A recent New York Times article cites an alarming new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey that found the country’s obesity rate to be growing at a sobering rate. Americans’ waistlines in the South in particular are bulging ever outward. Given the established causal link between obesity and diabetes, this is also disturbing for our ongoing fight against diabetes. There’s no time like the present to consider participating in a diabetes trial Orlando. New diabetes treatments may help us all understand the condition.

The survey found an obesity rate exceeding thirty percent in nine states (Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia, with Mississippi topping all), where three years ago, only three states earned that distinction. That translates to almost three million more obese Americans than in 2007, bringing the total number to right around 73 million. Taking into account this survey was self-reported over the phone, odds are this number is probably a little light. (“Obese” as defined by the CDCP would translate to a woman 5’4” and 174lbs. or a man 5’10” and 209lbs.) There is small reason to think these numbers won’t worsen in the next three years.

Once again, we’re reminded just how serious the growing threat of both obesity and diabetes is to Americans (and by extension, the American healthcare system).