28 states got fatter in just a year

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28 states got fatter in just a year: "

California ranks 41st in the nation in adult obesity, according to a report out Tuesday by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The obesity rate here is 24.4 percent, according to the seventh annual “F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2010″ report. Click here to view the PDF of the full report. California’s rate has risen slightly over the past several years — from 22.7 percent in the 2006 and ‘07 reports, to 23.1 percent and then 23.6 percent in 2009. But if you go back further than the report’s inception, you still find a steep increase. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention measured the rate at only 15.1 percent in 1995.

The report is troubling on many levels: 28 states reported a higher rate of adult obesity than last year’s report, and 38 states have a rate higher than 25 percent. Eight states had a rate of 30 percent or more, double the number of states last year. As the report notes, no state had a rate above 20 percent in 1991.

Only the District of Columbia lowered its obesity rate since the last report. Ten of the top 11 fattest states for adults are in the South: 1. Mississippi (33.8 percent); 2. Alabama and Tennessee (31.6 percent); 4. West Virginia (31.3 percent); 5. Louisiana (31.2 percent); 7. Kentucky (30.5 percent); 8. Arkansas (30.1 percent); 9. South Carolina (29.9 percent); and 10. North Carolina, tied with Michigan (29.4 percent).

Income and race have a lot to do with it. More than 35 percent of adults who earn less than $15,000 a year were obese, compared with 24.5 percent of those earning at least $50,000 a year. Obesity rates were higher for blacks and Latinos than whites in 40 states and D.C. In California, the rate wsa 37.1 percent among blacks and 30.2 percent among Latinos, compared with 21.7 percent among whites.

The report also included a list of children’s obesity rates, based on 2007 data collected in the National Survey of Children’s Health. The rates ranged from a high of 21.9 percent in Mississippi to a low of 9.6 percent in Oregon. It’s 15 percent here.

The report said many steps are being taken to address obesity at the federal and state level, including the Obama administration’s “Let’s Move!” campaign to restore childhood obesity to 1970s levels within a generation. But Jeffrey Levi, executive director of Trust for America’s Health, said “the nation’s response has yet to fully match the magnitude of the problem. Millions of Americans still face barriers — like the high cost of healthy foods and lack of access to safe places to be physically active — that make healthy choices challenging.”

28 states got fatter in just a year is a post from: Healthy Living

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