Have you ever wondered how obese your state is (obesity costs tax payer money so you should wonder) or how much money CDC spends on the prevention of certain diseases in your state? Or about your state’s public health preparedness?
Go to “Your State’s Health” and plug in your state: http://healthyamericans.org/
I plugged in GA and found that over 37% of kids aged 10-17 are overweight or obese. That tells me that what we are doing now certainly isn’t in GA and in several other states. Among adults, 28% are obese (this doesn’t include those who are overweight). I went back and plugged in Maryland and 28% of kids are overweight or obese yet about the same amount of adults are obese as in GA. In both states adult physical inactivity hovers around 25%. That means 1 in 4 adults don’t exercise at all.
Please don’t let yourself fall into one of these statistics. And, if you have family members, friends, coworkers who are inactive, take them for a walk, join a walking club, take dance lessons. Just do something. Encouragement can go a long way (or use my tactic and have a 5 yr old relentless grandchild encourage their grandma to exercise in exchange for a hockey jersey and baseball cap; sometimes bribery by cute kids works wonders).