Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Lazy states.

"You know, in my hometown of Hope, Arkansas,
the three sacred heroes were Jesus, Elvis, and FDR,
not necessarily in that order." -Mike Huckabee
Skinny runner posted about this, and I just had to post about it since Arkansas made the list. And this is not a good list to make.

Businessweek.com analyzed five years of data (2004-08) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and compiled a list of the 20 laziest states. The BLS’ American Time Use Survey recorded time spent on daily activities such as sleeping, watching television, surfing the Net, playing board games, relaxing, thinking and socializing.
Businessweek defined lazy as the amount of time people spend engaged in sedentary activities versus activities requiring physical effort -such as exercising or working.

Arkansas is No. 3 on the list. Awesome.

Peter Katzmarzyk, associate executive director at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., said Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas are all in the Mississippi Delta region, an area that is “very poor, has poor medical service and is hot, humid and has few opportunities for physical activity," he told Businessweek.com.

I DO NOT agree with this statement about Arkansas. Come visit (you can stay with me) and tell me there are not plenty of opportunities for physical activity. We are the Natural State. I hate when people make assumptions like that. You know what happens when you make ASSumptions…

In fact, in Fayetteville, which is where I live, we have approximately 20 miles of paved trails with future plans to expand the trail system by more than 100 miles in order to connect the city’s neighborhoods, parks, recreation, and shopping areas.

Arkansas has numerous rivers, lakes, caves, trails, and on and on.

I’m not denying the results of this study. It’s probably true. But I would like to tell Mr. Katzmarzyk that we have no excuse to be lazy.

FYI: The article does say, “To be clear, by ‘lazy’ we do not mean lacking work ethic or engagement.”

You can read the entire article here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're in FAYETTEVILLE, the most educated part of the state.
Visit the Delta, honey. There are no sidewalks, there is no health education, there are no healthy restaurants, or even coffeeshops or bookstores. That rural-ness is the vast majority of our state, and that's why we're #3 laziest.

Allison said...

Thanks for the comment. I do understand where I live is different than most of the state. I still think laziness is a choice. Even if there is no health education, you can use common sense to know what is good for your body and what isn't. I think there's a lot we could do as a state to improve education, but I also think sometimes people need to make a little effort.

You don't need a sidewalk to exercise. The town I grew up in didn't have sidewalks. It was a tiny town in central Arkansas (I moved in the 8th) grade.

I think you could blame ruralness on a lot of states. I don't think a person should depend on someone else to educate them or build a place for them to exercise. You have to do it yourself.

But I love to hear someone else's opinion! And I can completely see where you're coming from.