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  • SATURDAY JUNE 4 2005 6:00 PM

West Virginia Calls in the CDC

Submitted by SomeOneUK

Edited by SomeOneUK

West Virginia's Department of Health and Human services has called in the Centers for Disease Control [CDC] to tackle its obesity epidemic.

A quarter of the state's children are obese. There are no available clinical statistics for the state population as a whole. On the basis of what West Virginians told researchers about 27% are obese (with a body mass index of over 30), but the actual figure is thought to be nearer 35%. The prevalence of obesity has nearly doubled since 1990.

The result is that 10% of the population suffer from diabetes, 33% have high blood pressure and 28% report doing no physical activity over the course of a month.

"We are the highest in the country for several things. For hypertension we're number one, we're number four for diabetes and three for obesity," said John Law, a spokesman for the West Virginia department of health and human services. "We determined we have a lot of people dying and we have a lot of health costs as a result of obesity, so we wanted the CDC to come in and look at this as they might look at an infectious disease."

The health "Swat" team has just spent three weeks taking their clipboards and scales around West Virginian schools, offices and restaurants in an attempt to understand why so many of the state's people, particularly its children, are getting so fat so very fast.


The Centers for Disease Control added:

"This is a team of public health professionals from CDC that are dispatched for West Nile virus and for meningitis. But this is the first time we've dispatched a team of disease detectives around the problem of obesity and it was a recognition in one of our states that their obesity problem was very large"

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thefreak

thefreak

NEWSWIRE

Gardner, MA

JUN 04, 2005 06:12 PM

Waitwaitwait...there's a West Virginia? confused

-TM

anger_frog

anger_frog

I'm lost
January 2004

JUN 04, 2005 06:15 PM

thefreak said:
Waitwaitwait...there's a West Virginia? confused

-TM



Yes. frown

Frankly, I've been telling people for years how to solve this: convert the waiting room at the welfare office into a gas chamber. Dead trailer trash cannot eat free cheese.

jake_lex

jake_lex

Lexington, KY
February 2003

JUN 04, 2005 06:19 PM

We need to educate the public that you don't have to spend a lot of money to eat good food. The perception of many is that eating fresh food is expensive, and it certainly hasn't been helped by the preponderence of overpriced "natural foods" supermarkets geared towards the upper middle class.

Even at that, though, it's short-sightedness. Buying good food, and cooking at home, is still cheaper than eating greasy shit from McDonald's all the time. But there's still a vast number of people who believe that they can't afford good food.

unravled

unravled

Portland, OR
August 2003

JUN 04, 2005 06:33 PM

anger_frog said:

Frankly, I've been telling people for years how to solve this: convert the waiting room at the welfare office into a gas chamber. Dead trailer trash cannot eat free cheese.




That's so incredibly offensive.

MisterSatan

MisterSatan

Portland, OR
August 2002

JUN 04, 2005 06:36 PM

anger_frog said:
Frankly, I've been telling people for years how to solve this: convert the waiting room at the welfare office into a gas chamber. Dead trailer trash cannot eat free cheese.


Sure, cause only poor people are fat.

Dick.

LordAuch

LordAuch

Los Angeles, CA
April 2005

JUN 04, 2005 06:38 PM

thefreak said:
Waitwaitwait...there's a West Virginia? confused

-TM



Same as all the rest of the Vaginas...out of bounds. wink

dpk

dpk

Seattle, WA
November 2004

JUN 04, 2005 06:45 PM

jake_lex said:
We need to educate the public that you don't have to spend a lot of money to eat good food. The perception of many is that eating fresh food is expensive, and it certainly hasn't been helped by the preponderence of overpriced "natural foods" supermarkets geared towards the upper middle class.

Even at that, though, it's short-sightedness. Buying good food, and cooking at home, is still cheaper than eating greasy shit from McDonald's all the time. But there's still a vast number of people who believe that they can't afford good food.


If all you're making is a cheap burger and some fries, yeah, it might be cheaper. Once you put in some healthy ingredients, like add some salad, it's not much cheaper if at all. Still, all told, life is cheaper if you skip the greasy fast food, so yeah, you can attribute this to short-sightedness.

