Mississippi tops list in study of obesity statistics

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Rural Mississippi is the country’s fattest state for the seventh year in a row, according to an annual obesity report issued Thursday. Colorado, a playground for hikers and outdoor enthusiasts, is the nation’s thinnest.

The report by two public-health groups again has delivered bad news: The nation is getting bigger and bigger every year. And looking at state-by-state statistics over the last 15 years, the groups found exponential waistline growth — Colorado, with 19.8 percent of adults considered obese according to 2010 data, would have been the nation’s fattest state in 1995.

“When you look at it year by year, the changes are incremental,” says Jeffrey Levi, executive director of the Trust for America’s Health, which writes the report with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “When you look at it by a generation, you see how we got into this problem.”

The study says a dozen states topped 30 percent obesity in 2010, most of them in the South. Alabama, West Virginia, Tennessee and Louisiana were close behind Mississippi. Just five years ago, in 2006, Mississippi was the only state above 30 percent.

Nearly 30 percent of Ohio adults now are considered obese, compared with about 16 percent in 1995.

The study also shows Ohio is still the nation’s 13th-fattest state, the same as last year. The state has moved up since 1995, when it ranked 15th for obesity.

The report says nearly two-thirds of Ohioans now are either obese or overweight.