Fat and Lazy Party Animals

All in one day, the state of Mississippi was found to be the fattest of the fifty states while Ole Miss was found to be #1 School Where Students Almost Never Study according to the Princeton Review. The good news is that Ole Miss was found to be the 7th best party school in the nation. Maybe all the partying combined with no studying makes everyone fat.

In its article, the Clarion-Ledger reports:

Mississippi tops nation in obesity levels, study shows

Mississippi once again leads the nation as the heaviest state, according to a study of federal statistics released today.

More than 64 percent of people in the Magnolia State are either obese or overweight, the highest percentage in the nation, according to the report released today by Trust for America's Health, an advocacy group.

The organization studied data from the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that showed that the percentage of obese adults for 2002-04 stood at 22.7 percent nationally.

The percentage for the previous cycle, 2001-03, was 22 percent.

The state with the largest increase in obesity was Alabama. There, the rate increased 1.5 percentage points to 27.7 percent. Oregon's rate held steady at 21 percent.

Most experts and Mississippians blame the state's low economic and education levels, as well as its fried cuisine.

"It's difficult to change a behavior like eating over the long haul," said Scott Owens, an associate professor of exercise science at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

"It doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying."

The obesity problem continues to dominate Southern states, with Alabama, West Virginia, Louisiana and Tennessee also carrying the the highest percentage of obese adults.

The states with the lowest percentage of obese adults are Colorado, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont and Montana. Hawaii was not included in the report.

An official with the Trust for America's Health said the United States is stuck in a "debate limbo" about how the government should confront obesity. She used the report to call for more government action on several fronts, such as ensuring that land use plans promote physical activity; that school lunch programs serve healthier meals; and that Medicaid recipients get access to subsidized fitness programs, such as aerobics classes at the local YMCA.

"We have a crisis of poor nutrition and physical inactivity in the U.S., and it's time we dealt with it," said Shelley A. Hearne, executive director of the organization.