Feeling Fat? NJ Has 10th Lowest Adult Obesity Rate In US

More than 23 percent of adults and 31 percent of children in New Jersey are obese and overweight, according to a report by Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Adult obesity rates increased in 23 states and did not decrease in a single state in the past year, according to the "F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America 2009." The percentage of obese and overweight children is at or above 30 percent in 30 states. In 2008, the state's adult obesity rate was 22.9 percent. Mississippi, for the fifth year in a row, had the highest rate of adult obesity at 32.5 percent, and Alabama was a close second with 31.2 percent obese adults; The Garden State was ranked at No. 42, the report said. Mississippi also had the highest rate of obese and overweight children - ages 10 to 17 - at 44.4 percent, a rate which has more than tripled in the last three decades, according to the report. Star Ledger