Obesity Rates Still Rising in Many States Not a single state
decreased its level of obesity July 07, 2011Michelle Obama has
tackled the obesity issue with her "Let's Move" campaign
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In 1995, no state had an obesity rate above
20 percent. Now, all but one does. An annual obesity report by
two public health groups looked for the first time at state-by-
state statistics over the last two decades. The state that has
the lowest obesity rate now - Colorado, with 19.8 percent of
adults considered obese - would have had the highest rate 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 annual 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,
based on 2010 data, says a dozen states top 30 percent obesity,
most of them in the South. Mississippi topped the list for the
seventh year in a row, with Alabama, We