Education on the subject can be tricky. Every other con man out there is putting out a "new diet scheme" which will save your life. Half of the people eating "healthy" will tell you one thing, the other half will tell you the exact opposite.

I've been dealing with this, personally, since I bought a house and have decided to lose some weight/eat healthy, within a tight budget. It's hard to sort through everything you read or are told. If I were just a hair lazier, I don't think I'd bother.

Keith

Keith

Oklahoma City, OK
August 2002

JUN 04, 2005 06:49 PM

jake_lex said:
We need to educate the public that you don't have to spend a lot of money to eat good food. The perception of many is that eating fresh food is expensive, and it certainly hasn't been helped by the preponderence of overpriced "natural foods" supermarkets geared towards the upper middle class.

Even at that, though, it's short-sightedness. Buying good food, and cooking at home, is still cheaper than eating greasy shit from McDonald's all the time. But there's still a vast number of people who believe that they can't afford good food.



Lemme give you an example, though. My wife and I recently had $50. She wants to be vegetarian and eat healthy, I don't want to be a vegetarian and just want to eat, period. So we decided to split it down the middle and each take $25 to the grocery store to get food for ourselves for about 5 days. Long story short: I ended up with about 6 days worth of food and an extra $7 left over which I gave to her, and still ended up having to share some of my half of the food with her. Which I didn't mind at all, I'm just saying. So... it may not be *that* expensive to eat healthy, but when every dollar counts...


[Edited on Jun 04, 2005 by Keith]

anger_frog

anger_frog

I'm lost
January 2004

JUN 04, 2005 06:52 PM

I also double post

[Edited on Jun 04, 2005 9:54PM]

anger_frog

anger_frog

I'm lost
January 2004

JUN 04, 2005 06:53 PM

anger_frog said:

MisterSatan said:

anger_frog said:
Frankly, I've been telling people for years how to solve this: convert the waiting room at the welfare office into a gas chamber. Dead trailer trash cannot eat free cheese.


Sure, cause only poor people are fat.

Dick.



A little perspective.

You're trying to raise four kids on a factory wage. You're cutting coupons and scraping by just to get them fed and keep them in clothes that aren't following apart.

In front of you in the checkout line is your 300 lb. neighborhood. He has one shopping cart full of nothing but Pepsi cubes, and another full of nothing but beef, and a third with nothing but potato chips, snack cakes, and similiar foods with no nutritional value. The beef is nutritious, but guess what? It's for his dogs. After all, you don't get stamps for pet food, so you have to keep all twelve of them fed.

It's the first of the month, and several hundred thousand like your neighbor are doing the exact thing at that moment. They've never worked a day in their life, just as their fathers and their fathers before them have. They also go across the river to Ohio and scam the DHHR over there for double benefits.

Imagine at that moment your dad or your friend's dad gets hurt at his job. Worker's Comp is treating him like faker, even though he walks crooks and the pain just bleeds from his eyes. They won't help him. He has to the welfare office because he needs a medical card and something to feed himself and his wife. "We're sorry, but we're already overtaxed as it is. I'm sure you could work if you try."

That was me, my family and every friend I ever had in that supermarket line watching our kids go hungry while yet another faceless, morbidly obese bastard got to feed his mutts ground round while our kids went lean. That was me, my dad, and everyone I ever respected getting turned away from a system that was designed intentionally with them in mind, while those who clumsily gave the finger to the system were rewarded for their sloth.

I may be a dick, but I think I earned the right to be.



unravled

unravled

Portland, OR
August 2003

JUN 04, 2005 07:03 PM


anger_frog said:

MisterSatan said:

anger_frog said:
Frankly, I've been telling people for years how to solve this: convert the waiting room at the welfare office into a gas chamber. Dead trailer trash cannot eat free cheese.


Sure, cause only poor people are fat.

Dick.



A little perspective.

You're trying to raise four kids on a factory wage. You're cutting coupons and scraping by just to get them fed and keep them in clothes that aren't following apart.

