Americans are the fattest people in the world, not just stereotypically but statistically too. In fact, almost 40% of the U.S. population aged 15 and older is obese. But such a finding should come as no surprise, considering the huge availability of fast-food and increasingly cheaper grocery items that have negatively altered our diets. Unfortunately, the extra pounds have inflated the costs of obesity-related medical treatment to between $147 billion and $210 billion a year and annual productivity losses due to work absenteeism to around $4.3 billion.
But certain places are more responsible than others for tipping the scale in favor of bad health. To identify them, WalletHub compared 100 of the most populated U.S. metro areas across 19 key indicators of weight-related problems. Our data set ranges from share of physically inactive adults to projected obesity rates by 2030 to healthy-food access. Read on for our findings, expert advice on tackling America’s growing obesity problem and a full description of our methodology.
