“The country will never be able to contain rates of chronic diseases and health care costs until we find ways to keep Americans healthier. But right now, Americans are not as healthy as they could be or should be. Two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese. The childhood obesity epidemic is putting today’s youth on course to potentially be the first generation to live shorter, less healthy lives than their parents. This report, the sixth annual edition of F as in Fat: How Obesity Rates Are Failing in America 2009, finds that in the past year, adult obesity rates grew in 23 states and did not decrease in a single state. The number of obese adults now exceeds 25 percent in nearly two-thirds of states. In 1991, no state had an obesity rate above 20 percent. In 1980, the national average of obese adults was 15 percent.”