In front of you in the checkout line is your 300 lb. neighborhood. He has one shopping cart full of nothing but Pepsi cubes, and another full of nothing but beef, and a third with nothing but potato chips, snack cakes, and similiar foods with no nutritional value. The beef is nutritious, but guess what? It's for his dogs. After all, you don't get stamps for pet food, so you have to keep all twelve of them fed.

It's the first of the month, and several hundred thousand like your neighbor are doing the exact thing at that moment. They've never worked a day in their life, just as their fathers and their fathers before them have. They also go across the river to Ohio and scam the DHHR over there for double benefits.

Imagine at that moment your dad or your friend's dad gets hurt at his job. Worker's Comp is treating him like faker, even though he walks crooks and the pain just bleeds from his eyes. They won't help him. He has to the welfare office because he needs a medical card and something to feed himself and his wife. "We're sorry, but we're already overtaxed as it is. I'm sure you could work if you try."

That was me, my family and every friend I ever had in that supermarket line watching our kids go hungry while yet another faceless, morbidly obese bastard got to feed his mutts ground round while our kids went lean. That was me, my dad, and everyone I ever respected getting turned away from a system that was designed intentionally with them in mind, while those who clumsily gave the finger to the system were rewarded for their sloth.

I may be a dick, but I think I earned the right to be.



And so your solution is to kill people instead of giving them welfare? Being poor isn't glamorous or fun, whether you're on welfare or you're not. There are people who scam the system, but it's not as often as you think it is, and those people often end up in jail for fraud.

Sometimes, the only reason I ate as a child was because of food stamps. And it wasn't because my dad was too lazy to go out and get a job. It's because he was a single parent trying to finish college to provide a good life for me. And you know what? He did. He's now a teacher in a low income neighborhood and has to deal with assholes like you who think that people who occasionally need help, like the kids he teaches every day, don't deserve to live.

Nobody earns the right to be a dick.

anger_frog

anger_frog

I'm lost
January 2004

JUN 04, 2005 07:31 PM

unravled said:

anger_frog said:

MisterSatan said:

anger_frog said:
Frankly, I've been telling people for years how to solve this: convert the waiting room at the welfare office into a gas chamber. Dead trailer trash cannot eat free cheese.


Sure, cause only poor people are fat.

Dick.



A little perspective.

You're trying to raise four kids on a factory wage. You're cutting coupons and scraping by just to get them fed and keep them in clothes that aren't following apart.

In front of you in the checkout line is your 300 lb. neighborhood. He has one shopping cart full of nothing but Pepsi cubes, and another full of nothing but beef, and a third with nothing but potato chips, snack cakes, and similiar foods with no nutritional value. The beef is nutritious, but guess what? It's for his dogs. After all, you don't get stamps for pet food, so you have to keep all twelve of them fed.

It's the first of the month, and several hundred thousand like your neighbor are doing the exact thing at that moment. They've never worked a day in their life, just as their fathers and their fathers before them have. They also go across the river to Ohio and scam the DHHR over there for double benefits.

Imagine at that moment your dad or your friend's dad gets hurt at his job. Worker's Comp is treating him like faker, even though he walks crooks and the pain just bleeds from his eyes. They won't help him. He has to the welfare office because he needs a medical card and something to feed himself and his wife. "We're sorry, but we're already overtaxed as it is. I'm sure you could work if you try."

That was me, my family and every friend I ever had in that supermarket line watching our kids go hungry while yet another faceless, morbidly obese bastard got to feed his mutts ground round while our kids went lean. That was me, my dad, and everyone I ever respected getting turned away from a system that was designed intentionally with them in mind, while those who clumsily gave the finger to the system were rewarded for their sloth.

I may be a dick, but I think I earned the right to be.



And so your solution is to kill people instead of giving them welfare? Being poor isn't glamorous or fun, whether you're on welfare or you're not. There are people who scam the system, but it's not as often as you think it is, and those people often end up in jail for fraud.

Sometimes, the only reason I ate as a child was because of food stamps. And it wasn't because my dad was too lazy to go out and get a job. It's because he was a single parent trying to finish college to provide a good life for me. And you know what? He did. He's now a teacher in a low income neighborhood and has to deal with assholes like you who think that people who occasionally need help, like the kids he teaches every day, don't deserve to live.

