'We Suck the Least!'

Good news: Colorado, home of Testosterone and Biotest, is once again the fittest, leanest state in the nation.

Bad news: Coloradoans, in spite of being the least overweight, still got fatter as a whole last year by .8%. In fact, every state in the US, except for the District of Columbia, got fatter.

This info comes from CalorieLab's ranking of the fattest states, an annual look at the obesity epidemic in America. This year, Colorado was the leanest, Mississippi was the fattest.

But there's something more to this, something very disturbing that most of the lay press is overlooking. Let's review the stats.

The percentage of obese or overweight people in Mississippi is 68.1%. That's right, put 10 random Mississippians in a room and 7 of them will likely be either overweight or downright obese.

Now, most of these studies look at BMI scores to determine the "overweight" and "obese" labels, with obesity being defined as a BMI of 30 or over and overweight being defined as a BMI of 25 to 29.9.

True, BMI is a flawed measurement tool for those of us who lift weights, but I think we can all look around at the grocery store and see that the average American isn't "obese" because he or she is just so gosh-darned buff. So BMI is an okay tool when looking at the population at large.

Now let's look at the leanest state. The percentage of obese or overweight people in Colorado is 55.7%, the lowest in the nation. But that means over half of all residents of Colorado are fat! (And FYI, 18.4% are clinically obese in Colorado; 31.6% in Mississippi.)

This makes Colorado the leanest, healthiest state?

Frightening.

There's no reason for Colorado to celebrate. Mississippi, the fattest, is only 12.4% fatter than Colorado, the leanest. There just isn't that much of a difference between them. It's kinda like the third-string football player making fun of the fourth-string football player. Don't get too high and mighty, chump... you're a bench warmer too.

So, Coloradians, let's not start singing "We Are the Champions" just yet. Colorado merely sucks the least.

I've been sitting here trying to wrap this up by outlining a simple solution. No luck so far. As I've written so many times before, people generally know what to do to lose fat and get healthier; it's not a matter of ignorance vs. education. People simply choose NOT to do it. And there's just not much we, the fitness and health industry, can do about that.

I was thinking about all this today at the gym. As usual, I had my iPod on and my cap pulled down low so as to block out all the nonsense around me. I've written dozens of rants and articles about the goofiness you see in the gym these days: the misguided personal trainers with their trendy balance gadgets, the people holding cell phones with one hand while curling a dumbbell with the other hand, the frat boys using the squat rack for everything BUT squatting, etc.

I still get flashes of anger when I see this crap. But then I remember those statistics, the ones that tell us that the healthiest state in the nation still has 55% of its population overweight or obese. And then I think, "Well, at least the cell phone yackers and squat rack curlers are in the gym doing something."

They may have a long way to go, but reading a copy of People while doing concentration curls is at least better than sitting at home eating Oreos by the row.

And this makes me happy.

Okay, it doesn't really make me "happy."

But it does make me want to kick them in the head a little less hard.

I live in Oklahoma and it's sad how fat people here are. Working at a bakery cafe, a lot of people come in with the mindset that it doesn't matter what they eat. Buying $10 worth of cookies for yourself is not going to do any good for your body, you should spend that $10 towards a gym membership or some organic chicken, not muffin-top making muffin-tops.

I had a customer that refused to buy a muffin because it was not low-fat (she was elderly) and I told her the only difference is the frosting is different, the muffin is still made of the same base ingredients. She refused, but I also wanted to say (but didn't, as to keep my job) "If you are wanting to get in better shape, you should probably worry about having something other than a MUFFIN at 8 P.M"

The issue is that the elderly of our nation have no idea about weight loss and fitness, and as such, neither does our youth.

All an 18 year old like me can do is try my hardest to get in greater shape and learn all he can about proper nutrition to keep the corporations of america from stuffing their hands down my off-springs (hopefully not) fat throats.

And no one wants to be fat. Even if fat is average, there is always going to be someone like Chris here who makes the guys in the room feel emasculated and the women get flustered, but the women can't get him because they've eaten too many cupcakes and the guys are just going to suck in their guts some more and continue ignoring their real problems: Obesity. The key to a healthy mind is a healthy body.

It's only because there's Anaconda in Colorado.