Sad to say, Mississippi is fattest US State

Rural Mississippi is the country's fattest state for the seventh year in a row, according to an annual obesity report. Colorado, a playground for hikers and outdoor enthusiasts, is the nation's thinnest.
The report by two public health groups has again delivered bad news: The nation is getting bigger and bigger every year. And looking at state-by-state statistics over the last 15 years, the groups found exponential waistline growth – Colorado, with 19.8% of adults considered obese according to 2010 data, would have been the nation's fattest state 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 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 says a dozen states topped 30% obesity in 2010, most of them in the South. Alabama , West Virginia , Tennessee and Louisiana were close behind M i s s i s s i p p i . Just five years ago, in 2006, Mississippi was the only state above 30%.

Jim Marks of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation said the numbers have skyrocketed over the last couple of decades because of the growth of portion sizes and the ready availability of unhealthy foods. Schools have ditched physical education programmes and school lunches have gotten less healthy. No state decreased its level of obesity, which is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more.

There was a bit of good news in the report : Sixteen states reported increases in their obesity rates, down from 28 states that reported increases last year. Levi says those increases have been gradually slowing , most likely due to greater public awareness of health issues and government attempts to give schools and shoppers better access to healthier foods.

First lady Michelle Obama has tackled the issue with her "Let's Move" campaign, pushing for better school lunches, more access to fruits and vegetables and more physical activity. And Congress last year passed a new law requiring school lunches to be healthier. As in previous years, the study showed that racial and ethnic minorities , along with those who have less education and make less money, have the highest obesity rates.