Brief by Central Staff
Health – March 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
If you travel out of Colorado and the people look more chubby than the folks back home, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. According to the federal government, Colorado is the thinnest state in the Union, and the West is the thinnest region of the country.
The National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health reported that only 16.5% of Colorado adults were obese in 2002, lowest in the nation.
However, our state health department isn’t exactly cheering; the rate has nearly doubled from 8.4% in 1991. Thus, “It’s a huge concern,” said Rachel Oys at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
The Southeast is the chubbiest region, and West Virginia is the fattest state, with an adult obesity rate of 27.6% of its adults. It was also the fattest in 1991, at 15.2% — lower than Colorado’s current rates.
Why is Colorado the lowest? Authorities attribute it to an active (exercise reduces weight) and educated (correlates with a better diet) population.
Why is the rate going up? It’s rising all over the country, and those who study such matters say a lot of it has to do with the changing nature of work — typing at a computer just doesn’t burn as many calories as breaking rocks. Further, many modern residential neighborhoods are designed to discourage walking.
There are degrees of bulk. The National Institute of Health works with the “Body Mass Index,” which is a ratio derived from height and weight. It correlates strongly with body fat but not perfectly — very muscular people might have a high BMI without being fat.
A BMI of 18.5 to 24 is considered healthy, from 25 through 29 is overweight, and 30 and above is obese. Calculating your BMI is reasonably simple. Take your weight in pounds and multiply that by 704.5. Divide that by the square of your height in inches.
For instance, our publisher weighs about 180 pounds, and is 5’10”, or 70 inches, tall. Multiply 180 by 704.5 to get 126,810. Divide that by 4,900 (70 squared) to get 25.9 — the low end of the overweight category, so he would presumably be a healthier fellow if he got down to 167 pounds and a BMI of 24.
