Strange Maps features a regional depiction of American obesity rates. Unsurprisingly, the Deep South is deep-frying its way to diabetes and an early death, while the Northeast, West Coast, and Rocky Mountain regions are the thinnest in the country. At the Aspen Ideas Festival last week (held in America's thinnest state), Paul Campos, author of The Obesity Myth, argued that concern about fatness is really just an overblown symptom of rich Americans' desire to look down their noses at poor Americans. Indeed, obesity is associated worldwide with poverty, in large part because the cheapest foods created by our industrial agricultural system are high in fat and refined carbohydrates. But obesity is also expensive, and as Ezra points out, the American diet that causes obesity is also terrible for the environment. So obesity ought to be a national concern -- not because we should be castigating the overweight, but because healthier living benefits our larger society.
--Dana Goldstein
