America’s super-sized obsession with Big Macs, fries and stuffed-crust pizzas is beginning to affect more than just waistlines – it has doubled the rate of diabetes over the last decade.
The Centers for Disease Control warned that our buffet-bloated populace badly needs an intervention – New York state included.
“Interventions that promote weight loss and increased physical activity among persons at high risk for diabetes are needed to reduce diabetes incidence,” says the report, which was released yesterday.
“Also needed are public health interventions, including environmental and policy changes (e.g., creating or enhancing parks, walking trails and access to healthier foods) that encourage healthy lifestyles.”
The number of people across the country suffering from the blood-sugar disease has skyrocketed in the past 10 years. New York is among states with a higher-than-average rate.
A detailed phone survey showed that just 4.8 out of every 1,000 Americans had diabetes between 1995 and 1997.
But between of 2005 to 2007, that number rose to 9.1 per 1,000.
The worst rates are in the nation’s deep-fried Southern pork-barbecue belt.
In Georgia, 11.2 people out of every 1,000 now have diabetes. That’s up from just 6.2 per 1,000 a decade ago.
In Florida, 10.9 per 1,000 now have the disease, even though the rate was just 3.4 out of every thousand in the 1990s.
New York is not doing much better.
Although data from 1995 to 1997 is not available for the Empire State, the rate per 1,000 people is now 9.4. That’s much higher than the average of 8.2 in Northeastern states, and higher than New Jersey’s rate of 7.7.
Minnesota has just 5 people per 1,000 with the disease, the lowest rate in the nation.
West Virginia has the worst rate: 12.7 per 1,000.
The study, put up on the center’s Web site yesterday, is the first to look at the rise in diabetes rates from a state-by-state perspective.
“These findings affirm previous projections that diabetes will continue to be a major public health problem,” the CDC said.