Obesity, Mapped – And Why Ezra Klein Is Wrong

The Daily Yonder put up these sweet maps detailing dietary habits – fast food spending, meat consumption, soda intake, etc – across the country. On his blog, Ezra Klein did a cursory comparison of these maps with a map that displays obesity rates. He points out:

The most interesting, perhaps, is the map showing fruit and vegetable consumption. To my eye, it looks more like the obesity map than, say, the fast food map does. It’s a good reminder that what makes people heavy is the consumption of calories. The good calorie/bad calorie dichotomy that has arisen in recent years makes some nutritional sense but, in a society primarily afflicted with overeating, is probably also missing the point.

I think he’s wrong.

Pay close attention to Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia – those sky-high obesity rates smack of Southern soul food. What you’ll notice is that the regions of these states with high fruit/veg consumption actually do have relatively low obesity, like northern Georgia.

Conversely, the ominous dark blue splotches of severe obesity in southern Mississippi and Alabama don’t seem to consume many vegetables at all. As expected. But they also don’t eat much meat, according to the meat and poultry map. And these regions don’t have an inordinately high density of fast-food restaurants, nor an exorbitant amount of fast-food spending per person.  Where, then, is the overeating that Ezra Klein is talking about? (Hint: look at the map of soft-drink intake – and then, perhaps, this income map.)

In my opinion, these maps are evidence that it isn’t overeating that’s making us fat. It’s intransigent poverty, steep food prices, and our cheap carbonated vice – soft drinks.

–Trisha Jain