Obesity rates remained steady in every state except one in the last year, halting a 3-decade trend of near universal increases, according to a report from the Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).
Slowing the long-standing trend of increases is evidence efforts to reduce obesity rates are working, authors of the report, F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2013, said.
"In talking about this year's report, we considered renaming it F as in Forward because we honestly believe real and lasting progress is being made in the nation's effort to turn back the obesity epidemic," Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, president of the RWJF, and Jeffrey Levi, PhD, executive director of the TFAH, wrote in a letter to open the report.
Despite that good news, obesity rates remain very high. Today, 13 states have adult obesity rates above 30%, and 41 states top 25%. Arkansas, the one state that saw a significant increase, went from an obesity rate of 30.9% to 34.5%.
In 1980, no state was above 15%, and in 1991, no state was above 20%, according to the report. More than two-thirds (68.7%) of American adults are either obese or overweight.