Nobody earns the right to be a dick.



Your dad at that time is one of the people I said the system is supposed to help; my dad fell into the same predictament (due to worker's comp, of course) and we eventually rebounded. And yes, I will admit that my initial statement was well out of bounds, but since the subject is West Virginia, I am have the personal experience of being a life native of seeing exactly how things have and still continue to happen here. While your own experiences were no doubt harrowing, can you say that you grew up in the one place in the United States that has yet to recover from the Great Depression of the 1930's? Do you live in a state who spends roughly 10 times more money on covering up its social ills rather than making any real attempts to solve them? I'm sorry, but you can't.

I'll admit that my post was uncalled for, and I'll admit that it is so poorly worded that it offended those to whom I had no intention of offending. But I will never admit that anyone making any outside observation of this place without having to be trapped here for themselves can truly understand how completely distorted this place is from the other 49 states.

LL_Bean_J

LL_Bean_J

Portland, ME
May 2003

JUN 04, 2005 07:44 PM

West Virginia. Where no dwelling may exceed the size of the satellite dish in the yard.


Thistle

Thistle

SUICIDEGIRL

California, USA

JUN 04, 2005 08:04 PM

Keith said:

jake_lex said:
We need to educate the public that you don't have to spend a lot of money to eat good food. The perception of many is that eating fresh food is expensive, and it certainly hasn't been helped by the preponderence of overpriced "natural foods" supermarkets geared towards the upper middle class.

Even at that, though, it's short-sightedness. Buying good food, and cooking at home, is still cheaper than eating greasy shit from McDonald's all the time. But there's still a vast number of people who believe that they can't afford good food.



Lemme give you an example, though. My wife and I recently had $50. She wants to be vegetarian and eat healthy, I don't want to be a vegetarian and just want to eat, period. So we decided to split it down the middle and each take $25 to the grocery store to get food for ourselves for about 5 days. Long story short: I ended up with about 6 days worth of food and an extra $7 left over which I gave to her, and still ended up having to share some of my half of the food with her. Which I didn't mind at all, I'm just saying. So... it may not be *that* expensive to eat healthy, but when every dollar counts...


[Edited on Jun 04, 2005 by Keith]



Rice and beans as a meal is both one of the cheapest and one of the healthiest things you can possibly eat. Complete protein, fiber, little to no fat, and carbohydrates. Add some veggies and some spices for variety and you're set. If you're trying to eat cheap and healthy, make Mexican food without lard.

Keith

Keith

Oklahoma City, OK
August 2002

JUN 04, 2005 08:07 PM

Thistle said:

Keith said:

jake_lex said:
We need to educate the public that you don't have to spend a lot of money to eat good food. The perception of many is that eating fresh food is expensive, and it certainly hasn't been helped by the preponderence of overpriced "natural foods" supermarkets geared towards the upper middle class.

Even at that, though, it's short-sightedness. Buying good food, and cooking at home, is still cheaper than eating greasy shit from McDonald's all the time. But there's still a vast number of people who believe that they can't afford good food.



Lemme give you an example, though. My wife and I recently had $50. She wants to be vegetarian and eat healthy, I don't want to be a vegetarian and just want to eat, period. So we decided to split it down the middle and each take $25 to the grocery store to get food for ourselves for about 5 days. Long story short: I ended up with about 6 days worth of food and an extra $7 left over which I gave to her, and still ended up having to share some of my half of the food with her. Which I didn't mind at all, I'm just saying. So... it may not be *that* expensive to eat healthy, but when every dollar counts...


[Edited on Jun 04, 2005 by Keith]



Rice and beans as a meal is both one of the cheapest and one of the healthiest things you can possibly eat. Complete protein, fiber, little to no fat, and carbohydrates. Add some veggies and some spices for variety and you're set. If you're trying to eat cheap and healthy, make Mexican food without lard.



I understand what you're saying, but I'd rather not eat rice and beans (with different spices) for every single meal. Start to feel like a peasant in China after a couple days of that.

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