Where Does Colorado Rank Among Most Obese States in U.S.?

U.S. News & World Report is the foremost arbiter of rankings in the media ecosystem, always ready to throw a numbered list at you, be it college, hospitals, vacation destinations, places to live or cars. But the "Most Obese States" ranking is always an attention-grabber.

"Most Obese States" is really a subcategory, part of the Best States rankings that were recently released, but it's an important one: Two in five American adults are obese, according to the publication, with the definition of obese defined as having a body mass index of 30 or higher.

It was no surprise that Colorado wasn't on the Most Obese list, which featured West Virginia at the top with an obesity rate of 41.7 percent, followed by Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee.

In fact, Colorado might be the slimmest state in the country. On the list of Least Obese states, Colorado topped the rankings with a mere 24.6 percent obesity rate, followed by Hawaii at 26.8 percent, along with Massachusetts, California, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Connecticut, Florida and Montana.

That's right: all of you fit and lean hikers, bikers, joggers, ruckers, and Pilates champs are repping the Centennial State proper with your twenty-something BMIs.

With plenty of popular bicycle trails, four national parks, a list of famous 14,000-foot mountains for hikers and some of the best skiing and snowboarding runs in the world, Colorado has always been high on exercise. Denver, the state's capital and largest city, proudly boasts that it has one of the highest-rated park systems in the city, with over 90 percent of the population living within a ten-minute walk of a public park.

Colorado had decent scores overall on its public health ranking, with good grades for health care quality, but less so for health care access. Colorado also came in twelfth for a low smoking rate (we're guessing they don't mean cannabis).

But the state's violent crime rate (474 incidents per 100,000 residents, versus a national average of 348) sank Colorado to number 49 for crime and corrections.

Overall, Colorado came in at number eleven on the Best States list. The top ten is led by Utah, then New Hampshire, Idaho, Minnesota, Nebraska, Florida, Vermont, South Dakota, Massachusetts, and Washington.