A new study get that Americans inhabit in rural areas are more likely to be obese than city dwellers . The study , publish in the National Rural Health Association ’s fall 2012Journal of Rural Health , indicates that residential position could take on an important role in the fleshiness epidemic .
take by research worker at the University of Kansas , the discipline analyzed data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics and is the first in more than three decades to apply measured heights and weight . Previous study have bank on ego - reported data , which typically undervalue the prevalence of obesity .
Christie Befort , PhD , assistant prof of preventive medicine and public health at the University of Kansas Medical Center , believes there might be two important reasons why rural resident physician are more potential to be overweight : cultural diet and forcible isolation .
“ There is a definite ethnic diet in rural America , full of plenteous , homemade foods , including lots of meat and dessert , ” says Befort , who led the report . The bailiwick , which also examined demographic and life-style gene , found that rural Americans typically consume a dieting higher in fat .
Rural resident also face up challenges to access health care , prevention and life-style activity .
“ approach is often about [ travelling time ] in a rural area , but it can also be that there ’s no place to go — literal forcible isolation , ” Befort says . “ It ’s tough to get to a gymnasium if you live outside of a town without one . ”
The research prove that the rural - urban obesity disparity exist in jr. Americans , ages 20 to 39 , but not in honest-to-god years groups . Befort think this can be partly attribute to increased mechanization of previously confinement - intensive jobs .
“ Physical activity is now needed to recompense for diet and technology , ” Befort says . “ That requires ethnic modification because rural field typically do n’t have a civilization of physical natural process as leisure clock time . ”
Befort examined several factors that are thought to affect fleshiness , include dieting , strong-arm bodily function , eld , race , sexuality and breeding . The researchers name that even when other contributing gene are held invariant , rural house physician were more probable to be obese .
“ Living in a rural area is n’t always recognize as a family for corpulency - related wellness disparities , but fit in to our study , it should be , ” Befort state .
“ We simply can not neglect the radio link between obesity and poorness , and the disproportionate impingement this is having on rural America , ” read Alan Morgan , CEO of the National Rural Health Association . “ If we rightfully require to decrease wellness - care costs and improve the res publica ’s health status , we are going to have to start viewing obesity as a top - tier public wellness concern for rural Americans . ”
