Exercise science students Rachelle Acitelli and Christie Ward test the DEXA scan in the University of Georgia's kinesiology department to measure body compositions during several studies this fall.
Athens, our fat is killing us. In addition to the usual maladies that stem from being overweight, like heart attacks and strokes, it's also bad for sperm, it affects breast cancer recovery, it speeds up the mental decline from aging, and it's bad for our social lives.
Last year, the Federation of Neighborhoods asked Paige Cummings what is the biggest health care crisis in Northeast Georgia.
“Obesity,” the executive director of Athens Nurses Clinic answered. “Without hesitation.”
The clinic sees about 1,100 clients each year, and two-thirds are obese, not just overweight, Cummings notes. Most of these patients also suffer from high blood pressure and diabetes. The clinic partners with Athens Regional Medical Center to teach hypertension classes, and every diabetic patient receives one-on-one review sessions, but it’s not enough.
“The biggest problem is, once you reach a certain level of obesity, you’re too embarrassed to go out in public to exercise, or it’s uncomfortable and it hurts to do it,” Cummings explains. “We help them to do enough to get their heart rate going and a metabolic boost without falling in the floor and not be able to breathe. Straight arm lifts with a can of soup, shoulder shrugs, push ups against the wall, and walking briskly so they can feel their heart beating harder.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a new map in August showing exactly where all the fat people live. We’re everywhere. The new statistics say that one in five Americans—and one in three children—are obese, which brings a host of health problems that totals $2.4 billion in Georgia alone. Twenty-eight percent of Georgia’s adults are obese, putting the state at No. 24, or around the middle, in terms of being fat. The rate is 28 percent in Clarke County as well.
Georgia has the second highest rate of childhood obesity, with 40 percent of kids between ages 10–17 over a healthy weight. And it’s only getting worse. A new report forecasts a sharp rise in obesity in every state in the next 20 years. The research by Trust for America's Health estimates that if current trends continue, 13 states will have obesity rates higher than 60 percent by 2030, and every state will exceed 40 percent. In Georgia, 54 percent of adults are projected to be obese.
The nation’s obesity stats are reaching a crisis level, says Karen Hilyard, an assistant professor of health promotion and behavior with experience in health communication. Hilyard spoke on a panel after a screening of HBO’s Weight of the Nation at the University of Georgia.
“We need a wake-up call," she says. "I can’t believe we’re working on any other issue in public health right now because of its wide-reaching impact across all areas. This problem fits the definition of a crisis, but why aren’t more people outraged?”
Unlike a natural disaster, obesity and its long-term risks are perceived differently, Hilyard explains. But we need to change the way we talk about obesity. “We need to re-frame the issue from one of personal responsibility to one that’s a community issue. It affects not just our health but our economy, health care costs and even national security,” she says. “We can’t expect to survive as a country if we have a crippled workforce that can’t handle physically demanding jobs. Policy-makers must consider what obesity means for the future of our country.”
It’s such a problem that UGA launched the Obesity Initiative in January to tackle adult and childhood obesity. More than 90 professors and staff across campus are organized into 11 teams that address exercise, nutrition, education, genetics, the immune system and media messages about obesity. “We found that if you’re in the exercise department, you think obesity is about exercise, and if you’re in nutrition, you think obesity is about eating too much,” says Mary Ann Johnson, a professor of nutrition and leader of the initiative’s Obesity & Exercise team. “The initiative has helped to broaden our scope and focus on the quick translation to what we can recommend to people.”
Don't doctors tell us to simply work out and eat well? Why doesn’t it work?
Several UGA professors are trying to tackle that exact question by looking at the psychological factors behind compensation during exercise programs. For example, people often overeat to reward themselves for working out.
“They don’t have a good sense of the calories being burned versus how much they can ingest,” says Michael Schmidt, a kinesiology professor and leader of the study. “It’s much easier to ingest calories than burn them.”
Schmidt is working with UGA psychology professor James MacKillop, who specializes in addictive behaviors such as alcohol use and smoking, to investigate the compensation effect. “Studies show that areas of the brain related to weight management are also related to addictive behaviors,” Schmidt says. “We want to assess the wide range of these behaviors and see to what extent we can predict how people will compensate.”
Schmidt is still looking for women between 25–45 to be part of the study. His is just one among many studies that professors are conducting to find some solution. In Ellen Evans’ exercise science lab, graduate and doctoral students are looking at the phenomenon of freshmen gaining weight during their first year on campus, how high-protein diets and interval training can help health, and how fatigue in breast cancer survivors can affect weight gain.
“In our lab, we do community-based research, so at the end of the day, it’s sustainable and translatable to the patients,” says Bhibha Das, an exercise science student. “What is the bigger picture, and how can we conduct clinical trials so they can apply to the community easily?”
Will all of the studies help America’s couch potatoes to get up and move? Athens Nurses Clinic interns are trying to do just that. They’re starting an eight-week “Athens Biggest Loser” contest this month to promote exercise and nutrition. “We want to set goals and figure out what people need to learn, such as understanding nutrition labels. That can be tough,” says Sarah Brinson, a senior health promotion major. “Then we’ll do Zumba or chair aerobics to make exercise fun and something they can do on their own at home. How can we fit exercise into commercial breaks or cook cheap, healthy meals?”
At the same time, where do healthy trends like local and organic diets fall in the conversation? “The first thing I think of with local food as a counter to obesity is the basic notion of cooking with whole ingredients,” says Andrea Malloy, general manager of Daily Groceries Co-op.
“The biggest contributor to obesity is processed food, which has created this expectation of cheap food and the idea that people don’t have time to cook with whole ingredients. But local food could be the easiest and cheapest to prepare," Malloy adds. “You don’t need to work as hard on it, just a simple sauté," she says. "I’m insanely busy and usually only get around to sautéing vegetables. It can change your expectations of what you should be eating, and it has a lot of flavor. People may be surprised by what they can find.”
The Athens Farmers Market also notices other barriers when it comes to healthy eating. By selling locally grown produce outside City Hall on Wednesday afternoons, market manager Jan Kozak hopes to help the access problems.
“Inside the Loop is an area known as a food desert, where people are getting by on low or no income and have no access to good, healthy food,” Kozak says. “There’s a disconcerting link between low income and obesity, especially because these days we’ve commoditized food to the extent that it’s cheap but also really unhealthy.”
Under the program Wholesome Wave Georgia, low-income residents can double their federal and state food benefits—such as SNAP, TANF and WIC—at the market. “It not only contributes to better health, it helps the local economy and agriculture by giving back to the localized food system,” Kozak explains. “It’s such a simple concept, but the impact could be far-reaching.”
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