My friend C.C. and I -- he's a fellow West Virginia native -- have often lamented to each other that when our home state made the national news, it was typically one of three things: more mining layoffs; something about inbreeding; or some kind of feature story about how poverty-stricken and screwed up things are there.
The theme continues today, with a slight twist, in the form of the announcement that Huntington, West Virginia, the major city in the southwestern portion of the state, is America's unhealthiest and fattest, according to a new study:
Nearly half the adults in Huntington's five-county metropolitan area are obese — an astounding percentage, far bigger than the national average in a country with a well-known weight problem.
Huntington leads in a half-dozen other illness measures, too, including heart disease and diabetes. It's even tops in the percentage of elderly people who have lost all their teeth (half of them have).
It's a sad situation, and a potential harbinger of what will happen to other U.S. communities, said Ken Thorpe, an Emory University health policy professor who is working with West Virginia officials on health reform legislation.
"They may be at the very top, but obesity and diabetes trends are very similar" in many other communities, particularly in the South, Thorpe said.
The Huntington area's health problems, cited in a U.S. health report, are a terrible distinction for the city, but the locals barely talk about it. Many don't even know how poorly the city ranks.
I had relatives in Huntington but haven't been there since probably 1980 or something. My aunt died some time ago (skinny as a broomstick, by the way), and my uncle and the cousins all moved away.
Anyway, this is the kind of national exposure to which we're accustomed. This was leavened for a few years by the consistent excellence of the football team, which got the state its only positive national coverage. But the salad days appear to be over in that realm as well.
