Wednesday, January 21, 2004 - Editor's note: This article is the first in an occasional series of stories on the subject of fitness and obesity. The Denver Post, along with 9News, will examine the topic throughout 2004.
We're still the thinnest of them all, but don't get out the party hats and noisemakers just yet.
Colorado's obesity rate may be the lowest in the country, as it has been for the past decade, but it's plumping up.
The rate has grown from 8.4 percent in 1991 to 16.5 percent in 2002, and experts see the trend continuing unless things change quickly and drastically.
"It's a huge concern," says Rachel Oys, a program director for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
In case you're wondering who has the highest rates, it's West Virginia at 27.6 percent, with the rest of the Southern states close behind.
Which raises two questions. Why were Coloradans so lean to begin with, and why hasn't that kept them from filling out like Southerners?
Terry Bryant, the state health department's director of surveillance and evaluation, and Ali Mokdad, who tracks national obesity trends and risk factors for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, use state data to explain. Colorado has:
Great weather - While we're happily jogging at least nine months a year, our counterparts in Memphis and Mobile are sidelined by the heat and humidity.
Fit newcomers - Colorado's cool clean air gave people with tuberculosis hope for a cure in the 1800s. The air, mountains, parks and rivers still beckon athletes who love to ski, climb, kayak, run marathons or just walk their dogs.
Higher educations - Denver residents have more college degrees per capita than most others, which means they know it's important to eat fruits and vegetables and keep our hearts pumping.
High incomes - Coloradans have money, and they're not afraid to spend it, on such things as organic foods, fresh produce and health-club memberships.
Smaller ethnic communities - Obesity rates for Hispanics are slightly higher than those of Anglos (in Colorado, 18 percent versus 13.5 percent in 2001), and African-American rates are roughly double (27.8 percent). Because Colorado is 80 percent Anglo, the rates are lower than states with large minority populations. Mokdad attributes their extra weight to diets that are heavy on fried foods and low on fruits and vegetables; tight budgets that make cheap fast foods more attractive than fresh produce; and lack of physical activity.
Enlightened planners - Some places make it hard just to get outside. They forget to build sidewalks when building neighborhoods, pave over the park lands or spread things out so much that cars are a necessity. Colorado politicians have provided us with a multitude of bike paths, hiking trails, kayak courses, wilderness areas, state parks, city parks and even pocket parks.
Shorter commutes - While commute times are going up for many Denver residents, most of the state still enjoys "rush minutes" rather than full-blown traffic jams.
Youth - Coloradans are younger than residents of many other states, but don't expect that to last forever. Middle-agers have the highest obesity rates everywhere, and this state's population is aging.
Lamar Sims could have saved Bryant the number crunching. At 50, Sims works out six days a week at the downtown Denver YMCA, just as he's done since he started kayak racing in college.
"I never thought about quitting," he says, sounding surprised at the question. "I like working out," and it has returned the affection. Sims weighed 172 when he started college and now hovers between 184 and 188.
He also eats sensibly (but not saintly) - heavy on the fruits and vegetables, fish or chicken at least three times a week and buffalo burgers no more than once a week, followed by dessert almost every day.
As Denver's chief deputy district attorney, Sims travels some, and when he does he notices the difference.
"You tend to take (metro Denver's) parks for granted until you go to a city without any," he says. "You end up running in the street."
On the other hand, Coloradans are not all hard bodies or our obesity rates wouldn't be rising. Americans in general have been eating more and moving less, and Colorado is no exception.
"It has reached everyone, everywhere," says Mokdad. He blames the rise on at least three factors:
Machines now do most of the heavy chores that used to keep us moving.
We're able to produce more food at cheaper prices than ever before, which has allowed retailers to sell us supersized portions for bargain prices.
Between commuting, watching TV and working on computers, many of us spend the biggest part of each day exercising nothing more than one finger at a time. The more time we spend in the armchair the less time is available for the gym.
Arlene Milde, who works as a nurse manager in a large metro-area hospital, could be Mokdad's poster child. She grew up in Minnesota eating Scandanavian food and never considered herself an athletic person.
Now 61, she has spent the better part of her adult life managing weight that fluctuates tremendously but says she's thankful not to have significant health problems.
As a health professional, however, she's smart enough to know that "it isn't gonna take much to change it. And if it happens, it isn't gonna be pretty."
