America’s Fattest States

Americans are fat and getting fatter. Calling for a national strategy to combat obesity, the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released a report recently detailing America’s growing obesity epidemic. F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America 2009 found that obesity did not decline in any state with rates rising in twenty-three of them.

Since 1980, the national obesity rate has skyrocketed from 15 percent to over 30 percent. The United States continues to be the fattest country in the world with an obesity rate 6 percent higher than runner-up Mexico. Among the slimmest countries are Japan and South Korea with obesity rates barely over 3 percent. “How are we going to compete with the rest of the world if our economy and workforce are weighed down by bad health,” said Jeff Levi, Ph.D., executive director of TFAH.

The number of obese and overweight children is also up, with rates at or above 30 percent in thirty states. These increases are in spite of programs in many states aimed at improving the diets of children. In 2004, only four states had nutritional standards for school lunches, now nineteen do. Nevertheless, childhood obesity rates have more than tripled since 1980.

Why does America and its children keep getting fatter? There are surely many reasons, but to understand the problem, Mississippi is the first place we should look. Coming in atop all others, 32.5 percent of the state’s adults are obese. Colorado again had the lowest rate at 18.9 percent, the only rate in any state below 20 percent.

The report only seems to bear ominous news. The sad state of the economy could make the problem worse as the cost of nutritious foods rise and packaged and processed foods become relatively cheaper.

Where does your state fit in? See where it ranks in comparison to other states on page two.

 

By Zac Frank for WomenCo.