Ooh. Prompted by a bunch of comments on my last blog about the stupid, stupid, stupid bill in the Mississippi legislature to ban “obese” people from eating in certain restaurants, I decided to see where Mississippi ranked on the fatness scale.
And here it is!
So, yeah, sso’s comment that members of the legislature would manage to vote themselves out of eating establishments sure rang true. Good job Mississippi! Maybe next you can accidentally vote yourself right out of the union!
A Flight of Ideas 
shellbelle said,
February 1, 2008 at 11:53 am
Quite ironic, don’t ya think!
Elizabeth said,
February 1, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I think that’s WHY there doing it. They have to afind some solution to the “epidemic” don’t they? Right? Right?
“OMG, we’re so FATFATFATFAT! What are you going to DO???? I know! Keep those (us) damn fatties from eating! That should work.”
thoughtracer said,
February 1, 2008 at 12:44 pm
I wa so surprised, living in Wisconsin, that WE weren’t the fattest state. That’s always pounded into us: How fat we are here. With all that cheese and beer, you know.
fillyjonk said,
February 1, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Maybe next you can accidentally vote yourself right out of the union!
LOLOLOL
Sycorax said,
February 1, 2008 at 2:34 pm
What struck me about this graph is the color scheme. Of course green represents the “good/healthy” side of the scale and red the “bad/fat” side, but it’s so… lopsided. Usually when that kind of color scale is used, it goes something like green, yellow-green, yellow, orange, red. But instead, we have pale green, pale orange, light orange, medium orange, brown–like they took a more typical color scale and hacked off most of the left side (the three other shades of green that would correspond to those darker shades of orange). It’s like they could barely stand to use the “healthy” color green at all on a graph that describes obesity percentages, because everyone knows that ANY obesity is too much. So they just use a barely-green shade to indicate the lowest obesity percentages, and anything above that is RED RED DANGER DANGER YOU’RE GONNA DIE!
Becky said,
February 1, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I’m confused about something, I’ve been reading all over the place that 30% of Americans are obese. But if every state has less than 30% obese people, how can the country overall have 30% obese people? Am I having a serious math problem here?
Alexandra Erin said,
February 1, 2008 at 3:30 pm
@Becky: Remember, population’s not evenly distributed among the states. There’s a lot more people living in California than in Montana, for instance, so each percantage point in California represents far more people than one in Montana.
People should be paying attention to the fact that the lowest obesity rate is not only waaaaaaaay below the rest of the states, its’ also located Way The Fuck Up A Mountain. What does that tell us? METABOLISM. Thin air means your body has to work harder to do everything. The rest of the nation’s never going to be as thin as Colorado unless we thin out our air. 😛
meowser said,
February 1, 2008 at 5:28 pm
ZOMG!! FAT AIR MAKES YOU FAT!!!
J.S. said,
February 1, 2008 at 6:47 pm
This is reminding me of how when I lived in Alabama as a kid we were always kind of grateful for Mississippi for making Alabama look better. Who’s 49th in education? Alabama! Thank you Mississippi! Who’s the second-poorest state? Alabama! Thank you, Mississippi! Now lookee here! Who’s the second-fattest state? Alabama! You go, Mississippi!
I say we all meet up for a nice, tasty, southern dinner. In Alabama. Mmmm… fried chicken, mashed potatoes, perfection salad (“salad” in name only, thanks to the marshmallows and kool whip), and big glasses of sweet tea.
J.S. said,
February 2, 2008 at 2:16 pm
I realized too late that my previous comment may have seemed anti-fat, which is not at all what I intended. But this whole, crazy, Mississippi Hates Fat People situation has scrambled my brains. I will prescribe myself a nice big slice of southern caramel cake as a treatment, and a big glass of Coca Cola with lots of ice.