Fat People As A Movement: The Movement Is Growing (Literally)

In these times of division there is only one thing the 2/3rds of America agrees on: getting fat. __________

So as much as I hate to pretend fox news is a source of anything even remotely credible I hesitantly give you the following stats from an article on their website (with the understanding that they are pulled directly from a Centers for Disease Control study). This is a ranking of the percentage of people in each state that are obese. Obesity is defined as a BMI of over 30. For a 5'9" person such as myself that translates to 203 lbs. Note there are only 40 places because some states tied - it took me a minute to figure this out :).

Since I blame our culture of obesity, with varying degrees of credibility and seriousness, for a wide range of maladies - this list is not good news for me.

1. Mississippi: 32%
2. Alabama: 30.3%
3. Tennessee: 30.1%
4. Louisiana: 29.8%
5. Arkansas: 28.7%
6. West Virginia: 29.5%
7. South Carolina: 28.4%
8. Georgia: 28.2%
9. Oklahoma and Texas: 28.1%
10. North Carolina: 28%
11. Michigan: 27.7%
12. Alaska, Missouri, and Ohio: 27.5%
13. Delaware and Kentucky: 27.4%
14. Pennsylvania: 27.1%
15. Iowa and Kansas: 26.9%
16. Indiana: 26.8%
17. North Dakota: 26.5%
18. South Dakota: 26.2%
19. Nebraska: 26%
20. Minnesota: 25.6%
21. Oregon: 25.5%
22. Arizona and Maryland: 25.4%
23. Washington: 25.3%
24. New York: 25%
25. Illinois: 24.9%
26. Maine: 24.8%
27. Wisconsin: 24.7%
28. Idaho: 24.5%
29. New Hampshire: 24.4%
30. Virginia: 24.3%
31. Nevada: 24.1%
32. New Mexico: 24%
33. Wyoming: 23.7%
34. New Jersey: 23.5%
35. California: 22.6%
36. Montana, Utah, and Washington, D.C.: 21.8%
37. Hawaii and Rhode Island: 21.4%
38. Massachusetts and Vermont: 21.3%
39. Connecticut: 21.2%
40. Colorado: 18.7%

Wooo-whee! America - you are FAT! Let's do some crunches people before we have to start reinforcing the sidewalks. Oh wait, no one else is walking anywhere apparently...

It's interesting that the largest jump by far in percentage comes from Colorado to ... well the rest of the country. Paradise? Hardly - more that 1/6 people are still obese.

I don't know what global averages are like but let me tell you the difference was noticeable when I came back from visiting Brazil last fall. It'll be interesting to see if this is the case next week when I'm in England.

Blogged with the Flock Browser