This year, Milde is doing what Oys and her cohorts at the health department work so hard to encourage. Following the example of a good friend who lost megapounds and went from sedentary to climbing 14ers, she got inspired. This month she joined Colorado Weigh, the showcase University of Colorado weight-loss program, to see if she can start exercising and break away from a diet heavy on fats, carbohydrates and simple sugars.
Milde feels a twinge each year Denver winds up on the Men's Fitness magazine list of fittest cities in the nation.
"I feel sad that I'm not one of those people," she says. "A part of me would like to be climbing 14ers, too."
Simple steps toward better fitness
Researchers discover all kinds of useful information about our health, but most of it gets buried deep inside medical journals.
Florida social scientist David Niven decided to be our translator, searching for study results that might actually do us some good. In "The 100 Simple Secrets of Healthy People" (HarperSanFrancisco, $11.95) he shares his findings, several of which he incorporated into his own life.
"I like the idea that you can put spinach on a sandwich instead of lettuce without changing the taste," he says. "And I've stopped listening to fast music with dinner. We mimic the rhythm when we eat, and we don't even notice it."
Among his recommendations:
Eat your spinach. Foods rich in folate help reduce the risk of stroke and heart disease. Eating two servings a day of foods such as tomatoes, leafy green vegetables such as spinach and romaine lettuce, pinto, navy or kidney beans, and grain products decreases levels of an amino acid that contributes to the process underlying heart disease and stroke.
Unfortunately, researchers at Tulane University found that only 32 percent of all American adults are getting enough folate every day.
Fitness is free. The foundation of any good exercise program can be as simple as taking a walk or a jog for free. Expensive machinery and health-club memberships are not required for you to improve your health.
University of Richmond studies found that fitness programs based on walking or jogging and exercises without equipment, such as sit-ups, have the same beneficial health effects as machine-based programs.
Play slow music at dinner. Your meal will take longer to eat and result in your eating less.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that music affects how fast we eat: the average diner eats five mouthfuls a minute when listening to lively music, four mouthfuls a minute when listening to no music, and three mouthfuls a minute when listening to a slow melody.
Eat a tomato a day. Including tomatoes or tomato sauce in your diet at least five times a week significantly reduces the risk of many major diseases.
Canned, raw, cooked, in soups, sauce, ketchup or juice, tomatoes provide lycopene, which cuts the risk of cancer and heart disease in half and improves the health of lungs, eyes and the skin, report scientists at Ohio State University.
Eat less, but eat often. When you're trying to cut back on how much you eat, it's tempting to cut back the number of times you eat. That's a recipe for failure because doing so sends your body into starvation mode and causes it to burn fewer calories.
A study at Oxford University found that people who ate five or six times a day had a 5 percent lower total cholesterol and were 45 percent more likely to sustain their target weight than people who ate once or twice a day.
Drink grape juice. Much like Teflon keeps food from sticking to a pan, the bioflavonoid in grape juice prevents cholesterol from sticking to our arteries. Regular consumption reduced the likelihood of clogged arteries and lowers the risk for conditions such as heart disease and strokes.
In studies of people with heart disease, drinking grape juice for two weeks helped widen arteries and reduced cholesterol oxidation by more than a third, according to doctors at Stanford University.
Use the stairs. Improving your health can be as simple as changing a few habits, like taking the stairs every day instead of using the escalator or elevator. Tiny acts like that can have a huge long-term effect.
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control in Washington, D.C., have found that spending 10 minutes on the stairs each day could help you lose 10 pounds over the course of a year. Making stairways more attractive and interesting can increase their usage by 14 percent.
No TV during dinner. When television and eating go together, they encourage our overconsumption of both. Separate your television time from your eating time to encourage healthy habits with both.
Each meal eaten in front of the television adds up to an hour of time to daily television watching, according to a study by Cincinnati Children's Hospital.
Have an orange. Vitamin C, found in fruits such as oranges, inhibits the process of artery clogging and lowers blood pressure. Regular consumption of it has been found to reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke and premature death.
Each ounce of vitamin C-laden fruits consumed per day reduces the risk of premature death by 10 percent, according to doctors at Cambridge University.
Exercise for your mind. Regular exercise, starting with something as easy as a daily walk, benefits not only physical but mental health. The functioning and efficiency of the brain has been shown to improve with exercise.
A University of Illinois study found that sedentary people who adopted a daily walking program for six months showed a 25 percent improvement in their ability to plan, establish schedules, make and remember choices, and adapt to changing circumstances.