Getting Fat in Prison

The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

Fat or fiction: Men at the Utah State Prison pack on an average 34 pounds after one year behind bars.
The answer: Fat. Women, too. After one year, they're about 17 pounds heavier.
For Utah taxpayers, it's a weighty issue. Growing numbers of overweight and obese inmates are contributing to spiraling health care costs in the state's prisons.
By one doctor's estimate, the Utah Department of Corrections spends as much as $2 million a year on food inmates don't need.
While the Food and Drug Administration recommends 2,000-calorie diets for people with active lifestyles, Utah prisoners, both men and women, are fed a 3,000-calorie diet, said Kennon Tubbs, a prison physician.
And they don't exercise. One recent survey revealed that fewer than 5 percent of women at the prison regularly work out.
The result is that many inmates who are healthy when first incarcerated later develop problems such as hypertension, high cholesterol and acid reflux related to their poor diet and lack of exercise, Tubbs said.

Here's a story about gaining and losing weight.