Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Hunger and Obesity in the USA

This morning I heard on the radio that 1 person in 7 in the US goes hungry. At the same time, the US leads the pack when it comes to its overweight and obese population.

According to this site, the US has an obesity rate of 30.6%. It ranks first out of 29 countries. Just as a point of comparison, Canada is 11th (14.3%), France is 23rd (9.4%) and Italy--home of pasta, pasta, pasta--is 25th (8.5%). Japan and Korea are tied in "last" (best) place with 3.2%

Just some food for thought on the eve of US Thanksgiving.

3 comments:

  1. Interesting. I'm surprised the UK isn't in this list.

    In the UK, 5.2 million people are registered as overweight or obese. Percentage wise, this works out at 63% of men and 53% of women and we don't have Thanksgiving!

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  2. NutriAngel,

    The UK is 3rd with a 23% rate. Number 2 is Mexico at 24.2%.

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  3. actually, I think poverty and obesity is linked in America. Having grown up poor, the only foods you could really afford are fatty, starchy foods.
    potatoes, fatty ground beef and loads of white flour breads and pastas...
    I don't believe I ever saw my mom buy fresh fruit or fresh veggies...those were more like a condiment than a large part of our plate. Cause really, if you have three kids to feed and you three bucks to do it...are you going to buy four apples or two boxes of mac and cheese and a half a lb of ground beef? Well, if you want to starve you buy four apples.
    Also, Thanksgiving is about thanking God for the blessings in our life, and while we do indeed consume large quantities of turkey flesh, we also thank God for granting us our freedom to live as we choose in one of the greatest countries on the face of the earth.
    Happy thanksgiving.

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