Rural vs. city body shapes

A new study reveals that nearly 40 per­cent of rural adults in the U.S. are obese, whereas 33 per­cent of peo­ple liv­ing in a city are obese.

I would have thought the oppo­site. Liv­ing in rural areas of the coun­try sur­rounds a per­son with miles and miles of open land. The city dwellers are lim­ited with the area around them. More land does not mean more activity.

In the past the oppo­site was true. Rural folks worked harder on farms and in gar­dens. They walked more and worked harder. Those liv­ing in town had more con­ve­niences and fewer oppor­tu­ni­ties to use their muscles.

Kitchen tables in the coun­try were filled with high-calorie foods to sup­ply the energy to work hard all day. City kitchens required car­ry­ing gro­ceries from a store and this often lim­ited supplies.

Stud­ies show that rural food intake includes more fat. City eaters have less fat in their daily diet. An ounce of fat pro­vides more calo­ries than an ounce of pro­tein or car­bo­hy­drate food. More than twice the calo­ries come from the same amount of fat as the other nutrients.

Phys­i­cal activ­ity, or the lack of it, is not the only issue in this story. Legacy, tra­di­tion and habit play a huge part in the obe­sity issue.

Researchers reveal that a person’s cir­cle of friends influ­ences weight. If the folks that one asso­ciates are rel­a­tively thin, most likely most every­one will be thin. If a per­son spends a lot of time with obese peo­ple, even the thinnest per­son will not real­ize that they are gain­ing weight because rel­a­tively, they are still thin com­pared to their friends.

Return­ing to the issue of rural ver­sus city peo­ple, cur­rently the peo­ple that live in rural areas do not work like grandpa and grandma used to work. Although, they still eat like they do. Grandma still puts fat-laden high calo­rie com­fort foods on the table and pres­sures rel­a­tives to eat even before their hat and coat is on the hanger.

This has to stop to change the weight sta­tus of rural peo­ple. But don’t go blam­ing Grandma on the state of obe­sity in rural com­mu­ni­ties. Liv­ing in less pop­u­lated areas allows a per­son to actu­ally get more exer­cise. If Grandma isn’t going to change, remem­ber, those boots were made for walking.

This week I pulled out a pair of jeans from my fall and win­ter wardrobe that have been in hid­ing since the spring. This is usu­ally my test to deter­mine my body weight and shape since I do not own a scale. My goal is that one fall day, my last year’s jeans will eas­ily glide on and the but­ton will snap with­out a fight.

I live in a rural county. Last week I not only pulled on last year’s jeans with ease, but I found a five dol­lar bill in the pocket. Whoo-Hoo! My goal this sea­son is to prove the researchers wrong. Weight con­trol doesn’t have any­thing to do with where you live, who your friends are or who your Grandma hap­pens to be.

Weight con­trol is a per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity. Food and drink intake along with phys­i­cal activ­ity is a daily deci­sion. And some­times you just get lucky enough to find a five dol­lar bill.

Bob­bie Ran­dall is a cer­ti­fied dia­betes edu­ca­tor and a reg­is­tered, licensed dietit­ian. She super­vises a dia­betes self-management train­ing pro­gram at Aultman-Orrville Hos­pi­tal, Orrville. Con­tact her at bobbie.randall@aultmanorrville.org or 330–684-4776.

Posted by Bobbie Randall on Sep 26 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.