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In the deep south we’ve been eating the same way for centuries. Traditional foods have been passed down from generation to generation and it's a heavy meal. But while the deep fried recipes have stayed the same, the activity level has dropped. So we've fattened up in a big way.
This became abundantly clear to Rev. Michael O. Minor after he returned from Harvard and then a few years selling cars in Boston, according to a story in the New York Times. He noticed that the members of his Baptist church were pleasantly plump and this impoverished area of the Mississippi Delta had been hit hard by obesity and the problems that go along with it. Mr. Minor has been fighting the good fight ever since.
According to the New York Times,
The National Baptist Convention, which represents some seven million people in nearly 10,000 churches, is ramping up a far-reaching health campaign devised by Mr. Minor, which aims to have a “health ambassador” in every member church by September 2012. The goals of the program, the most ambitious of its kind, will be demanding but concrete, said the Rev. George W. Waddles Sr., the president of the convention’s Congress of Christian Education.
Some churches are becoming “no fry zones” and greens are now being boiled with turkey necks instead of ham hocks. And that famous southern sweet tea is being replaced with water. But the new enemy, fast food is also to blame.
Again, the New York Times:
“I think the most resistance will be with your youth who say McDonald’s is so tempting,” said Johnnie Carter, who is helping lead the health push at Bel Mount, driven to get involved after she had a heart attack at the age of 41. But, she added, “you’ll have your older folks who say, ‘I’ve been eating this way all my life.’ It’s around the board.”
It’s no easy fight when you consider that Mississippi is among the worst when it comes to obesity. In 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rated Mississippi the fattest state in the country, above Alabama, Tennessee, and Louisiana with 32 percent of adults considered obese. You're considered obese when your BMI exceeds 30, which depending on your height, is substantially over weight. But even still, it's a new dimension in the plight to reduce obesity in the deep fried south.
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