With estimates that nearly 60 percent of Snohomish County adults are overweight, the county’s top public health official is calling for a coalition to begin battling the weight-gain trend of the past decade.
“It’s a fact that the rates are going up,” said Dr. M. Ward Hinds, who heads the Snohomish Health District. “They’re pretty dramatic.”
In the county, 59.8 percent of adults are either overweight or obese, according to the state Department of Health.
That number is based on a survey from 2003, in which 1,440 Snohomish County residents were contacted and asked a variety of health-related questions.
One was on height and weight. From this information, a calculation was made on the number of adults who are overweight or obese, using federal standards.
For example, a woman who is 5 feet 5 inches tall would be considered overweight if she weighed 160 pounds, or obese if she weighed 200 pounds, according to state health officials.
A man who is 5 feet 11 inches tall would be considered overweight if he weighed 190 pounds or obese if he weighed 235 pounds.
The number of overweight adults in the county has declined slightly since 1998, the survey results show, but at the same time the number of obese adults has increased. Twenty-one percent of area adult women are classified as obese, and nearly 22 percent of men are obese.
On Tuesday, Hinds said he would like to pull community groups together to work on the problem, but he does not yet have a specific plan for what they might do. He said he hopes to have specifics on the obesity fight plan in the next several months.
Hinds said the group could work on the problem of childhood obesity as well.
About 8 percent of eighth- and 12th-graders are obese, while about 10 percent of 10th-graders are obese, according to a fall 2002 state Health Department survey.
Last year, local groups kicked off a free summer program for kids called Get Movin’. It offered incentives such as free swimming, ice skating and indoor climbing passes to kids who were active at least 20 minutes three times a week. Six hundred children participated.
The program will be offered again this year, probably kicking off in late June.
“As a society, we’re overconsuming calories and underexercising,” Hinds said.
Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
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