Obesity rises at an alarming rate

[tina rose]

Obesity rates climbed at least 90 percent in 17 states from 1995 to
last year, gains that have a direct bearing on U.S. health spending,
according to a report.
Nine of the 10 states with the highest obesity rates are in the U.S.
South, led by Mississippi at 34 percent, Alabama and West Virginia,
according to the report today by the Trust for America’s Health
andRobert Wood Johnson Foundation. Those states also lead the nation
in diabetes and high blood pressure, the report found. Michigan was
listed as 10th at 31 percent.
Medicare and Medicaid, the public health plans, each spend more than
20 percent of their budget to treat illnesses related to obesity and
smoking, avoidable medical risks. The report’s authors called on U.S.
lawmakers to refrain from cutting programs to fight the condition.
“We can’t afford to ignore the impact obesity has on our health and
corresponding health-care spending,” said Jeff Levi, executive
director of the Trust for America’s Health, in a statement
accompanying the report.
The survey’s authors dubbed a swath of 644 counties in 15 mostly
southern states the “diabetes belt,” as reported in the Journal of
Preventive Diseases. Colorado, the slimmest state with a 20 percent
obesity rate, had the second-smallest rise since 1995, though its rate
is still higher than Mississippi’s was at that time, according to the
study.

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