Research Paper On Obesity In Mississippi

Mississippi's adult obesity rate is currently 37.3%, up from 23.7% in 2000 and from 15.0% in 1990.This state profile includes data on adult and childhood obesity, obesity-related health issues, and policy actions Mississippi is taking to prevent and reduce obesity.For example, in 2003, 37 percent of 10- to 17-year-olds in Mississippi were overweight and 18 percent were obese; by 2007, those numbers had jumped to 45 percent and 22 percent, respectively.

Mississippi's adult obesity rate is currently 37.3%, up from 23.7% in 2000 and from 15.0% in 1990.This state profile includes data on adult and childhood obesity, obesity-related health issues, and policy actions Mississippi is taking to prevent and reduce obesity.For example, in 2003, 37 percent of 10- to 17-year-olds in Mississippi were overweight and 18 percent were obese; by 2007, those numbers had jumped to 45 percent and 22 percent, respectively.

The percentage of children 10 to 17 years old across the US who were overweight rose from 31 percent in 2003 to 32 percent in 2004, while obesity rates went from 15 percent to 16 percent.

But within states, there were much sharper differences, with the states that already had the biggest problems often showing the biggest jumps.

According to the most recent data, adult obesity rates now exceed 35% in seven states, 30% in 29 states and 25% in 48 states. Note: A change in methodology makes direct comparisons to data collected prior to 2011 difficult.

Read the full rates and ranks methodology for more information.

As the state's only academic health science center, UMMC shares the responsibility to address this challenge.

The prevalence of obesity in Mississippi makes the state a living laboratory for research on obesity and related metabolic and cardiovascular diseases.The next National Survey of Children’s Health will be done in 2011, Singh noted.It’s impossible to predict what it will find, he added; “I think the best thing at this point that we can anticipate is a stabilization of the trend.Overweight and obesity rose much more sharply for girls than boys across the US, and in many states.The percentage of obesity among boys was the lowest in Oregon, at 11 percent, and the highest in Arkansas, at 27 percent.Source: Trust for America's Health and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.but several initiatives are moving us closer to the top in terms of fighting it among our youth and adults. Hopefully we have seen the worst.” SOURCE Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, online May 3, 2010.The Mississippi Center for Obesity Research, located at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, is at the forefront our state's efforts to develop a better understanding of the science underlying obesity and to translate discoveries into specific prevention and treatment methods for obesity and related conditions in adults and children.Singh and his team estimated that these and other social and environmental characteristics, for example ease of access to parks and playgrounds and availability of sidewalks and walking paths, accounted for more than 40 percent of the state-by-state differences.It will take more investigation to find out what Oregon might be doing right, Singh said.