According to a report issued yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2009 there were roughly 2.4 million more obese adults than in 2007–a hefty 72 million Americans in all were obese in 2009.

Unsurprisingly the report suggests increasing physical activity and improving access to affordable healthy foods. But, beyond the standard and obvious suggestions, I was pleasantly surprised that the report acknowledges breastfeeding as a means to combat obesity. Not only does breastfeeding help new mothers shed weight gained during pregnancy, but it has also been linked to reduced levels of obesity in adults and children.

Unfortunately tackling obesity is easier said than done. For many, the causes are intertwined with poverty. It is not always an option to eat healthier food, or to find the time to exercise. And, in many poor neighborhoods, stores selling healthy foods are simply not available. I still remember trying to scrounge together a moderately nutritious breakfast as I departed Auburn, Ill., during my cross-country walk. The only place open was the small store attached to the gas station–the town didn’t even have a grocery store. I asked the man who worked there if there was any fruit. He said they used to sell fruit, but the supplier decided it wasn’t worth his while because the location was so small. In the end I cobbled together a breakfast of granola bars, fruit juice and donuts–not exactly what you want to start your day when you plan to walk 20 miles.

The connection between poverty and obesity is complicated and seems to defy common sense. Yet, those living in poverty are more likely to be obese. In a column in Slate, Daniel Engber said it best: “Sickness, poverty, and obesity are spun together in a dense web of reciprocal causality. Anyone who’s fat is more likely to be poor and sick. Anyone who’s poor is more likely to be fat and sick. And anyone who’s sick is more likely to be poor and fat.”

The CDC report seems to make this connection as well. Beyond the connection between obesity and health, it found that those who are obese have medical costs that are $1,429 higher than those of normal weight. Further, recent estimates of the annual medical costs associated with obesity are as high as $147 billion.

Just where to start in tackling the problem can be daunting. And finger-pointing is no solution. On numerous occasions when I told people I was walking cross-country they told me they could barely walk from the parking lot to the location we were both standing. Now I suspect many people were exaggerating. But, for some, I doubt it was a stretch.

And so, if we are to find a solution to obesity, poor health and poverty, it needs to start somewhere. Perhaps it can start with one small step.

– By Jennifer E. Cooper

And, as I walked through what was perhaps the “hood-lite” of Kansas City, I realized that the sight of boarded up houses, trash-strewn streets, drug dealers loitering on the corner, and shuttered business districts no longer leaves an impression. The poor neighborhoods and decaying industrial zones of the cities and towns I’ve visited are all beginning to blend. For sure each place has it’s own character, its own reasons for falling into decline, but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that they are abandoned and broken communities, and that they need a concerted effort on the part of the entire community to make them whole again.

Of course turning around a city in decline is no small undertaking. It takes time to encourage business development and create jobs. Failing schools need funding and skilled teachers. Cities that are losing population need to decide to either contract or develop a plan to attract new residents. And it requires the political strength from city leaders to not be swayed by special interests and cries of NIMBY.

But it can be done. Places like Flint, Mich., have taken dramatic steps towards revitalization–including bulldozing large portions of the city and returning them to parkland. Cities like Little Rock, Indianapolis and Toledo, among others, are following suit.

That said, simply redeveloping a neighborhood is not a solution either. Often redeveloped communities tend to seek higher-income residents, forcing those who had lived in the slum neighborhoods into other slums or on the street. While visiting Detroit, an acquaintance told me about the problems of the redevelopment along the city’s Cass Corridor. High-end condos and rotting homes are plentiful–more modest homes for the middle class are largely absent. Merely relocating the poor is unacceptable.

Understandably higher priced homes mean more money for the tax base. But a vacant and pretty home is just as useless to a community as one that is vacant and dilapidated. A thriving community is one that takes into consideration the needs and contributions of those at all income brackets.

– By Jennifer E. Cooper

Now I will be the first to admit that walking as a means of transportation is overrated. And biking is only marginally better. But there is a time and place for human-powered means of transportation. Within towns and cities, both walking and biking are great ways to reduce vehicular congestion and pollution, get some exercise and meet your neighbors.

In recent years, Columbia has experienced a substantial shift towards human-powered transportation in large part thanks to former Mayor Darwin Hindman. According to an article in the Columbia Daily Tribune, during his time in office, the city secured more than $22 million in federal grants to make the city more bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly. He was also a major supporter of the creation of the cross-state Katy Trail State Park, which I walked from Columbia to Rocheport.

The city also has an annual Bike, Walk and Wheel week sponsored by PedNet, which advocates for better facilities for walking, biking, and wheeling, and works to help people shift to non-motorized transportation. Certainly large parts of Columbia are easily navigated by foot and though I cannot speak for getting around town on bike, I don’t doubt that the city is bike friendly.

