Last Updated: 2008-07-17 16:07:42 -0400 (Reuters Health)
More than a quarter of all Americans are now obese, the latest U.S. government figures show.
The proportion of U.S. adults who are obese grew by nearly 2% between 2005 and 2007, from just under 24% to 25.6%, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday.
Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee had the worst rates, with 30% of adults reporting weights that classified them as obese.
Colorado had the slimmest population, with 18.7% of people in the obese category.
"The epidemic of adult obesity continues to rise in the United States indicating that we need to step up our efforts at the national, state and local levels," said Dr. William Dietz, director of the CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity.
"We need to encourage people to eat more fruits and vegetables, engage in more physical activity and reduce the consumption of high calorie foods and sugar-sweetened beverages in order to maintain a healthy weight," Dietz said.
CDC researchers used data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, an annual telephone survey of more than 350,000 adults.
Southerners are the heaviest Americans, on average, with 27% obese. Just over 25% of adults in the Midwest, 23% in the Northeast, and 22% in the West were obese.
In May, the CDC reported that the childhood obesity epidemic had leveled off after surging for about 20 years, with 16% of young people obese.
