Another worst health ranking for us.

[ljbab728]

http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-livin...124200409.html

We're number four here. I still contend that when making these kind of rankings writers start with OKC on the list and try to find reasons to take us off.

Oklahoma City has one of the largest livestock markets in the world, so it's no surprise residents love their steaks. We're guessing that's why this city ranks last for eating fruit and vegetables. Oklahoma City is also second worst when it comes to exercise. A poor diet and lack of activity help make the city third for high cholesterol and hypertension. But location is no excuse. "Anyone can get the RealAge-recommended 10 servings per day of fruits and vegetables, combined," says Roach. "And it's best to mix them up

Just how do they determine that we are last in eating fruits and vegetables? And having our stockyards keeps people from eating fruits and vegetables? What a crock. Just as all of those best lists we keep popping up on have to be taken with a grain of salt, so does something like this.

[td25er]

Are you serious? They don't literally think our stockyards keep people from eating fruits and veggies. Just wow.

The only evidence I need is everywhere I go fat and obese people reign supreme. It's as simple as that.

[Pete]

Oklahoma is one of only a handful of states where the obesity rate (NOT the rate of being just overweight) is over 30%!!!

Our rate is almost double what it was just 20 years ago.

These maps are from the Center for Disease Control (not some random Internet poll); the first shows the percentage of obese the second shows the percentage of non-active:

[Bunty]

Well, OKC people are pretty lazy, except when it comes to the effort required to stuff their faces. Maybe it has to do with people being bored and not finding interesting things to do. When I'm preoccupied with something interesting, taking time out to eat seems like such a time consuming distraction and may even pass it up.

[venture]

Going by the 2nd map, looks like Norman, Tulsa and Chickasha have taken all the skinny people. LOL Eastern OK though needs to trim a few inches...no wonder I feel like we are all leaning to the east some. ;-)

[Pete]

Obesity and inactivity are cultural and community issues and they need to be addressed.

The most obvious change is at least being partially addressed with trails, sidewalks and recreation areas. But OKC has a long, long way to go in all these areas. I really do believe that future public projects need to be centered around recreation otherwise we are never going to see much movement.

Harder to change are eating habits; it's really not the government's place to regulate fast food restaurants beyond mandating nutritional information.

[adaniel]

Going by the 2nd map, looks like Norman, Tulsa and Chickasha have taken all the skinny people. LOL Eastern OK though needs to trim a few inches...no wonder I feel like we are all leaning to the east some. ;-)

I'm going to go out on a limb and asy all of those Eastern OK counties highlighted probably have very high Native American populations. Would love to see the tribes step in and raise health awareness a little more.

[bandnerd]

Isn't there a very large problem with poverty in this state? Wouldn't that have a lot to do with obesity rates?

[MadMonk]

Looks like there is a lot of missing data on the west coast, Colorado, and Minnesota for some reason. Nevermind, it looks like the bottom map has no indicator of what the colors mean.

[ljbab728]

I'm certainly not contending that Oklahoma is a bastion of healthy eating but I still have to question an article that tries to label us based on the amounts of fruits and vegetables we eat. There is absolutely no accurate way to gauge that.