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Remember: Fat is just stored energy

PETER CALLAGHAN; THE NEWS TRIBUNE
We were told this week that we’re fatter than we used to be.

Forget for a moment how rude that is. Apparently if you’re called the Trust for America’s Health, you can say anything to us and claim that you’re doing it for our own good.

Sixty percent of Washingtonians are considered overweight, according to the trust’s survey, and 23.2 percent are obese. Washington is tied with Idaho for 31st fattest state. Mississippi was the fattest, Massachusetts the thinnest. But it is a relative comparison because even in Massachusetts, just under 20 percent are obese.

The whole survey should cause every state to look itself in the mirror and ask: “Does this map make me look fat?”

Our first reaction is likely to be denial. It’s been a rainy summer, and it’s possible that what you see is water weight gain. And we are a little better than midrange among states – not too fat, not too thin. We’re sort of the Goldilocks state.

But what about our self-esteem? What about our mental health? They say we’re overweight, but we prefer to think of ourselves as underfit. Or maybe we’re just big-boned.

The same report showed that we’re not getting any thinner. Our overweight and obese percentages are double what they were just 15 years ago. This is especially troubling when we are named for a guy who survived the privations of Valley Forge.

So we search for causes. Washington – Seattle especially – is known worldwide as a coffee place. The dirty secret is that it’s really a milk place. Whole milk. With whipped cream. And two pumps of caramel. Or so I’m told.

The numbers might actually be worse than stated because they are based on a phone survey. In other words, someone called a bunch of Americans and asked them their height and weight and how often they exercised. This methodology seems about as accurate as using self-descriptions in personal ads and MySpace pages where everyone is height and weight proportional. And blonde. And a millionaire. Or so I’m told.

There is some good news. Washington young people are only the 46th fattest, with just 11 percent reported as obese. Any student who can figure out what percentage are not obese will be deemed to have passed the math WASL.

Another recent study suggested that obesity was contagious. That is, if your friends and family are overweight, you are more likely to be overweight. That could explain why Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee are all in the top five.

Minnesota ranked first in physical activity. Apparently stomping your boots in the winter and running from giant mosquitoes in the summer counts as exercise because Minnesotans are fatter than we are. Their license plates now say “Land of 10,000 Big Macs.”

Maybe we need a new slogan. The Evergreen State is nice, but green isn’t exactly slimming. Perhaps something like “Our jets are wide-bodied and so are we.” Or “Just slightly fatter than Maine; not quite as fat as Oregon.”

Washington has unveiled and discarded “Say WA.” These new rankings suggest we should try out something like, “Say Enough,” or “Say, ‘No, I don’t need seconds.’”

Maybe we need to look at the positive side, to see the ice cream bowl as half full, not half empty. Washington isn’t that far from being in the bottom 10 in the fat rankings. If we dropped from 23.2 to 22 percent we could tie with New Mexico. While it would be too much to ask 1.2 percent of us to untie the feed bag, we could change the percentage through world trade.

If we could import some fit people from overseas, we could lower our percentage and join the likes of Colorado, Utah, Hawaii and Arizona.

The ports already claim to be the economic engine of the state, creating something like 20 billion jobs. It shouldn’t be much to ask for them to help make us more fit – if only in a relative sense.

Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657

peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com