Tackling obesity amid poverty in a Mississippi county, By Debbie Elliott, August 9, 2011, National Public Radio: “The average life expectancy for men in Holmes County, Miss., is 65 years. That’s a full decade shorter than the U.S. average. So what’s killing people there? Researchers say it’s no coincidence that Holmes County is also one of Mississippi’s poorest, and most obese. Forty-two percent of the county’s residents are considered obese. Calvin Head, the county’s former transportation director, doesn’t have to see the statistics on paper. He saw the problem first hand: The school buses were overcrowded, but there were not more students…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty