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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Scale Says Kentucky Needs to Slim Down

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Tuesday, November 10, 2015   

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky "tips the scale" as the state with the seventh-biggest weight problem in the country, according to new numbers in the Fattest States In America report from the data-crunching website Wallethub.

Researchers examined government data, including material from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to come up with the profile. According to Jill Gonzalez of Wallethub, more than three-quarters of U.S. adults are overweight or obese. As the holidays approach, she says it's important to be aware of the problem.

"Those hearty-eating holidays are fast approaching, so we're hoping to pinpoint where the weight problem is the most prevalent in the U.S.," she says. "Hopefully we're encouraging Americans to reevaluate their lifestyles, starting, of course, with what they're eating in the next couple of months."

The study found that Kentucky has the third-highest percentage of residents with high cholesterol.

Nutritionist and public health consultant Anita Courtney of Lexington says one way to begin reversing the trend is to make healthy eating and physical activity more popular, and accessible, to the state's youth. She chairs a coalition that works with "tweens" – kids between the ages of nine and 13.

"One of the biggest contributors to childhood obesity is sweetened beverages," she says. "If we can start to shift that, that's going to make a significant difference."

To shape a child's nutrition and exercise, Courtney says parents, community leaders and schools all have to provide a healthy environment and set consistent policies.


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