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A new study conducted by a group called Trust for Americas Health (TFAH), which describes itself as a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to saving lives by protecting the health of every community and working to make disease prevention a national priority, says that 24.5 percent of American adults can be classified as obese which means having a body mass index higher than 30.

The 10 states with the highest obesity rates are Alabama (28.9 percent), West Virginia (27.6 percent), Louisiana (27 percent), Tennessee (27.2 percent), Texas (25.8 percent), Michigan (25.4 percent), Kentucky (25.8 percent), Indiana (25.5 percent), South Carolina (25.1 percent) and, ranking as the most obese state in the nation, Mississippi, with 29.5 percent of its population classified as obese. The study noted that the propensity for girth is more pronounced in the southern US.

"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. Hearne, executive director of the trust.

The least obese states were reported to be Colorado, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont and Montana. (Hawaii was not ranked in the study.)

Only one state Oregon did not show an increase in obesity rates over the past year.
TFAH also said that its study showed that more than 52 percent of adults in each and every state of the union are either obese or overweight.

While the federal Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) does not rank the states the same way as TFAH, the CDC does report that two decades ago there was not a single state where more than a fifth of the population was obese and now more than 40 states have reached and exceeded that obesity level.

The CDC also is questioning the TFAH studys methodology, saying that the samples varied from state to state, and that many states use differing measurements in determining obesity rates.
The TFAH study also showed a mixed bag in how the various states are trying to educate their children in order to reverse this trend.

For example, only six states have set nutritional standards tougher than those established by the US department of Agriculture three of them in the past year. Two of them, though Kentucky and South Carolina made the list of ten most obese states. So the evidence would suggest that legislators and citizens there are trying to do something about it.

However, more than 20 states in the past year have introduced legislation that would have addressed the school lunch/nutrition issue -- and none of those bills have been passed. Only four states Arkansas, Illinois, Tennessee and West Virginia -- screen children to see if their body mass index exceeds acceptable levels. And only 23 of the 50 states have received funding from the CDC with which they can develop anti-obesity initiatives (though, to be fair, 39 states applied for funding which ran out).

See the full story at Ediets.com.