- A new report shows that Tennessee is no longer among the 10 fattest states, but its residents remain at higher risk for high blood pressure and diabetes.
Tennessee was 15th for obesity, sixth for diabetes, second for physical inactivity and third for high blood pressure in the “F as in Fat” report released Tuesday by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Dr. Jennifer Carman sees the faces behind the figures.
“I would probably say 80 percent of the patients I see have high blood pressure because that’s what brings people into their physician’s office in the first place,” said Carman, an internist with Heritage Medical Associates.
Some of these patients had their blood pressure tested at a health fair, while others may have had a high reading when they went to drugstore clinic seeking a prescription for a sinus infection. Many people don’t even know they have high blood pressure, which is often called a silent killer, because it can lead to stroke, heart disease and kidney failure.
And Carman points out that while obesity is linked to high blood pressure or hypertension, people don’t have to be overweight to have it. Hypertension can be controlled with medication and behavior modification, such as losing weight, cutting back on alcoholic drinks and keeping tabs on sodium intake.
“People will often say, ‘I don’t salt anything,’ but salt sneaks into a lot of foods that you don’t even know about — anything that is canned or frozen prepared can have a lot of salt in it,” Carman said.
And it’s a myth that once people go on high blood pressure medicine, they have to keep taking it forever, she said. Often the loss of five or 10 pounds can bring a patient’s numbers into the normal range.
Besides providing rankings, the “F as in Fat” report poses two scenarios for states. If Tennessee’s obesity rate continues on its same trajectory, 63.4 percent of state residents will be obese by 2030. However, if Tennesseans reduce their average body mass index by just 5 percent over the same period, the state would save $13.8 billion in health-care costs.
“This study shows us two futures for America’s health,” said Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, a Nashville native who is president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “At every level of government, we must pursue policies that preserve health, prevent disease and reduce health-care costs. Nothing less is acceptable.”
The rankings are based on the 2011 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Among Tennesseans, 29 percent reported being obese. Sixty-six percent said they were either overweight or obese. Eleven percent said they had been told they were diabetic. But the startling figure is the one for hypertension. Almost 39 percent of state residents said they had high blood pressure.
The report also ranked states according to childhood obesity, but it was based on the 2007 National Survey on Children’s Health. Tennessee ranked sixth for the percentage of obese children aged 10-17. The percentage rate was 20.6 percent.
The report noted efforts under way in Tennessee to combat obesity, including having stricter school meal standards than the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It also noted that Nashville had launched a GreenBike initiative — a free bicycle sharing agreement.
