JACKSON — Mississippi’s health care community still hasn’t found the secret to reducing the state’s nation-leading obesity rate despite numerous legislative efforts and millions of dollars in funding, a top medical expert says.
“We’re doing all these things and it’s not helping,” said Dr. Richard DeShazo, chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, commenting Wednesday after a new study ranked Mississippi No. 1 in obesity rates among states.
In the report from the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Mississippi’s obesity rate was 32.5 percent. It was the state’s fifth consecutive year ranked at the top in the study. Mississippi also had the highest rate of overweight children aged 10 to 17, at 44.4 percent.
The other states with rates above 30 percent in the report were West Virginia with 31.2 percent, Alabama with 31.1 percent and Tennessee with 30.2 percent.
DeShazo, a professor of pediatrics who has practiced medicine for 30 years and once served on the American Board of Internal Medicine, said the key to fighting obesity is changing behavior. He said that’s difficult to do, particularly among adults.
“The problem starts in childhood,” he said in a telephone interview. “We’re now seeing 300-pound teenagers, which we’ve never seen before. It’s no secret what’s going to happen to them. Do parents want their children to grow up and die early? No. They just don’t know.”
Recognizing the health problem is also a budgetary issue, lawmakers have passed measures aimed at spurring healthier lifestyles. Those laws included requiring 150 minutes a week of physical activity for public school students and healthier school menu options.
In the just-ended legislative session, lawmakers approved a bill that authorizes the public employees’ health insurance plan to pay for gastric-band surgery for up to 100 obese state government workers a year.
Gov. Haley Barbour and his wife, Marsha, became the face of a walking campaign sponsored by Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Mississippi, which administers the health plan for state employees. Back in 2006, Barbour said he would set the example by getting himself in shape, but in recent months the governor’s weight has fluctuated.
Barbour’s spokesman, Dan Turner, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment about the report.
The issue is about more than quality of life. Treating obesity-related illness in Mississippi has cost about $750 million, based on the latest figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The state Health Department has very little money to take on this,” said Dr. Mary Currier, the state epidemiologist.
Currier said the state’s health agency relies heavily on grant funding, and currently has allocated $292,533 for diabetes prevention and $440,734 for heart disease. Currier said there’s no funding specifically for obesity prevention.
In the Mississippi Delta, one of the country’s poorest regions, the Delta Health Alliance is using $125 million in federal funding to address a myriad of health issues, including diabetes and obesity. No one associated with the alliance could be reached for comment on Wednesday.
DeShazo said nearly every school at UMC, including the School of Dentistry and Allied Health, have programs or projects aimed at curtailing obesity or obesity-related ailments, such as heart disease or sleep apnea.
Still, Mississippi is usually among the top three states for rates of heart disease, diabetes and strokes, he said.
Mississippi isn’t the only state struggling with fat. The report said obesity rates had increased in 23 states over the last year.
“It’s amplified here because of our peculiar situation. So many people don’t have health care, are undereducated and don’t have access to healthy food,” DeShazo said. “We don’t think our people want to be obese. We think they just don’t have the information at hand to let them know how to live in a healthy way.”
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