America Has a Weight Problem, But We're Working on it

World and I reports:

Many Americans kicked off 2015 with a pledge to lose weight over the next 12 months and U.S. obesity statistics suggest that’s a worthy goal for residents in every U.S. state.

The fattest states in America, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), are Mississippi–where 35.1 percent of adults are obese–and West Virginia (35.1%) and the slimmest are Hawaii (21.8%) and Colorado (21.3%), but while there’s actually been a leveling off of the nationwide obesity rate, none of the 50 states have much to be proud of.

When the CDC first started collecting this data in 1995, not a single state had an obesity rate higher than 19 percent. Today, not a single state is lower than 20 percent.

“So while we’ve seen this leveling off over the last couple of years, the trajectory over the last 20 years has been pretty staggering,” said Jeffrey Levi, executive director of Trust for America’s Health. “It’s a combination of what we eat, how we eat and how active we are.”

Obesity tends to be concentrated more in the southeast where there are strong cultural traditions centered around food. Levi says residents of states with the highest obesity rates are the least likely to be meeting the federal government’s guidelines of getting an hour of physical activity each day.

Put down that fork.