Why do the southern states in the US have higher rates of obesity?

Why do the southern states in the US have higher rates of obesity?Why do the southern states consistently top the charts in rates of obesity in the country?

Is it down to the people there and their lifestyle? Or is it due to the food that is processed in that region of the United States - like is the food sent there more unhealthy?

What is the reason?

Geology Rock Star
It's lifestyle
Foods there tend to be higher calorie, and people lead more sedentary lifestyles there, creating more obesity

Abused
Ignorance.

All things being equal, the smarter you are the healthier you are.

Lisa
The southern states are unfortunately the least educated, this is the primary root cause for higher obesity rates. They also have higher teen pregnancy rates, more smokers, etc. Other reasons are staple diets in the region consist of a lot of high fat, fried foods and lack of exercise. Combine this with the lack of education that these things are bad you have a recipe for a lot of obese people.

Please see link for U.S. Census data for statistics on percent of the population that has completed high school (or equivalency) by state, I'm not making this stuff up :)
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GRTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-_box_head_nbr=R1501&-ds_name=ACS_2009_1YR_G00_&-redoLog=false&-mt_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_R1401_US30&-format=US-30

lestermount
the main reason is the food, most of the food is fried

Josh
you lose caleries from freezing to death.

in a place like massachusetts you are freezing your waight off about half the year.


when going to the store around here the people will sprint all the way to the door because it seems as if you are about to die from frostbike on the way into the store.

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