They say everything is bigger in Texas, but although Texans are certainly at a high obesity-related wellness risk, 12 other states also stand to see their obesity rates double by 2030, and the wellbeing of Texas isn’t even the one that’s the most at risk.
According to the report, “F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2012,” issued jointly by Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Mississippi currently has the highest rate, with 34.9% of its residents obese, and Colorado has the lowest obesity rate, with 20.7% of residents obese. However, the report predicts that 13 states could see their obesity rates top 60% in the next 17 years.
Currently, Mississippi is joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia in the countries with rates over 30% group. However, by 2030 Delaware, Kansas, South Dakota and Tennessee look to join the vast majority of this list (with the exception of Michigan, Indiana, and Texas) in the over 60% group. The 10 states with the lowest rates of obesity today are Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Utah, New York, Nevada, Connecticut and Montana.
Jeff Levi, PhD, executive director of Trust for America’s Health, a non-profit organization dedicated to disease prevention says ‘We have a choice to make between a future where we continue to see dramatic rises in obesity and the diseases associated with it, or we take the steps that make our communities healthier and reduce that course’. According to Levi, ‘If we stay on the current course, we could see obesity rates that are already unacceptable double in some states’.
Levi recommends that individuals make small changes, and urges that people ‘Be more active’ and replace an hour of screen time with an hour of physical activity. The diet changes you make ‘could be as little as one less sugar-sweetened beverage a day’ says Levi, and Justin Trogdon, PhD, a research economist at RTI International in Research Triangle Park, N.C adds that you should pick a small change and stick to it: ‘I don’t keep desserts at home,’ he says, ‘and I don’t visit that aisle in the grocery store.’
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