Unfortunately, as I walked along the Katy trail from Columbia to Rocheport today I realized what a luxury it can be to be free from motorized transportation. As nice as it can be to walk or bike, cars are faster and we live in a society where time is money. It is not easy to justify spending an hour to walk three miles to work or run errands when it would take perhaps 10 minutes by car. But that doesn’t mean we cannot sometimes decide to leave the car behind and enjoy life at a slower pace.

– By Jennifer E. Cooper

When it comes to breaking out of the cycle of poverty, so many times it is suggested that education is the key. But teachers can only do so much. As one middle school teacher I had the privilege to meet today described it, they are just scratching at the surface.

A sixth-grade math teacher at one of the city’s struggling public schools, Steve talked about the challenges, and the rewards, of the two years he’s taught in St Louis. So many of his students are grade levels behind, are clueless when it comes to basic life skills, have behavioral problems or live in unstable homes.

That is not to say students aren’t learning. He told me that during the course of the year many students make great strides. Unfortunately, going from a third-grade to a fifth-grade math level still leaves them unprepared for entering the seventh grade. Teaching is a constant uphill battle.

“I never thought I’d have to physically restrain a student,” he said. Frequently he had to handcuff one student with behavioral problems until the student was able to calm down. On one occasion the student slammed a door, breaking the glass and accidentally cutting Steve’s arm–a scar from the incident is clearly visible on his forearm.

And it was heartbreaking to hear how unprepared many of his students are, not just in their formal eduction, but in regards to the basic knowledge children must learn as they grow into adults. Though his students are street smart, he’s had to sit down with more than a few students and explain the basics of hygiene; that they need to shower or wear deodorant; that other students are avoiding them because their body odor is offensive. Most are equally in the dark when it comes to their bodies and sex.

Teachers in Missouri are not allowed to discuss anything but abstinence with students when it comes to the topic of sex. But, when you know your students are sexually active, and that their older siblings are having babies, what is a teacher to do? In an ideal world, children would not be having sex or becoming parents. He and another teacher at the school found creative ways to get their students the information they needed.

Meeting Steve was both inspiring and depressing. I was impressed by his dedication, by his compassion, and his strength in teaching students whose needs are so great. Beyond just being a teacher, he was a role model, a parent figure, a friend. But, if teachers as dedicated as Steve are merely scratching at the surface, surely we need a better way. Students, teachers and schools are not failing. Instead, we are failing as a society, as a community, to provide our children with the tools they need to become independent adults.

– By Jennifer E. Cooper

The town of Chenoa is falling to pieces. I do not mean this in a figurative sense. A stroll through the downtown reveals nothing but shuttered businesses, closed signs, and buildings literally falling to the ground. One building in the center of town quite spectacularly has its back end exposed to the elements–the rear of the building one day suddenly gave way and it has been roped off ever since.

While eating lunch at the Chenoa Family Restaurant today, one of the few remaining businesses in town, a local couple told me that efforts to revitalize the town have hit roadblocks. When the owner of the little grocery store went bankrupt and closed the store there was an attempt to reopen the business. Unfortunately, complications in ownership and existing debt, among other issues, made it prohibitively expensive. And so it sits vacant.

Now the hope is that a building in the center of town can be converted into a coffee shop, but there is more talk than action. I told the couple that sometimes all it takes is for one business to get going and others will follow. Though Aliquippa, just north of Pittsburgh, faces many more problems than Chenoa, the opening of a coffee shop that serves as a community gathering space prompted other shops to follow suit. Don’t get caught up in the details I told them, just get it opened.

Pulling off I-55 or the old Route 66, visitors are greeted with a sign proclaiming Chenoa is the “crossroads of opportunity.” And the sign is certainly correct. Chenoa has everything going for it–both the interstate and the historic Route 66, with its flow of tourists, are less than a mile from downtown. And all the bones for a thriving downtown are there. Yet, save for a sad little bar, a hotel, a gas station, and the restaurant, the town has missed these opportunities.

As I walked down Route 66 I passed more than a few crumbling downtowns, each with a grain elevator and perhaps a post office or a church, maybe one lonely bar or restaurant.

I cannot say why so many small towns are crumbling, falling to pieces. Nor do I know the exact solution. I need only look at the small town I grew up in to see that once stores close they so rarely reopen. At one time my little hometown had a grocery store, a pharmacy, a barber shop, a meat market, and ice cream parlor, a diner, two pizza shops and a hardware store. More than half of the shops are now closed, and even the library that was once downtown has been relocated.

But, while revitalizing a city can take a massive community effort, small towns do not suffer this problem. Small steps forward can lead to big improvements. Next time I visit Chenoa I hope to see a different downtown.

– By Jennifer E. Cooper

For the second time in my cross-country journey I have found myself interrogated by police simply for being a person with a backpack.

