Mississippi is the nation's most overweight state, Colorado is the least, and the Southeastern states generally have more heft than the rest of the country, according to a report released yesterday by a public health advocacy group.
Obesity rates have continued to rise steadily across the nation, with the lone exception of Oregon, where they remained steady, the report by the group, the Trust for America's Health, said.
State and federal policies have done little to change that trend, the report said.
About 24.5 percent of American adults are obese, the report said, and in 12 states more than a quarter of all adults are obese, Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and South Carolina.
The states with the smallest percentage of obese adults are Colorado, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont and Montana. declined to comment on the study but said her agency did not rank states by obesity levels because some states did better sampling than others. Also, although she did not say so, the agency normally takes pains not to single out individual states as the homes of the fattest residents, the heaviest drinkers, the worst drivers, the most mentally ill and so on.
Surveys by the federal agency show that there has been a sharp increase in obesity in the United States over the last 20 years. It noted that some states had enacted policies to encourage weight loss like banning soda and junk food in public school cafeterias or requiring more physical education in school.
The trust called for more preventive care to head off obesity, more emphasis on nutrition by government purchasers, and designs for cities and suburbs that encouraged walking.
''We have a crisis of poor nutrition and physical inactivity in the U.S. and it's time we dealt with it,'' said Shelley A.