Comments on: Where the fat folks live

By: razib

razib — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:59:09 +0000

One reason that has been suggested to explain this tendency is that it is related to the evangelical Protestant tendency to forbid the use of alcoholic beverages. Because they abstain, many Baptists and other evangelicals might tend to overeat where others might turn to alcohol.

interesting. but what about mormons? i've seen the data. in general conservative "sectlike" protestant groups have less health and wealth that more mature and establishment denominations. but i would tend to be of the opinion that this is a matter of sorting and the types of "services" that different classes of individuals might need.

By: Jack

Jack — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:31:04 +0000

One factor that probably explains part of the higher rate of obesity in the South is the level of religious participation. Purdue University sociologist Kenneth Ferraro published a study in 1998 showing that religious people had higher rates of obesity that others, and that this differed by denomination, with Baptists being the most likely to be obese.

This might also help to explain part of the east-west divide in the Appalachian region. Western Virginia, for example, is not as heavily dominated (no pun intended) by Baptists as the areas to the west.

One reason that has been suggested to explain this tendency is that it is related to the evangelical Protestant tendency to forbid the use of alcoholic beverages. Because they abstain, many Baptists and other evangelicals might tend to overeat where others might turn to alcohol.

By: razib

razib — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:13:28 +0000

some state borders, like kansas/colorado, seem to have an outsized effect even without my estimate:

http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

some hypotheses:

1) different state level protocols and reporting or collecting data on these traits, or estimates in the methods like i did

2) population centers really far from each other within counties on opposite sites of the borders are very different

3) different state level public health policies effecting obesity and diabetes rate (e.g., school lunches?)

i think #1 is the most plausible. the state-line effect is too pervasive for #2, and i'm skeptical of #3.

By: Jason Malloy

Jason Malloy — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:08:36 +0000

Thanks for the link, Ziel. I see now Zeeb noted that in the last post. That certainly must explain it.

And the plains people in Eastern Colorado are fatter like Kansans, while the mountain people in Western Colorado are thinner, as per the Mountain State profile.

By: ziel

ziel — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:33:18 +0000

The population of Hamilton Co,KS, is less than 3,000. So it could be that the uniformity of obesity levels across these western Kansas counties in contrast with the uniformly lower rates across Colorado's eastern counties could be an artifact of the estimation method, which uses state level data to estimate county level data where the statistical sampling is low.

By: Jason Malloy

Jason Malloy — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 08:19:02 +0000

Mountain states have low obesity (including 5 of the 10 states with the least childhood obesity), and also have high IQs, so this may fit in with agnostic's theory about pathogens influencing general Mountain State health.

But the sharp contrast between neighboring counties at the border of Colorado and Kansas gives me pause. Why would white children in Prowers County, CO be skinnier than white children in adjacent Hamilton County, KS? I doubt the people are different. State level school lunch differences?

By: Jason Malloy

Jason Malloy — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:59:13 +0000

Running to Google, I plugged in ‘Why is Colorado…’, and Google offered 5 search completions. Two being: ‘Why is Colorado the thinnest state’ and ‘Why is Colorado the least obese state’.

New to me.