
Food & Dining

Illinois adults getting fatter each year

Tribune Reporter


If you combine Illinois’ overweight adults with its obese adults in the report, the number rises to 63.7 percent. Adult obesity either rose or stayed the same in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Childhood obesity numbers have not been collected nationally since 2007, when Illinois ranked fifth worst.

That’s the bad news. If there is any good news, it’s that we are not on the Top 10 list of adult obesity. Go Illinois!

Those top heavy states, according to the report, are:

  1. Mississippi
  2. Alabama
  3. West Virginia
  4. Tennessee
  5. Louisiana
  6. Kentucky
  7. Oklahoma
  8. South Carolina
  9. Arkansas
  10. Michigan

The lowest levels of adult obesity, according to the report, are found in:

  1. Colorado
  2. Washington D.C.
  3. Connecticut
  4. Massachusetts
  5. Hawaii
  6. Utah
  7. Vermont
  8. Montana
  9. New Jersey
  10. Rhode Island

As in previous years, the study found that racial and ethnic minorities and those with less education and lower salaries have the highest over all obesity.

The report lays out a number of policy strategies to try to reverse these trends.

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