Attention All Alabamians!!

Hey! Okay, I just read this article about childhood obesity, and it really hits home! Children this generation are estimated, for the first time apparently in two centuries, to have shorter life expectancies than their parents! That is big! That means the kids in this generation will be lucky to watch their grandchildren grow up like the grandparents today! We need to raise awareness which is what this article is about. Alabama is ranked 2nd in obesity and 3rd in type 2 Diabetes. If you want more info!? Click here.

And the Winners are...

It's great to be in the top three, right? Well, apparently not always! Congratulations, Alabama, you ranked number 3 in Clinically Depressed States (Mississippi was 1). Though Alabama's diagnosis for this depression, is just being plain lazy! Yeah, we all have our lazy spells, but extreme laziness affects our health more than we know. It may not seem like much to lay on the couch and chow down on a bag of chips, but when that becomes a lifestyle, then we have a problem. 65% of people in Alabama suffer from obesity! That's over half the state! Also obesity is the second highest cause of death in the country and it can lead to diabetes!

Also Alabama also wins another prize tonight. "As expected, Alabama leads the nation in adults diagnosed with high blood pressure, 31% of people in Alabama with the disease compared to 24.9% nationally, according to Centers for Disease Control, 2002 (CDC) research. And increases in adults with diabetes, Alabama, was 10.5% higher in the U.S. more than twice the rate of 5% of the fiftieth place in Minnesota."

The prizes just keeps on coming! Now I know these obviously aren't things to be proud of, but they are what they are. Who's going to make a change? Alabama can't change itself! It's up to the people. Taking action is a choice! Obesity is a condition that needs treatment! It doesn't have to be a lifestyle.

Click here to read the article about obesity and fitness.

"Farm to Fork" at Montgomery's Hampstead

Roots of Change

The organization Roots of Change is a California effort to create public policy in that state that will support and enhance sustainable, healthy farming and eating habits. They do some really powerful work, and what I wonder is: in a state that prides itself as being an agricultural stronghold and as a state with severe obesity and food-related health problems, why isn't there a group like this in Alabama? There may be, but I'm not aware of one.

That's not to say that no one is doing anything. For instance, in Birmingham, Jones Valley Urban Farm hosts community education workshops (along with other services) and Frank Stitt's restaurants have impressive menus full of healthy, responsibly grown items. The state also has CSA farms like Red Root Farm in Banks and Snows Bend Farm near Tuscaloosa that allow customers to buy into their harvest on shares, thus providing them with healthy seasonal produce. For a full list of CSAs, published by the Farmers Market Authority, click here.

But what about influencing state policy? I'm no food expert, and beyond a general concern for the well-being of other people, my interest in the subject extends roughly to my own table. I'm not the man for the job. Does anyone know of work like this (not by a state agency, like the FMA) that is going?

Diabetes and Me

Obesity. High Cholesterol. Diabetes. Words or Warning? Alabama is the 3rd most medicated state in America! It almost tied at number 2 with Tennessee. Almost 66% of the population in Alabama is overweight, 235.5 people out of 100,000 have heart disease, and over 12% have diabetes.

Diabetes is a condition that has already hit close to home for me. My father has it and yes, we live in Alabama, so seeing reports like this isn't comforting. But do we let it get us down? Nope! We move forward so we don't end up as a statistic. Yes my father has diabetes, we can't change that, but what we can change is the conditions that come with it if he doesn't take care of himself, and if we don't help him. Will it be hard? Of course! Especially living in the south surrounded by all this soul food, but we can do it.

The life of a diabetic, I've already seen, isn't easy. Counting carbs because you can't go over a certain amount a day, eliminating foods from your diet, and constantly having to know what your blood sugar is? You'd have to be Superman to do it perfectly. Though I'm sure even Superman would be tempted to cheat on his diet.

Week One

Although the information aquired via Google Alerts has not been entirely as helpful as I might have liked, they have made it abundantly obvious that currently the factor most affecting Alabama's farmers is the heat. This is quite useful information, highlighting the struggle of farmers in recent times, and therefore the benefits of buying locally. Progress is slow but definite. I hope to get more information soon.