JS online -WI, August 3, 2010
Straight to the Source
Two summers ago, north side residents protested a proposed fried chicken restaurant, calling its high-calorie offerings a health hazard to a neighborhood already saturated with fast food.
Church's Chicken eventually abandoned plans for what would have been the third fried chicken restaurant in a 10-block stretch of North Ave.
It was a watershed moment in a movement to create healthy choices in the predominantly African-American neighborhood at a time when obesity was becoming a major public health issue nationwide.
A new report released Tuesday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention validates the neighborhood's ongoing efforts, as Wisconsin's overall obesity rate for adults hovers at 26%.
Recent estimates of the annual medical costs of obesity are as high as $147 billion. On average, that amounts to $1,429 in higher costs each year for people who are obese than for those of normal weight, according to the CDC report.
About 72.5 million U.S. adults are now considered obese - roughly 20% or more over ideal body weight - a condition that contributes to several leading causes of death, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some types of cancer. Just in the past two years, the number has increased by 2.4 million adults, according to 2009 data collected by state health departments for the CDC through 400,000 phone surveys nationwide.
Wisconsin has the highest rate of obesity in the nation among African-Americans (44%), compared with whites (26%) and Latinos (25%), according to another report released last month by the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
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