JACKSON - OK, fatso Mississippians, what are you going to do about it? Trimming the fat, I'm saying.
Not the proverbial fat in the already skinny state budget that state legislators are always talking about cutting.
No, this is real fat. Body fat. Bulging bellies and ballooning backsides, both of which Mississippians are conspicuously noted for.
It's one national index where Mississippi is tops, but it's one we certainly can't brag about.
It's the obesity index. We have the nation's highest percentage of adult obesity (25.9 percent) in the 2001 Centers for Disease Control national survey.
Children and adolescents are also right up there in the overweight department. They've jumped from 15 percent being overweight as of 1970 to nearly 30 percent in 1999, and half of them were VERY overweight.
These fat facts, say state authorities who are seeking ways to cope with and prevent what they call the state's "obesity epidemic," present one of the most pressing health challenges facing Mississippi.
Effects of obesity, as most people should already know, are manifested in a higher risk of diseases causing death and disability - in high blood pressure, heart attacks and diabetes. Consequently, society and government are burdened by higher health costs.
State legislators recognized in 2001 that the state consistently had one of the highest percentages of overweight citizens in the nation. That year they created the Mississippi Council on Obesity Prevention and Management and charged it to develop plans to alleviate the problem.
The council, whose life was extended to 2006 by a 2003 legislative act, has just filed its initial report, along with recommendations, to legislative leaders and is awaiting reaction from lawmakers and the public.
"This is a start to identify the problem," said commission chair Dr. Clinton Smith, a pediatric cardiologist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Smith incidentally once was the director of the state Medicaid program.
Smith said the recommendations were "not a top-down approach … we wanted to have a community approach."
Community, he said, "means getting involved such entities as the beef industry, the soft drink people, the fast food industry, the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) and so on."
When the council talks of "community" it means small or large towns, neighborhoods, school districts, churches, work sites, civic clubs or other places where people congregate.
Smith emphasized that the council, whose report calls for establishment of an Obesity Data Resources Office in either a state or private agency or higher learning institution, is seeking to come up with long-term solutions.
That means collection and analysis of data to demonstrate the impact on the state in treatment of obesity, and the cost of implementing a statewide obesity prevention and management model.
There's still a lot of work to do in the public schools to implement a meaningful obesity prevention program throughout the school system, Smith observed.
A school health curriculum was developed in 1992, but the council found that it has not been implemented in every school district as the state Department of Education claimed.
"Actually," said Smith, "it's not operational in a good many schools and, not surprisingly, it's because of a lack of money and teachers."
The Obesity Council leader suggested that private businesses and industries through their "Adopt a School" programs could help fill the void if public funds are not provided to implement a health program in the school.
Contrary to popular belief that child obesity is usually due to genetic or metabolic condition, those are not the contributing factors in a "great majority" of cases, the council declared.
Also, the council questions the belief that the problem of obese schoolchildren can be "managed" by health care practitioners such as physicians and nurses unless they are specifically trained to be competent in that area.
Here, again, said Smith, the community approach should kick in.
"It appears to us that a more rational, and less expensive, approach to this problem is to provide leadership and assistance to communities to prevent obesity."
The state Department of Education only a year ago hired a physical education coordinator for state schools. "But the emphasis has been on athletic teams; there has been a lack of commitment to have a strong physical education program in many schools," he added.
Soft drink and snack vending machines, Smith lamented, "unfortunately have become a fixture in many schools because they produce revenue for the football team."
If we Mississippians are going to do anything about the fatso quotient, naturally we are going to have to make changes in what we eat and how much.
Here are some cogent tips Dr. Smith has to pass on:
The idea of a lot of us is that a healthy breakfast to start the day includes eggs, grits, bacon (or ham) and plump biscuits slathered with butter or gravy.
Nonsense, says Smith. You can get a good (and healthier) start on the day with whole grain cereals and fruits, and during the day, vegetables.
Restaurants, he says, are trying to outdo each other by enlarging the size of portions, and have contributed to the fattening of America. And at home, the smart thing is to reduce the size of portions we eat.
"If you're overweight," says Mississippi's chief obesity watcher, "you're not going to live as long as a person who is not overweight."
It's as simple as that.
