The study comes from WalletHub (the personal finance site) and the results have been revealed to mark National Nutrition Month (which takes place each March). The results are not only important for contextualizing obesity rates, there are economic consequences as well, not least with a high proportion of U.S. citizens spending hundreds of billions of dollars each year on obesity-related medical treatment.
The study from WalletHub is titled “2020’s Most Overweight and Obese Cities in the U.S.” To gather the data, WalletHub examined one hundred of the most populated U.S. metro areas, assessing these locales against 19 key metrics. Examples include the proportion of obese adults to the share of overweight children; plus to projected obesity rates for 2030.
The following video goes into greater detail about the research methodology:
Data was collated from a number of sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau and from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
When all metrics were collated, the top ten ‘fattest’ cities in the U.S. were found to be:
1. McAllen, TX
2. Shreveport, LA
3. Memphis, TN
4. Jackson, MS
5. Knoxville, TN
6. Tulsa, OK
7. Mobile, AL
8. Nashville, TN
9. Columbia, SC
10. Lafayette, LA
Apart from the top ten, the survey revealed some interesting variations. For example, the McAllen, Texas, metro area was found to contain the highest share of obese adults at 45 percent. This stands as 2.5 times higher than in San Francisco, which is the metropolitan area with the lowest rates, at 18 percent.
The McAllen, Texas also has the highest share of physically inactive adults, at 37 percent. This contrasts with the area with the greatest levels of physical activity, which is Raleigh, North Carolina where just 16 percent of the population are inactive. With a different metrics, the El Paso, Texas area has the greatest share of diabetic adults, at 15 percent. This is far higher than both San Francisco and Minneapolis, which have the lowest diabetes rates, at just 6 percent.
With the metric of high blood pressure, the Mobile, Alabama region comes top, with 41 percent of adults; this contrasts with the area recording the lowest proportion of adults with high blood pressure – San Jose, California, at 21 percent.
Commenting on the findings, Dr. Nathan Drendel of The University of Toledo says that a healthy diet can help to tackle the problems of obesity: “Get back to the basics of cooking more at home, while using items like pressure cookers, slow cookers, etc. to save time and money is a great way to help keep your money in your wallet and your nutrition in tip-top shape.”