Now I have no problem with a police officer asking me if I am OK. There was just a tornado in Dwight, the location from which I’d come, and certainly there are not a lot of people walking. And I am used to explaining to people that I do not need a ride, that I am intentionally walking. But, I fail to understand how simply walking down Old Route 66 justified the police officer to turn on the squad car’s lights and pull me over.

There is a lot of talk about this being a free country. For sure we have more freedom than most places in this world. Yet, I don’t find it so free to be required to show a police officer identification–and not just show it to them, but to allow them to run your name through their database to ensure you have no outstanding warrants.

Standing on the side of the road, with a thunderstorm approaching in the distance, my options flashed through my mind. I could stand by my morals, refuse on the grounds that it violated my civil rights, and risk arrest, or I could provide my ID and feel like a sellout, but avoid arrest and hopefully stay ahead of the storm. Under similar circumstances in Greensburg, Pa., I allowed myself to be arrested rather than provide police with identification–in that case I refused to tell police my date of birth and was put in the back of a squad car, taken to the police station and charged with disorderly conduct as a result. (And yes, the charge stuck as the judge refused to change the court date to a time I could be present so I was found guilty in absentia.)

In the end I provided my identification but made it more than clear to the officer that I found her request highly objectionable and a violation of my rights. I told her I was only providing my ID, “because you asked nice.”

“I have a right to ask,” the officer said. Her excuse was that a couple weeks earlier a homeless woman had been walking down the road. Apparently the woman had a master’s degree. “I don’t know why she didn’t just get a job in her field,” the officer said.

I don’t know what was most objectionable. It was bad enough that the officer found it OK not only to assume that the homeless woman was guilty of some crime, but that since I was also walking down the road I might be homeless and guilty of some crime. But it was difficult to comprehend how the officer could be so naive about unemployment. I’m quite certain the homeless woman would have loved to get a job in her field–now why didn’t she think of that.

Perhaps the officer was accustomed to only seeing people at their worst. But far too often the poor and the homeless are victims of harassment. A joint report by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, Homes Not Handcuffs: The Criminalization of Homelessness in U.S. Cities, found that cities across the country target the homeless by creating laws that make it illegal to perform life-sustaining activities in public, ranging from loitering or eating in public to sitting in certain locations and begging. And apparently walking, if you appear to be homeless that is, could also be a highly suspicious act worthy of police scrutiny. The moral of the story is that, if you are going to be poor or homeless, it’s best to do whatever necessary to have wheels.

As I continued down Route 66, and the squad car pulled away, I found myself increasingly angry. Never before this journey have I had any such interactions with the police. The police had won today. But I vowed to continue the battle another day.

– By Jennifer E. Cooper

Last night a tornado touched down not a mile from where I was spending the night in Dwight, IL. And no, I’m not in Tornado Alley.

Though I knew thunderstorms were predicted, which prompted me to decide to stay in a motel rather than pitch my tent, I was shocked when I checked the weather report and saw a tornado warning was in effect. The lights had already flickered and then gone out, so I decided it was perhaps time to pack up my backpack and consider seeking out a safe location.

From my motel room window I watched as the flashes of lightning illuminated the sky enough to see a large dark cloud moving quickly. It wasn’t a twister, but it was perhaps the meanest cloud I’ve ever seen. In the background I could hear the wail of the tornado sirens–a twister had touched down.

In the midst of the chaos, with the storm blowing furiously and rain pounding down, someone a couple doors down from me had a pizza delivered. I wondered by what magic they had managed to get a pizza delivered when the storm was fierce, tornados had been sighted, and power was down.

Eventually I decided to head downstairs to take a closer look at the storm. Most of the guests of the motel were clustered in the tiny lobby. Each person shared what little information they had–news from the man who delivered the pizza was that a trailer park in town had been obliterated. When the rain died down I stood with a couple dozen others at the front of the motel, clustered under the portico to the building, listening to the news on a car radio. The reports were that twisters had touched down in Dwight as well as in Streator, about 20 miles away. We were dealing with two separate tornadoes, possibly three.

It wasn’t until 11 p.m. that I decided it was safe enough to head back to my room. The storm was moving south and I needed to get some sleep.

The next morning I was surprised to find we were still without power. Beyond merely an inconvenience, I wondered how I was going to have the stamina to walk 20 miles to Pontiac, IL on an empty stomach–the power had gone out last night before I had a chance to get dinner. Fortunately Pete’s Restaurant was able to open its doors–thanks to gas grills and a generator. And oddly, as I ate in the dimly-lit restaurant, I realized that I didn’t miss the lights or electricity.

As I walked along Route 66 I passed some of the worst damage in Dwight. The tornado had wrecked havoc in a lumberyard in town, and destroyed the adjacent trailer park. Why, I wondered, does it appear that tornadoes always seem to hit the areas least able to cope with such a force of nature. And it seemed particularly cruel to hit those least able to bounce back from a catastrophic event. It saddens me to think that some in Dwight could become homeless, slip further into poverty, as a result of the storm.

