“I think the mistake that is happening is this `full-figured woman’ title–she’s no longer considered obese, she’s just full-figured–it’s a death sentence for the Black woman. I’d like to choke the person who came up with that title because it’s killing us, and I’m sick and tired of going to funerals of Black women in their 50s.” –Dr. Soundrea Hickman, M.D. and founder of the Association for Improving and Maintaining Black Health, as quoted in Ebony magazine.

It’s no secret that Americans are overweight. But the numbers are down right eye popping when you look at one segment of our population: African Americans.

Seventy two percent of Black males and 78 percent of Black females are either overweight or obese, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office of Minority Health.

And the problem is not confined to adults: over 44% of Black children are considered overweight.

As a result, Blacks suffer diabetes at a rate that’s twice that of our White population. Blacks also top the charts for heart disease-related deaths and hypertension.

The causes are many.

There is a strong correlation between low income and obesity.  In 2010, 27.4% of Black households were poor and 38.2% of Black American children were living in poverty, according to the University of Michigan’s National Poverty Center.

Many poor neighborhoods have become “food deserts” as grocery stores offering affordable, healthy food have migrated to the suburbs.  Filling the void are fast food outlets and convenience stores with offerings full of cheap, fatty calories.

Geographic influences play a role. Over half of the country’s 40 million Black population lives in the South, a region that’s considered the unhealthiest, according to America’s Health Rankings.

Also at play are inaccurate self-assessments of actual body size, as alluded to by Dr. Hickman. We nuance the language, partly to promote a positive self-image, so that “fat” becomes “big boned.”  All the while, Black women in the country have a life expectancy that’s almost six years less than White women.

What’s the answer?  As with most problems, it will take a concentrated effort on many fronts.

Walmart, the nation’s largest grocer, is tackling the problem with a plan to build stores in underserved neighborhoods that are in need of healthy and affordable food. With 140 million weekly customers, Walmart is in a unique position to help Americans eat healthier.

First Lady Michelle Obama has launched Let’s Move! to combat childhood obesity, which has tripled over the past three decades. Let’s Move! is projecting that one third of all children born in 2000 and later will suffer from diabetes if we don’t solve the problem.

Americans are digging their graves with forks and spoons, and the problems are magnified for Black Americans.  Through our healthy living initiative, Endeavor hopes to reverse this trend in our small corner in Arkansas.

February is Black History Month, a time when we celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of African Americans. In light of Endeavor’s soon-to-be unveiled healthy living initiative, we thought we would highlight a small sampling of contributions Black Americans have made to nutrition and wellness.

Any discussion on this subject has to start with one of our country’s best-known inventors, George Washington Carver. Let’s set the record straight from the beginning: he DID NOT invent peanut butter; that honor belongs to the ancient Egyptians. He did develop over 300 uses for peanuts and hundreds of uses for sweet potatoes, pecans, and soybeans (many newspapers today use soy ink pioneered by Carver).

As an aside, peanut butter is an inexpensive and nutritious protein source for low-income families. A peanut butter-based paste called “Plumpy’nut” is being used successfully to fight starvation among children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Carver also pioneered the idea of crop rotation–alternating peanuts and soybeans in place of cotton or tobacco– which was a huge benefit to Arkansas farmers as well as their brethren across the south. Carver is undoubtedly one of America’s greatest minds. His genius was honored by Time magazine in 1941 in an article that called him the “black Leonardo da Vinci.”

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 Andrew Jackson Beard spent the first 15 years of his life as a slave on an Alabama farm. While barely out of his teens, he created and championed his first invention, an improved plow. A patent for a second plow followed in three years. Thanks to his inventions, farmers were able to more efficiently till the soil and increase crop yields. In 1892, he filed a patent for an improved rotary steam engine. Little is known about Beard from the time of his final patent application in 1897 until his death in 1921, but he left us with some incredible inventions.

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Dr. Charles Drew is credited with establishing the first blood bank. He invented the process of separating the liquid red blood cells from the near solid plasma and freezing the two separately, which allowed blood to be preserved and reconstituted later.

He organized the world’s first blood drive, nicknamed “Blood for Britain,” in the early days of WWII. In 1941, the American Red Cross established blood donor stations to collect plasma for U.S. soldiers.

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 Frederick McKinley Jones was orphaned at the age of 9 and dropped out of school after the eighth grade, yet his inventions were awarded 61 patents. Forty of these were for refrigeration equipment, the most important being a portable air-cooling unit for trucks that allowed fresh foods to be transported safely across country.  He died of lung cancer in 1961.  President Bush recognized his contributions with the awarding of the National Medal of Technology in 1991.

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Appointed by President Barack Obama, Dr. Regina M. Benjamin is the 18^th Surgeon General of the U.S.  She oversees 6,500 public health officials charged with protecting the health of the American people. Among her many honors, she was named “Person of the Week” by ABC News; “Woman of the Year” by CBS This Morning; is a recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights; and the first physician under age 40 and the first African-American Woman to be elected to the American Medical Association Board of Trustees.

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And while it’s a stretch to call this a contribution to nutrition, George Crum has to be recognized for his role in creating a multi-billion dollar food industry. He is credited with inventing the potato chip in 1853. The story, which is more legend than fact, is that Crum created our country’s favorite junk food while chef at the Moon Lake Lodge in Saratoga Springs, NY.  Supposedly a disappointed diner sent back a plate of French fries with a complaint about them being too thick. An angry Chef Crum sliced a new potato into paper-thin slices, fried them, and dispatched them to the table. Of course the diners loved them and an industry was born.

Crum never patented the invention but he did open his own restaurant in Saratoga Lake featuring baskets of potato chips on each table. The restaurant was open and successful for 30 years. While consuming chips should be a guilty pleasure that’s rarely indulged, the inventor was either a light eater of the salty-fried treats or blessed with good genes. He lived a long and fruitful life to age 92, and his invention generates over $6 billion annually in sales.

We have to admire Crum for his creativity and drive, but his culinary contribution is among many of the empty calories found on too many American plates today.  Unhealthy eating habits have led to alarming rates of obesity, and the problem is really magnified for Black Americans. In a future blog, we’ll discuss health problems endemic to this population.