People may still be tightening their belts because of the economy, but too many continue to let them out because of weight gain.
The percentage of obese adults increased in 16 states over past year and didn't decline in any state, a report says. In addition, the number of adults who say they don't do any physical activity increased in 14 states this past year.
"The bad news is the obesity rates are really high," says Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust for America's Health, a non-profit group that prepared the report along with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
"But if you are looking for a silver lining it's that only 16 states showed an increase this last year, and in the past, more states had increases," he says.
The South still has the highest percentage of people who are too heavy. Nine of the 10 states with the highest obesity rates are in the South, the report says.
Mississippi continues to be the state with the highest level of obesity at 34.4%; Colorado has the lowest rate at 19.8%.
The South may be hit hardest by obesity because of high rates of poverty and a traditional diet that is unhealthy, Levi says.
This report is based on state-by-state obesity data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in which people self-report their height and weight. Because people tend to underreport their weight, the percentage of people who are obese is probably higher than the statistics indicate.
CDC data from studies in which people are weighed and measured indicate that about 34% of U.S. adults, almost 73 million people, are obese. A person is considered obese if roughly 30 or more pounds over a healthy weight. Extra weight raises the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other problems.
"If you lose 10% of your weight, we know you dramatically improve your health, even though technically you may still be classified as obese," Levi says.
Other findings of the report:
About 33% of adults who did not graduate from high school are obese compared with 21.5% of those who graduated from college or technical college.
Nearly 34% of adults who earn less than $15,000 a year are obese, compared with 24.6% of those who earn more than $50,000 a year.
States with the highest rates of obese 10- to 17-year-olds are Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, Illinois and Louisiana.
States with the lowest rates of obesity for 10- to 17-year-olds are Oregon, Wyoming, Washington, Minnesota, Iowa and Hawaii.
Obesity rates by state, at yourlife.usatoday.com
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