– By Jennifer E. Cooper

It is perhaps no surprise, but living in poverty means a life without flowers. As I walked the old Route 66 out of Chicago today I passed pockets of gentrification. And I was bothered by the fact that the ramshackle, run-down buildings were surrounded by garbage and rot, while the newly gentrified buildings were clean and had gardens–flowers and manicured hedges.

Of course this is not unique to Chicago. We live in a nation where those with means have access to nature, while those without means are left to live amongst the waste. It is not uncommon for poor neighborhoods to be located adjacent to industrial zones, by train tracks, near landfills or power stations, or in the vicinity of other questionable areas. The reasons for this are likely complicated. Properties near parks and pristine acreage tends to be more desirable and hence more expensive. And those without means lack the ability to fight against the pollution of their neighborhood, or to move if their community becomes unhealthy.

But I also suspect some of the garbage in poor neighborhoods comes from those living there themselves. Perhaps a lack of care towards one’s surroundings comes from a lifetime of being treated as a second-class citizen. Standing in line at a McDonald’s on the west side of Chicago today, a man handed me two crumpled dollar bills and then disappeared into a sea of all black faces. In my attempt to pass forward his generous act, as I walked from McDonald’s I picked up as much trash as I could for the next block and threw it in the nearest garbage can. But the next block, and the next, and the next were also speckled with trash–candy bar wrappers, plastic utensils, condoms, fast-food packaging, weather-worn grocery bags. How is society at large going to change its perception of poverty if those living in poverty don’t first change their perception of themselves–to see that they are worthy of flowers instead of garbage.

– By Jennifer E. Cooper

Poverty also means seeing friends and family become victims of death and violence. It means drugs and addiction and despair. And it means knowing what a rotting dead body smells like.

Today as I rode the train from Washington, D.C. back to Chicago to resume my journey I sat next to a man who grew up in the projects. He described growing up in the projects of DC, and of the ever-present violence and drugs. Once, he said, he was at Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street, now a tourist destination, and though the place was packed no one was ordering food. Instead everyone was shooting heroin. And he talked about being out with friends and suddenly getting a whiff of death. “Where’s the dead body at? I know there’s a dead body,” he said.

The conversation brought me mixed emotions–disgust that someone could smell a dead body and be so nonchalant about death; sadness that someone could grow up in such an environment; and shock at having my comfy view of life shaken yet again.

– By Jennifer E. Cooper

Today the world’s third largest corporation announced it would contribute more than $2 billion towards the fight against hunger in America.

The donation will come in the form of 1.1 billion pounds of food from Wal-Mart stores, distribution centers and Sam’s Club locations (valued at $1.75 billion), and grants totaling $250 million to support hunger relief organizations.

Considering that an estimated 49 million Americans are struggling with hunger, this is welcome news. And, despite Wal-Mart’s poor track record when it comes to paying its two million employees a livable wage, this is an opportunity to give the company some credit for doing good.

It is admirable that Wal-Mart has acknowledged not only that hunger exists in this nation, but that it is widespread. According to Feeding America, an estimated 1 in 6 people in our country don’t know where their next meal is going to come from on any given day. Feeding America’s report, Hunger in America 2010, found the number of individuals who are food insecure increased 36 percent between 2007 and 2008. The organization, which has been a partner with Wal-Mart in the fight against hunger since 2005, is the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity, supplying food to more than 37 million Americans each year.

“Sadly, hunger is not an abstract concept in America. The staggering reality is that 1 in 6 people in our country don’t know where their next meal is going to come from on any given day. Hunger exists in all of our communities, even if we can’t always see it. People across the nation are being forced to make tough decisions – choosing between paying for dinner for their families or paying medical bills, utilities, and even rent.” –Vicki Escarra, President & CEO, Feeding America

Though Wal-Mart is far from the only company that pays low wages, it’s massive size means increasing wages can have a significant impact with minimal impact on its bottom line. The December 2007 study “Living Wage Policies and Wal-Mart,” conducted by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education found that increasing wages to a minimum of $10 per hour for employees would amount to $2.38 billion a year in payroll costs, or 9.3 percent of Wal-Mart’s current hourly payroll. Though a sizable sum, the study found that, if distributed evenly among all Wal-Mart consumers, it amounts to an additional 36 cents per shopping trip for the average consumer. or a price increase of $9.70 a year. Surely paying employees wages that enable them to be self-sufficient is worth $10 per customer annually.

Let us hope that this is but a first step as Wal-Mart goes beyond merely recognizing that hunger exists to tackling poverty, it’s root cause.

– By Jennifer E. Cooper

Photo: Flickr/scott.wolff