A different measure of red and blue states - A Solution to the Obesity Epidemic in America - Bring Tobacco Back?

According to "F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2010", a report from the Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), “In 1991, no state had an obesity rate above 20 percent.”  In 2010, more than two-thirds of states had adult obesity rates above 25 percent (see red and blue state map below):

Ten of the 11 states with the highest rates of diabetes are in the South, as are the 10 states with the highest rates of hypertension.

The number of states where adult obesity rates exceed 30 percent doubled in the past year, from four to eight --Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Northeastern and Western states had the lowest adult obesity rates; Colorado remained the lowest at 19.1 percent.

In a January, 2010, Forbes Magazine article “Big Fat America”, Michael Maiello states “Obesity is now a bigger health problem in America than tobacco use partly because people don’t smoke as much as they used to”.  The anti-smoking activists stomped out smoking by means of legal and social pressure, but curbing unhealthy eating is a bigger challenge.  The ill effects of second hand smoke was the catalyst in enacting aggressive anti-smoking laws.  This dynamic is not as direct with overeating.  If you stuff yourself, people in close proximity will not absorb some of your calories, so eating is largely a self indulgent and personal choice activity.

Even my older daughter’s stuffed animal with a hideous noise every time you press its left palm is guilty of overeating (judge for yourself):

So with the new year upon us, here’s my solution to America’s obesity problem: