Study: Texas kids among the most overweight

HOUSTON - Texas children are among the fattest in the nation, with black and Hispanic kids exhibiting the highest risk for being overweight, a study shows.

Texas fourth-graders were overweight at a rate 46 percent higher than children of similar age elsewhere in the country, said Deanna Hoelscher, principal investigator of study, conducted by the University of Texas School of Public Health.

“Parents do need to watch this in their kids,” she said. “What this means is being overweight is a health risk for kids. Parents need to look at that as something they need to take some measures to prevent.”

Researchers collected data from more than 6,000 students in 30 schools districts and 132 schools throughout Texas from 1999 to 2001. Hoelscher said the study is one of the first to gather statewide data based on measured height and weight of elementary and secondary students.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5083697/

More data hidden by the most corrupt Crime Family in the history of America!

Good flick.

How can anyone go outside to exercise when the air they're forced to breathe is so polluted that the only way to survive is to stay indoors?

and then there's Texas cuisine. Chicken fried steak.
Yeah, I know it tastes good, but how can anybody not get fat eating that stuff?

...trust me on that. I was there 12 years ago, and gained 15 pounds in five weeks living on that stuff.

but there are fast food joints every 50 ft.:9 I think it's been written into Texas zoning codes.

Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration....but that's Texan too.

:eyes:

Just jokin'.

'everything is big in Texas.'

There's been a proliferation of fast-food restuarants over the last 20 years. These food restuarants are over-represented in minority and poor communities.

Fast food is considered to be an 'inferior good' which means as income rises people consume less (re-treads, used clothes are also inferior goods).

"Thinness" is considered to be a 'normal good'. Which means that as income rises people buy (through gym membership) more of it.

I rarely see overweight people in Bev. Hills, Malibu, Santa Monica, Marina Del Rey etc.

Finally, there is an opportunity cost issue:

The poor spend their "leisure" time (non work activities) cleaning house, shopping, watching kids, etc.; they don't have time to exercise.

The rich can pay the poor to clean house, shop and watch the kids while they exercise.

n/t

:wtf:

n/t

around 1.25 or so.