I Waged A War Against My Obesity and I Plan to W.I.N.!

My Friday morning bus ride to an office where I sometimes work in downtown Durham, North Carolina, demonstrated graphically what I have come to realize both intellectually and from a practical perspective as well. Too many of us--and by this I mean African Americans and Hispanics--are seriously overweight and obese. This 9 am bus was full, with 32 of the 38 passengers being African Americans and Hispanics, ranging from infants to seniors, like myself. One of every two of us appeared to be overweight or obese, including me. There were six people on the bus this morning who were not African American or Hispanic. Only one of them was obese. In fact, one young African American mother, severely overweight sat down beside me carrying her 10-month-old plump, rotund son.

As I surveyed this scene, I thought about a quote from Eric Finkelstein, the director of Public Health Economics at Research Triangle Institute International, who, in response to the question: "Why are the obesity numbers so high in the South?" said: "It's actually got more to do with minorities. Minorities are more likely to be obese. So if we have a disproportionate number of minorities, it's not surprising we have a disproportionate amount of obesity. If you look at a state like Colorado, which has low rates of obesity, they have very few minority people living there."