{"id":5402,"date":"2013-04-15T16:17:32","date_gmt":"2013-04-15T22:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/?p=5402"},"modified":"2014-02-14T10:14:38","modified_gmt":"2014-02-14T16:14:38","slug":"southerners-are-fatter-maybe-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/2013\/04\/15\/southerners-are-fatter-maybe-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Southerners Are Fatter? Maybe Not …"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve probably seen various versions of an \u201cobesity map\u201d like the one above.\u00a0 Most of them show higher obesity rates in the South, which has led to a lot of tsk-tsking <\/em>and speculation about possible reasons for the regional differences. TIME magazine ran an article in 2009 titled Why Are Southerners So Fat?<\/a> that offered the usual explanations:\u00a0\u00a0 It could be all that southern-fried food with gravy.\u00a0 Or perhaps obesity is just a marker for poverty, since more Southerners are poor.\u00a0 Or maybe it\u2019s that people living in the South don\u2019t spend as much time outdoors in the summer because it\u2019s too hot and humid. The problem might even be a lack of public transportation, according to the TIME reporter:<\/p>\n

That’s another problem, by the way: the South doesn’t have many bus stops. Public transportation is paltry, and for most people, the best way to get around is by car. “You don’t really think of riding the train as exercise, but at least you have to walk a few blocks to get to the stop,” says Bassett. States like Mississippi and Tennessee also have a surprising lack of sidewalks, discouraging even the most eager pedestrians. Many roads are narrower than those in the North \u2014 where streets have wider shoulders to accommodate winter snow \u2014 and people who want to bike or jog find themselves uncomfortably close to traffic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Poverty, fried food, humid weather, not enough sidewalks, too much sweet tea \u2026 take your pick.\u00a0 But there\u2019s another possible explanation that most of the obesity experts haven\u2019t considered:<\/p>\n

Those damned Yankees might just be a bunch of big fat liars.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Obesity rates are calculated by the Centers for Disease Control based on phone surveys.\u00a0 According to a new study<\/a>, people who answer those surveys might not be (surprise!) completely honest:<\/p>\n

The South often gets tagged with having the most obese population.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it doesn’t appear to be true, a University of Alabama at Birmingham study suggests.<\/span><\/p>\n

The study recently published in the journal Obesity found that there’s a significantly higher percentage of obese people in a region of central and northwest states including Minnesota, Kansas and North and South Dakota.<\/span><\/p>\n

“What we found is the West North Central region has about 41 percent obesity compared to 31 percent obesity in the southern region that includes Alabama and Mississippi,” said George Howard, professor in the Department of Biostatics at UAB. “By the way, 31 percent is not a good thing — but it’s not at the bottom.”<\/span><\/p>\n

How did Southerners get such a fat reputation? Apparently because they are more truthful.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yup.\u00a0 The researchers found when they compared what people say <\/em>they weigh versus what they actually <\/em>weigh, the Northerners were more likely to \u2026 uh \u2026 underestimate their weight.\u00a0 Men in the North were also more likely to overestimate their height, which reduces their calculated BMI.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the inability of Northerners to accurately estimate their heights and weights, the regional data on obesity may not be relevant after all:<\/p>\n

The study analyzed the weights in the nine geographic regions used by the U.S. Census Bureau.<\/span><\/p>\n

It found that the West North Central region, which includes Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and North and South Dakota, ranked fourth in obesity by the telephone survey results. But when actually weighed in the REGARDS study, people from that region ranked first in the nation for obesity.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the telephone survey results, the East South Central region, which includes Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky, ranked highest. But when weighed, that southern region ranked fifth.<\/span><\/p>\n

That’s fifth out of nine national regions, mind you.\u00a0 As I wrote after we moved to Tennessee, I was surprised at how few obese people I saw in our immediate area.\u00a0 I see a higher proportion of obese people in my hometown in Illinois than I do here, but I figured perhaps that’s because Franklin is in a prosperous part of Tennessee.<\/p>\n

“It is hard to know exactly what is going on, but my speculation is that people in the South are telling the truth more,” Howard said. “Perhaps there is not as much stigma connected to obesity as say someone in California, or in this case, Minnesota.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s because Southerners are less ashamed of being fat, Dr. Howard.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s because more Northerners are less ashamed of being big fat liars. There are a lot more religious people in the South; perhaps they consider lying to the CDC to be a sin.\u00a0 (I\u2019m not religious, so I consider lying to government officials to be a patriotic duty.)\u00a0 Sure, we grow some big fat liars in the South, but they tend to run for office, serve out their terms in Washington, then move to New York or California and write fictional autobiographies or make scary documentaries.<\/p>\n

Anyway, since I\u2019m sure the folks at TIME magazine wouldn\u2019t want us to think they secretly enjoyed portraying the conservative South as a region populated by a bunch of fat Bubbas, I\u2019m looking forward to their upcoming article, Why Northerners Are So Fat \u2013 And Why They Can\u2019t Read A Scale.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve probably seen various versions of an \u201cobesity map\u201d like the one above.\u00a0 Most of them show higher obesity rates in the South, which has led to a lot of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-reviews","category-random-musings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5402"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6371,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5402\/revisions\/6371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}