It’s no secret that the most serious health problems in Kentucky — cancer, diabetes. Heart disease, emphysema — are self-inflicted and the best thing this state can do to improve its overall health is for its people to live healthier lifestyles. Until that happens, chronic, life-threatening diseases will continue to plague Kentuckians at a much higher rate than people in the rest of the nation. In fact, Kentucky has the nation’s highest rate of chronic diseases.
The state’s 2009 Behavioral Risk Factors confirm what most of us already knew: As a state, too many of us are too fat, don’t exercise enough and smoke, and we are paying a high price for that with high rates of diabetes, stroke, heart disease and cancer.
The latest survey conducted by the Division of Prevention and Quality Improvement in the Kentucky Department for Public Health found that two out of every three Kentucky adults — 66.8 percent — are overweight, but the problem goes far beyond just carrying a few extra pounds. The survey reports that 30.2 percent of Kentucky adults are so overweight that they are classified as obese.
It’s no wonder then that 9.8 percent of Kentuckians report having been told by a doctor that they have diabetes. In addition, 5.8 percent of Kentucky adults have been diagnosed as having coronary heart disease, and 3.5 percent of Kentucky adults have had a stroke.
However, one statistic leads all others in explaining Kentucky’s high rate of chronic illnesses: 25.2 percent of Kentuckians smoke. While that’s a much lower percent age of smokers than just a few years ago, this state still has among the nation’s highest smoking rate.
To be sure, some overweight individuals show little or no ill effects from the extra pounds, and some smokers live long and perfectly healthy lives. But they are the exception. Statistics show that smokers have much high rates of cancer, emphysema and heart disease than non-smokers, and even miss more days of work because of relatively minor ailments than non-smokers. The link between obesity and diabetes is unmistakable.
Having the nation’s highest rate of chronic illness is a negative statistic only the people of this state can do something about. Until more of us commit ourselves to living healthier, we will continue to suffer the consequences of our own bad habits
Editorials
Self-inflicted — 05/28/09
Poor lifestyle choices lead to major health probems in state
- Editorials
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Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.
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Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.
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'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.
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Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.
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Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
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Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.
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Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.
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Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.
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Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.
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Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.
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Charles Chattin
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