Massachusetts Is America’s Sixth-Least Obese State

Image via Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/Trust for America’s Health

Massachusetts takes a top spot in many of the various rankings that hit the Internet. But on Thursday, we placed near the bottom of a new ranking, and we couldn’t be happier.

The new State of Obesity report dropped September 1, and Massachusetts finished in 46th. That makes us the sixth-least obese state in the nation, behind, in order, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Montana, and California. Not too shabby.

The news isn’t all good, though. We slid from fourth-least obese last year to sixth-least obese in the new report, and our overall adult obesity rate rose from 23 percent to 24.3 percent. It’s not a good sign when one of the thinnest states in the country counts almost a quarter of its adults as overweight.

Still, the statistics were far worse elsewhere. Four states—Louisiana, Alabama, West Virginia, and Mississippi—now have obesity percentages above 35, led by Louisiana with 36.2 percent. On the bright side, Minnesota, Montana, New York, and Ohio saw levels decrease.

Other Massachusetts obesity data includes:

• More adult men (24.7 percent) than women (21.2 percent) are obese.
• Obesity by race goes black (35.9 percent), Latino (32.4 percent), then white (23 percent).
• The age group with the highest obesity rate (29.9 percent) is 45-64.
• Childhood obesity rates include 16.4 percent of low-income kids ages 2-4, 14.5 percent of kids ages 10-17, and 11 percent of high school students.
• The adult diabetes rate is 8.9 percent, and the adult hypertension rate is 29.6 percent.
• By 2030, heart disease, arthritis, and obesity-related cancer are projected to hit 1,792,732, 1,096,100, and 266,466 cases, respectively.

You can see the full report, courtesy of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Trust for America’s Health, here.