America's Fattest Cities

After visiting the Cheesecake Factory the other night, I got into a conversation with some teachers at school about obesity in America. There was a debate about whether Houston or Dallas was the fattest city in the country. I decided to Google it myself and discovered that Men's Fitness magazine has rated Houston at #6 this year, behind Miami, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Las Vegas, and New York City. Congratulations!

According to Men's Fitness, "donuts are 132% more popular here than average," and we have "the 6th highest number of donut outlets per capita." (Is Boston #1?) I can tell you that about twice a month, one of my students brings in delicious glazed donuts for his lovely co-teachers. He is one of my favorites, needless to say.

But surely there is something greater at play here than donuts? My hypothesis is that poverty rates and obesity rates are closely related (though again I must state that I am not the statistician of the household). After some census-searching, this is what I found:

• According to the U.S. Census, in 2007, the national poverty rate was 12.5%. For Hispanics, the rate was 21.5%.


• For the city of Houston, the poverty rate was somewhere between 16-21%, depending on which study or graph you read. The Hispanic population of Houston is 41.87%.

I'm not saying that all Hispanic people are poor and/or fat, but I think we can agree that when you are poor it is very difficult to afford healthy food. If you work long hours at a low-paying job, it is also probably very difficult to find time to go jogging or the extra money to afford a gym membership. The obsession with being fit is very class-specific.

The American Community Survey lists the national poverty rate at 13.3%. Here are the poverty rates it gives for the other cities:

• Miami (Congressional District 18) - 17.7%


• Oklahoma City - 17.4%
  
• San Antonio - 18.3%
  
• Las Vegas - 11.4%
  
• New York City - 18.9%

Okay, Las Vegas is the outlier there. But otherwise, there seems to be a correlation between poverty and obesity.

The fittest city in America, Colorado Springs (Congressional District 5), has a poverty rate of 10.7%, and Minneapolis (Hennepin County) at #2 has a poverty rate of 10.8%.

On an interesting sidenote, 44 out of 61 Texas communities have poverty levels above the national average.

Garrett tells me there are already studies out there that discuss poverty and obesity rates. But sometimes I like to play Malcolm Gladwell and figure it out for myself!