First Lady Michelle Obama launched her “Let’s Move” campaign against childhood obesity in 2010. The campaign aimed to “solve the challenge of childhood obesity within a generation.” The first five years of that campaign have seen only modest success, and that success has been limited to children ages 2 through 5.

Obesity prevalence has also leveled off among children ages 6 to 10. Among adolescents ages 12 to 19, however, obesity prevalence has increased.

The results of a study published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicate how difficult the problem of obesity is to solve. The JAMA study included both expected and unexpected trends:

• For the years 2013 to 2014, unadjusted prevalence of obesity in American men was 35.2% compared with 40.5% among women; up from 34% of men and 38% of women 10 years earlier
• For both men and women, obesity prevalence varied by race/Hispanic origin
• For men, prevalence of obesity among smokers was significantly lower than among men who had never smoked; among women, there was no significant difference
• Women with more than a high school education were significantly less likely to be obese

In another study, The State of Obesity, jointly published in September 2015 by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher is cited:

On one level, the problem is simple. Americans continue to eat too much, especially foods with excess calories and few nutrients. We don’t get enough physical activity, and spend too much time in our cars or in front of our various digital screens… But the obesity crisis [will] not be solved by treating it as a personal failing…

Healthy affordable can be scarce in some neighborhoods in addition to being more expensive than processed food. This and other obstacles most often affect lower income people with less education and who happen to be racial minorities. As the study notes, “Where families live, learn, work and play all have a major impact on the choices they are able to make.

In both the JAMA report and The State of Obesity study, a person’s body mass index (BMI) is calculated and obesity levels are determined by the index score. The BMI is equal to a person’s weight (in pounds) divided by the square (in inches) of his or her height multiplied by a conversion factor of 703. In the metric system the formula is simply weight in kilograms divided by height squared.

According to The State of Obesity study, rates of obesity now exceed 35% in three states (Arkansas, West Virginia and Mississippi), 22 states have rates above 30%, 45 states are above 25%, and every state is above 20%. Arkansas has the highest adult obesity rate at 35.9%, while Colorado has the lowest at 21.3%. The data show that 23 of 25 states with the highest rates of obesity are in the South and Midwest.

The following chart lists the 50 states and the District of Columbia from highest to lowest in adult obesity rate.

Rank	State	Adult Obesity Rate 2014	95% Confidence Interval
1	Arkansas	35.9%	+/- 2.1%
2	West Virginia	35.7%	+/- 1.5%
3	Mississippi	35.5%	+/- 2.1%
4	Louisiana	34.9%	+/- 1.5%
5	Alabama	33.5%	+/- 1.5%
6	Oklahoma	33.0%	+/- 1.3%
7	Indiana	32.7%	+/- 1.2%
8	Ohio	32.6%	+/- 1.5%
9	North Dakota	32.2%	+/- 1.8%
10	South Carolina	32.1%	+/- 1.2%
11	Texas	31.9%	+/- 1.4%
12	Kentucky	31.6%	+/- 1.5%
13	Kansas	31.3%	+/- 1.0%
14	Wisconsin	31.2%	+/- 1.6%
14	Tennessee	31.2%	+/- 2.0%
16	Iowa	30.9%	+/- 1.4%
17	Delaware	30.7%	+/- 2.1%
17	Michigan	30.7%	+/- 1.3%
19	Georgia	30.5%	+/- 1.6%
20	Nebraska	30.2%	+/- 1.1%
20	Pennsylvania	30.2%	+/- 1.3%
20	Missouri	30.2%	+/- 1.7%
23	South Dakota	29.8%	+/- 2.0%
24	Alaska	29.7%	+/- 2.0%
24	North Carolina	29.7%	+/- 1.3%
26	Maryland	29.6%	+/- 1.5%
27	Wyoming	29.5%	+/- 2.0%
28	Illinois	29.3%	+/- 1.8%
29	Arizona	28.9%	+/- 1.3%
29	Idaho	28.9%	+/- 1.9%
31	Virginia	28.5%	+/- 1.3%
32	New Mexico	28.4%	+/- 1.5%
33	Maine	28.2%	+/- 1.3%
34	Oregon	27.9%	+/- 1.7%
35	Nevada	27.7%	+/- 2.4%
36	Minnesota	27.6%	+/- 0.9%
37	New Hampshire	27.4%	+/- 1.7%
38	Washington	27.3%	+/- 1.3%
39	New York	27.0%	+/- 1.5%
39	Rhode Island	27.0%	+/- 1.6%
41	New Jersey	26.9%	+/- 1.2%
42	Montana	26.4%	+/- 1.5%
43	Connecticut	26.3%	+/- 1.4%
44	Florida	26.2%	+/- 1.3%
45	Utah	25.7%	+/- 0.9%
46	Vermont	24.8%	+/- 1.3%
47	California	24.7%	+/- 1.2%
48	Massachusetts	23.3%	+/- 1.1%
49	Hawaii	22.1%	+/- 1.4%
50	District of Columbia	21.7%	+/- 2.3%
51	Colorado	21.3%	+/- 0.9%

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