The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation just released an excellent report on obesity rates in the United States. While adult obesity rates increased in six states, that’s a slower climb than in the past, when almost all states showed increases. And rates are leveling off for children, thankfully. Surprisingly, at least to me, California has the most very young obese children in the nation.

Yet there’s a continued burden of obesity among black and Latino populations, as the chart on the left shows. Keys reasons, as the report notes: “Disparate access to affordable healthy food and safe places to be physically active contribute to higher rates of obesity and related illnesses in Black communities in America.” It’s not safe to exercise in many communities, and one resident of a poor Oakland neighborhood said she was even afraid to walk to the corner store to get some produce and milk for dinner. So crime reduction plays a role in reducing these rates.

Read the report at: http://stateofobesity.org/disparities