Wow! Look at this. What a change from just a year ago! Good News for a fitter, trimmer OKC!








http://newsok.com/oklahoma-city-now-on-list-of-fittest-american-cities/article/3652824

Finally. =)

Just as I've pooh poohed the showing of OKC on the fattest lists, I'll take this one with a grain of salt too. They don't have any realistic method of determing something like that. Overall I think the population is taking their health more seriously though.

Just as I've pooh poohed the showing of OKC on the fattest lists, I'll take this one with a grain of salt too. They don't have any realistic method of determing something like that. Overall I think the population is taking their health more seriously though.

Plus the standard deviation was not all that large to begin with between how obesity each state is on any of the surveys, with vast majority if not all getting worse, till we sustain a noticeably trend our percentage down it is hard to claim victory. Hope this is a trend that we continue to improve on.

Don't get me wrong, I am quite happy to see the article. Am curious what statistics they used though. Perhaps they used a sample from the 73154 zip code? ; )

I thought the same thing, Sid. I got this magazine a few weeks ago and was astonished that we (OKC) flipped in a year. Austin was also one of the fattest cities. They never explained the methodology, so take this list for what it's worth. Which is, just fodder for a message board, and for the Chamber's list of achievements...

If you want to look at hard health statistics, Oklahoma is 48th (and dropping!) among all states when you look at obesity, smoking and the like.

The smoking rate is the hardest to understand... What is it about the local culture that causes this? In this day and age the fact almost a quarter (!) of adults in the state smoke is just astounding.

http://www.americashealthrankings.org/OK

There's a direct correlation between education (or lack thereof) and smoking rates. We unfortunately lag in education, so we lead in smoking. Also, interestingly, states with higher tax rates (which would likely include cigarette taxes) tend to have fewer smokers. Me, I'll take the smoking neighbors and lower overall taxes.

If you want to look at hard health statistics, Oklahoma is 48th (and dropping!) among all states when you look at obesity, smoking and the like.

The smoking rate is the hardest to understand... What is it about the local culture that causes this? In this day and age the fact almost a quarter (!) of adults in the state smoke is just astounding.

http://www.americashealthrankings.org/OK


Several years ago, I saw a presentation by Dr. Miles Crutcher in which he compared Oklahoma's key health stats to the state of Kansas. In almost every category: obesity, smoking, cancer, teen pregnancy...Oklahoma was in the "bottom" five, while Kansas was in the "top" five. He couldn't understand why a fairly similar state in geography, economic makeup and population could be the polar opposite of ours. Worth studying.

I was born and raised in Wichita to parents who were from Oklahoma. About 25 years ago I moved "back" to Oklahoma (despite never having lived here) to go to school, and stayed. I still make it up to Kansas pretty often to visit my mom. It's strange, but the cultural differences between Kansas and Oklahoma are pretty palpable. Texas, Arkansas, even Louisiana feel closer to Oklahoma to me. Kansans have little awareness of us, and us of them. It's really odd, but I can see how there would be as many differences as there are in that study.