By Liz Beavers
lbeavers@newstribune.info
managing editor

KEYSER — Although West Virginia has slipped from second to third place as the nation's fattest state, Dr. Wayne Spiggle said the people of the Mountain State have a long way to go before they can celebrate.
The Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation announced Wednesday that Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia and Tennessee — in that order — top the list of states with adult obesity rates over 30 percent of their population.
In fact, obesity rates among adults rose in 23 states over the past year, and no state experienced a significant decline.
Spiggle, who chairs the Healthy Mineral County Coalition, credits the shocking statistics to personal choice and lifestyle.
“It has to do with the way we live in this modern day,” he said. “One of the main factors is that fast foods are very convenient to many of us. Families today are very busy and they go for the convenience.”
One of the major contributors to obesity, according to Spiggle, is Americans' insatiable taste for sugary soft drinks.
Noting that consuming “four to eight sugared drinks a day is very common in West Virginia,” Spiggle said studies now indicate that even those who consume diet drinks are not safe from the resultant weight gain.
“At least a couple of studies show that diet drinks still stimulate the appetite to want more sweet, high-calorie foods,” he said.
Spiggle also says the lack of exercise is a large contributor to the state's collective weight gain.
“Despite all the advertising about the importance of exercising, people just aren't taking it seriously,” he said.
“Just walking a half hour  day can make a great deal of difference.”
Jeff Levi, executive director for the Trust for America's Health, calls the obesity problem a national crisis which has yet to reach its peak.
“The crest of the wave of obesity is still to crash,” he said.
The report issued by the two organizations provides one of the first in-depth looks at obese baby boomers – those falling in the 55- to 65-year-old range -  and its implications are sobering, especially in the resultant effects on health care.
This first wave of aging boomers will mean a jump of obese Medicare patients that ranges from 5.2 percent in New York to a high of 16.3 percent in Alabama, the report concluded. In Alabama, nearly 39 percent of the oldest boomers are obese.
Health economists once made the harsh financial calculation that the obese would save money by dying sooner. But more recent research instead suggests that better treatments are keeping them alive nearly as long — but they're much sicker for longer, requiring such costly interventions as knee replacements and diabetes care and dialysis. Medicare spends anywhere from $1,400 to $6,000 more annually on health care for an obese senior than for the non-obese, Levi said.
“There isn't a magic bullet. We don't have a pill for it,” said Levi. “It's not going to be solved in the doctor's office but in the community, where we change norms.”
Spiggle agrees that there's no easy solution to the growing problem.
He does praise the Mineral County Board of Education, however,  for making great strides in removing snack foods and sugary drinks from the schools, as well as Gov. Joe Manchin for “his efforts to try to get people to live more healthily.”
The Healthy Mineral County Coalition has been working in conjunction with the Governor's program to promote a healthier lifestyle.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.