Obesity has become one of the decade’s most pervasive, worrisome health conditions around the world, and the U.S. is no exception – adult obesity rates rose in 31 states last year.

Apparently being obsessed with weight loss is not enough to actually lose the weight, as the fourth annual “F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing in America” 2007 report from the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) shows.

Waistlines keep extending and an array of obesity-related health problems promptly makes its appearance. Some 85 percent of Americans believe obesity has become an epidemic, according to the report.

Mississippi ranked No. 1, with the highest rate of adult obesity in the country for the third consecutive year. It is also the first state to cross the 30 percent mark, with 30.6 percent.

Colorado was once again the least afflicted state, in terms of obesity, but its 17.6 percent adult obesity rate is higher than last year’s 16.9.

Between these two extremes of the list, not much reason for optimisms and hope for improvement. Twenty-two states experienced an increase for the second consecutive year and no states decreased.

While 14 states had rates of adult obesity exceeding 25 percent last year, this year 19 states have this status. Compare this with 1991’s statistics, when none of the states exceeded 20 percent, and it is clear that the problem of obesity will not go away by itself.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center for Human Nutrition published the results of a preeminent study in mid-July this year, warning that by 2015, 75 percent of American adults will be overweight and 41 percent obese.

We’re getting there fast.

The paper said the percentage of American adults who were obese more than doubled in 40 years, from 13 percent in the 1960s to 32 percent in 2004. The percentage of overweight and obese Americans has increased at an average rate of 0.3 to 0.8 percentage points a year, the researchers noted, calling obesity a “a public health crisis.”

The Trust for America’s Health report also studied the situation for overweight children, finding that rates of overweight children (ages 10 to 17) ranged from a high of 22.8 percent in Washington, D.C. to a low of 8.5 percent in Utah.

The TFAH also makes recommendations in its report, urging federal, state and local governments to become involved and support a “National Strategy to Combat Obesity.”

“There has been a breakthrough in terms of drawing attention to the obesity epidemic. Now, we need a breakthrough in terms of policies and results,” said Jeffrey Levi, PhD, Executive Director of TFAH. “Poor nutrition and physical inactivity are robbing America of our health and productivity.”

“Everyone believes this is an epidemic,” Mr. Levi said, “but it's not getting the level of political and policymaker attention that it ought to.”