30% Obesity Rate in 12 US States

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently declared that the obesity rates of 12 US states was found to be 30% and higher. The source of their information is a survey conducted in 2010 which outlines that no state reported obesity rate lower than 20%. A deep contradictory situation was observed only 10 years earlier in 2000 when none of the states reported obesity rates higher than 25%.

By 2010, the number of states reporting obesity rates of 25% or more escalated to 36.

The highest obesity rate was seen in Mississippi where 34% of the adults were obese, thus being considered the most obese state while the lowest obesity rate of 21% was seen in Colorado.

Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia were amongst the other 11 states with obesity rates of 30% or more.

From 2009 to 2010, more than half of the states reported that obesity rates had fallen thereby bringing a slight ray of hope; however, the fall was often less than 1%.

For 2010, the latest figures have arrived from CDC’s newest state-by-state phone survey which is a Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Using this, the CDC gathered data from 400,000 adults aged 18 and over who self-report their weight and height in order to calculate their BMI. BMI is the ratio of a person’s weight in kilograms to their height in meters squared kg/m2.

Interpretation of figures established that all states were unsuccessful in meeting the government’s Healthy People 2010 target that aimed to reduce obesity rates to below 20% during the ten years commencing from 2000.

Some experts were of the opinion that these statistics may not represent the true picture because people generally tend to reveal a lesser weight during phone surveys.

A person is deemed as obese when the BMI is 30 and over.A BMI of 25-29.9 is classed as overweight while a BMI of 18.5-24.9 is classed as normal weight.

Thus, in order to be in a normal BMI range, a person must be 5′ 9″ tall and weigh between 125 lbs to 168 lbs. A person is considered obese when he is of the same height and weighs 203 lbs or more.