The
state Gallup cites as the seventh fattest in the U.S. is Tennessee,
which has an obesity rate of 31.3 percent. And like other southern
states, it is very Republican-dominated. Republicans aren’t big on
anti-poverty programs—which, in effect, are also anti-obesity programs
given the relationship between poverty and obesity—and in Tennessee, the
U.S. Census Bureau found a poverty rate of
17.3% for 2008-2012.
Plus, Tennessee is a so-called “right to work” state, meaning it’s very
weak on union protection. Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has rejected
Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion in his state, where around
one million residents
lacked health insurance in 2013. To make matters worse for Tennessee
residents who are obese, poor and uninsured, Tennessee Republicans have
proposed legislation that would
outlaw Obamacare exchanges throughout the state.
8. Ohio
Ohio,
which Gallup considers the eighth fattest state in the U.S. with an
obesity rate of 30.9%, is very much a swing state in presidential
elections. Obama carried Ohio (where Republican Gov. John Kasich is
seeking reelection this year) in 2008 and 2012, but it took a lot of
hard and aggressive campaigning. So why is there so much obesity in
Ohio? A lot of it has to do with the fact that Ohio, like other parts of
the Rust Belt, has been hit hard by the outsourcing of manufacturing
jobs to developing countries. Outsourcing has created a lot of poverty
in Ohio (which, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, has a poverty rate
of 15.3%).
According to Mary Nally, executive director
of Community Food Initiatives in Athens, Ohio, 20% of the people living
in Athens County suffer from food insecurity—and Nally has said that
“There’s a
strong relationship between being food-insecure and being obese.”
Nally has noted that in some rural parts of Athens County, the poor
suffer from inadequate access to fresh fruits and vegetables and are
more likely to eat an abundance of unhealthy processed food.
Underscoring Ohio’s swing-state outlook is the fact that Kasich is among
the few Republican governors who has agreed to a
Medicaid expansion under Obamacare.
9. Kentucky
When
health insurance companies send out literature encouraging Americans to
get more exercise, eat healthfully and lose weight, they aren’t doing
it out of the goodness of their hearts. They realize that if Obamacare
is going to bring them a lot of new customers, it will cost them less if
those customers are taking better care of themselves. But embracing a
healthy lifestyle can be harder if one is poor, and Kentucky is a “red
state” with a lot of poverty and a lot of obesity. According to Gallup,
Kentucky is the U.S.’ ninth fattest state with an obesity rate of
30.6%—and according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Kentucky’s poverty rate
increased to
19.4% in 2012.
But Ron Crouch, director of research at the Kentucky Education and
Workforce Development Cabinet, has predicted that Obamacare will create a
lot of new healthcare jobs in Kentucky, possibly helping offset the
loss of so many manufacturing jobs in that state, where Kentucky Gov.
Steve Beshear, a Democrat, has been a strong Obamacare supporter.
10. Oklahoma
The
10th most obese state in the U.S., according to Gallup, is Oklahoma,
where there is an obesity rate of 30.5% and poverty reached a 10-year
high in 2012. Oklahoma is also a hardcore red state where Republican
Gov. Mary Fallin has refused Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion even though
many people lack health insurance there. Oklahoma is a textbook example
of why healthcare reform is desperately needed in the U.S. According to a
report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, about
144,000 poor, uninsured Oklahoma residents
would be eligible for Medicaid assistance under Obamacare, but thanks
to Fallin and other Oklahoma Republicans, they are being left out in the
cold.
Alex Henderson's
work has appeared in the L.A. Weekly, Billboard, Spin, Creem, the
Pasadena Weekly and many other publications. Follow him on Twitter
@alexvhenderson.
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