Are you living in a “fat’ state?
July 8, 2009 by Liz Lewis
Filed under Diets and Dieting, Exposed!, Obesity
Have you seen the new CDC report on the nation’s waistline?
Apparently, it show that when it comes to weight, there is no shrinkage. Some state may be holding steady but the major seem to be growing.
For the report, 400,000 American adults provided information about their height and weight which was used to calculate their body mass index (BMI).
Weighing up all the information, the CDC has determined that ‘the proportion of U.S. adults who are obese increased to 26.1 percent in 2008 compared to 25.6 percent in 2007.’
According to the CDC press release “In six states – Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia – adult obesity prevalence was 30 percent or more. Thirty-two states, including those six, had obesity prevalence of 25 percent or more. Only one state, Colorado, had a prevalence of obesity less than 20 percent. But no state showed a significant decrease in obesity prevalence from 2007 to 2008.”
As for the ‘fattest state’, this dubious honor goes to Mississippi.
Here are the percentages of obese adults in U.S. states and Washington, D.C., according to the new CDC data:
Mississippi: 32.8%
Alabama: 31.4%
West Virginia: 31.2%
Tennessee: 30.6%
Oklahoma: 30.3%
South Carolina: 30.1%
Kentucky: 29.8%
North Carolina: 29%
Michigan: 28.9%
Arkansas and Ohio: 28(source: WebMD)
You’ve got to wonder what the percentage of people in the states have high BMI numbers due to being very physically fit. Some states I would assume have more physically fit people with high BMI’s due to increased muscle mass which might skew these numbers slightly.
Hi. I’m an intern at Johns Hopkins Medicine and working on a women’s health conference. You may be interested in knowing that Johns Hopkins Internist Dr. Jeanne Clark will talk about healthy weight loss, options—from popular diets and lifestyle changes to medication and surgery—to achieve realistic goals, and the short and long-term health effects of weight loss at A Woman’s Journey, Saturday, November 14, 2009. The lecture is described on the conference website: http://www.hopkindmedicine.org/awomansjourney.