06 June, 2005 15:19 GMT
West Virginia, a state with one of the worst obesity problems in the country, has called in the big guns for help. For the first time, federal disease investigators in Atlanta are studying obesity, just as they would investigate the rapid spread of an infectious disease.
"We didn't suddenly realize we have this problem," state health official Keri Kennedy said Friday. "But we are facing a severe health crisis and this is a new way of looking at it."
West Virginia is consistently among the top three states in the nation for obesity, according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state Bureau of Public Health.
A Much Deeper Understanding
In 2002, the latest data available, 28 percent of West Virginians were considered obese. The extra weight can lead to high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, some cancers and other problems. West Virginia leads the nation in high blood pressure and is fourth in diabetes.
"Health officials in West Virginia appropriately recognized that they had a serious problem with obesity in their state, and they really wanted to do more than just describe it," said CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding.
She said the state "wanted to -- profile where the problem was, how is it growing, who had it, how bad was it, and really get a much deeper understanding of it."
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