If you happen to be living in San Antonio, Texas, you should put down that Twinkie and go jogging.
The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported this week that San Antonio is the most obese city in the nation, with 31.1 percent of adults there qualifying as obese (if “qualifying” is the right word to use in matters like there). Worse, sixty-five out of every hundred adults in that Texas city would qualify as overweight, according to the CDC study. (The only good news for San Antonio in this study is the fact that it ranks second in the “overweight” list, exceeded in its collective girth by Charleston, West Virginia, where 67.8 percent of adults were overweight.)
Gary, Indiana, is second, with 28.8 percent of adults there obese.
These cities are way ahead even of the alarming national statistics, which show that 21 percent of US adults are obese, and more than 37 percent are overweight.
The city with the lowest rate of overweight people was Portland, Maine, at 49.3 percent, where it may be cold but the people clearly are eating right and getting enough exercise.
In 1990, just 11.6 percent of Americans were obese and 33.1 percent were overweight.
The CDC attributes the high rates of obese and overweight people to an excess of junk food, too much television, and not enough exercise.