Congrats to Colorado. It is now the only state with an obesity rate lower than 20 percent–barely. Colorado's obesity rate is 19.8 percent. Yikers, how did we get so fat? Answer: By eating a lot of food. The Tufts Health & Nutrition Letter reports on a new survey by researchers at the University of North Carolina that found that total daily calorie intake for US adults ballooned from 1,803 in 1977-78 to 2,374 in 2003-06. The researchers report that the larger meals combined with an increasing in snacking adds up to 4.9 meals a day, by 1970s standards. Other research at the same school has found that a snack-based “cafeteriaâ€Â-style diet of highly palatable, energy-dense foods is even worse for us than a high-fat diet. The researchers found that rats that ate snack foods commonly consumed by children and adults in the U.S. ate more, gained more weight, had more tissue inflammation and were intolerant to glucose and insulin (warning signs of diabetes) than rats whose diets were high fat from lard.
Read more here from the University of North Carolina.