America really is a big place!
:)

How about..... eating too much food makes you fat? Can we include that one maybe?

I kind of find this story odd you since I live in Seattle. Though this city is fairly fit, it also has some of the funkiest, eclectic and thus fattening restaurants around. Also, there are a lot of Teriyaki places here too. Teriyaki sauce is fairly fattening. Though the biking community is strong and the place has arguably the largest bike trail in the country (The Burke-Gilman Trail), that doesn't mean everyone bikes to work. And let’s face it: Though people in Seattle seems pretty fit, what about Tacoma or Bremerton or Yakima or Spokane?

i'm guessing it is influenced by federal policy. Look at Alaska. It is a state that is geographically similar to Canada, but has obesity rates similar to other states.

Wow. And I thought NJ had a lot of fatties.

You would also need the populations to get a better idea. I mean there are definitely a lot more people in NY and NJ than Tennessee and Mississippi. So while the percentage may be better in NY-NJ, the gross #s will probably be worse.

I'd actually like to see a county map of this. Overlay that with the election results and then maybe you'd have something.

The election results map is also misleading. There are many purple states in there.

So everything really isn't bigger in Texas.

"...that doesn't hold true for Colorado and Montana."

While I don't want to add any credibility to the political map theory, Montana is looking like it's going to the Democrats this election, and Colorado was incredibly close last election, and has gone over the tipping point to a blue state. So it sort of works.

My theory (coming from a democratic Coloradoan) is it has something to do with the food and climate here. People really do spend a lot of time outdoors, and there doesn't appear to be that many over the top fattening restaurants apart from the chains.

I have cousins in Alabama where it really is too hot to go outside and do anything, and they don't really have a choice of healthy restaurants where they live. It's all Perkins and BBQ places.

A county map of this data would be interesting. I think you'd see a fair amount of variation in states.

As a person who deals with maps and map-creation, the presented obesity maps are quite annoying. How did the survey deal with scale issues (Texas vs. Rhode Island)? Is there finer-scale data to get city vs. rural distributions of obesity? What about county-to-county? Saying MS is the fattest state and CO is the leanest is only slightly more informative than saying the South is fatter than New England.

it's pretty simple. poverty = obesity. poor people eat cheap food. and when you're in america, that's high fructose corn syrup-laden crap.

@annie: I don't think it's that simple at all. Poverty is usually associated with malnourishment, not obesity.

The #1 factor for obesity is lack of exercise. You can eat fatty foods and play soccer everyday and be financially poor but also in great physical shape.

lack of exercise + overeating = obesity.

poverty does not imply lack of exercise + overeating

stradric "Poverty is usually associated with malnourishment, not obesity."

You can be obese and malnourished (poorly-nourished). In the wealthy west, the cheapest calories come from processed foods. And processed foods are the fast track to obesity.

@ annie

Sometimes it's a good correlation, but not always. Compare these two maps to the obesity map:

http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ThematicMapFramesetServlet?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-tm_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U_M00075&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U&-_MapEvent=displayBy&-_dBy=040

http://www.nccbuscc.org/cchd/povertyusa/map.htm

It's tough to say the comments of the GOP congressman in the previous article really represents all Colorado congressmen. The GOP is the minority party at both the state and the federal level and they were grousing on Bike to Work day which is an incredible success across the Metro area -- even more so this year than in previous years.

I'm seeing at least 4 times as many bicyclists on a regular basis than I saw last year at this time, so I think the poor minority party is simply feeling left out.

It's tough to say the comments of the GOP congressman in the previous article really represents all Colorado congressmen. The GOP is the minority party at both the state and the federal level and they were grousing on Bike to Work day which is an incredible success across the Metro area -- even more so this year than in previous years.

I'm seeing at least 4 times as many bicyclists on a regular basis than I saw last year at this time, so I think the poor minority party is simply feeling left out.

Hans, my hero! I hate when obesity is blamed on anything else besides eating too much food and not exercising enough. Poverty, architecture, less sleep, the government? Please. Even if you only had access to KFC and Jack in the Box as primary food sources, being active and watching calorie intake are the keys to being in the right weight range. Anything else is just an excuse. We're lazy and we like to eat, that's the simple reason for high obesity rates.

Anne actually does kind of have a point. Grocery stores and places like whole foods are moving out of the cities and into the suburbs. Why? The money is also going from the city to the suburbs so naturally, these businesses are going where the money is. When a grocery store leaves there is a gap where food was once purchased. Fast food restaurants which produce unhealthy, but cheap food fill in this gap. Thus, poverty stricken areas often in cities have no access to healthier food. With no healthy food people then turn to fast food joints and become obese from the fattening foods sold there

"And why are Washington and Oregon, where everyone bikes and kayaks to work every day, pleasantly plump compared to Montana and Utah?"

Well I keep thinking that Oregonians are fatter than California because Oregonians, generally, are more sedentary. There are plenty of vehicles in this state and only urban centers are host to large numbers (still under 10% of the commuters) of bicycle commuters. I was kayaking this weekend and the river and lake were about dead considering how gorgeous the weather was... and then there were the people in their motor boats...

A more interesting map would be a county-by-county comparison of average income, obesity, and politics. I think we might see some interesting correlations.

My guess is that Colorado is probably the least obese because the city-dwellers are urbanites attracted to the local environment and recreational activities -- not the gorgeous weather or scenery. And the rest of the population are ranchers and do physical labor to earn a living.

I think it would also be interesting to look at the job sectors of the different states. For instance, perhaps here in Washington & Oregon we are a bit heavier because we have a lot more software jobs = a lot more sitting at the computer = a lot less exercise.

To the person who said "the cheapest calories come from processed foods" - WRONG. the cheapest calories come from food that is unprocessed. Processing adds value which increases the price which is why food companies make processed food and continue to come out with about 15,000 new processed food products per year. This allows them to extract higher profits and profit margin from the consumer than they would if they just sold the raw food (ie vegetables, meat, fruit, fish etc).

If you buy vegetables, fruit, meat, fish and fowl and process it yourself (ie in your kitchen) that's the way to eat for the least cost. Plus you don't end up ingesting HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) and other corn derivatives which wreak havoc on your system. Ever wonder why you can drink the entire jumbo bottle of regular Coca-Cola and still not feel satiated? Because it is sweetened with HFSC and the human body has no 'memory' for HFSC so you keep drinking it. Warren Buffett knows this which is one of the main reasons he bought so much Coca-Cola stock years ago when everyone said there was no life in the company!

Having moved from Michigan to Colorado two years ago, I will say I have never been more fit in my life. Everyone in Colorado seems to be much more involved with outdoor activities. I know that more activity level has increase dramatically.

I would like an overlay of education rates for these areas...

I would like an overlay of education rates for these areas... Also it would be interesting to see what effect the obesity rates had on insurance costs.

I think eating a lot but not doing physical activities will end result in weight gain. Weight loss can be overpowered if we follow all our daily lifestyles along with the physical activities.

Obesity's a class issue. Overlay education & wealth and you'll get strong correlations b/w class and weight. In the South this often plays out with race (i.e. african americans are confined ot ghettoes, they have less education about health and nutrition, less education generally, are confined to blighted areas, lead more stressful lifestyles, etc) but it effects it poor whites as well. In the West and Southwest and Texas, this often effects poor hispanics. Colorado and Canada are full people who are well-educated, clean living, and well paid. You also don't have the minority-majority baggage you find in the south.

A new obesity wonder drug can cause twice as much weight loss as current treatments, this was a claim issues on UK TV this morning 23rd Oct 2008, looks like trials of the new wonder drug have been successful