Texas Obesity Awareness Week 2009

The Texas Department of Agriculture's Chief Nutrition Coordinator, Paige Abernathy, will be guest blogging throughout Texas Obesity Awareness Week. Read her blog to find out interesting obesity facts, and tips on losing weight.

It’s Obesity Awareness week across Texas! This week will be dedicated to making a difference in the lives of all Texans. The number of overweight and obese Texans has been steadily growing over the past 20 years. Obesity can have a devastating impact on an individual, both physically and mentally, and on the community through the impact of health care costs and lost work productivity. Knowledge is power, and the better we all understand the obesity issue, the more chance we have at changing our fate.

Some Interesting Obesity Stats You Should Know

• In 2007, nearly 66 percent of Texas adults were overweight or obese.
• In 2007, 32 percent of Texas high-school students were overweight or obese.
• If the current trends continue, 20 million or 75 percent of Texas adults will be overweight or obese by the year 2040, and the cost to Texas will quadruple from $10.5 billion today to as much as $39 billion by 2040.
• According to the National Nutritional Health Survey, the prevalence of childhood obesity was greater in Texas in 2004-2005 than it was in the entire U.S. in 2003-2004. The overall prevalence of overweight and obesity in Texas schoolchildren was 42 percent for fourth-graders, 39 percent for eighth-graders and 36 percent for eleventh-graders in 2004-2005.

You can get more information on these stats here.

Check back throughout the week for weight loss and obesity prevention tips.