In spite of initiatives such as public service campaigns warning about the risks extra weight poses, the U.S. citizens are becoming more and more obese with each passing year, a new study shows.

The report disclosed that obesity rates increased in no less than 37 states in the previous year. However, no U.S. state reported a cut in the disease. In addition to this, obesity rates increased for a third consecutive year in 19 states.

"Our analysis found that on the state and community levels, overall we are not treating the obesity epidemic with the urgent response it deserves," stated Jeff Levi, executive director of Trust for America's Health yesterday in a news conference.

The fifth annual "F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America, 2008" report from TFAH and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) also shows that Mississippi is the most obese state, with 31.7 percent of obese adult residents. Also, Alabama and West Virginia have adult obesity rates over 30 percent.

According to James Marks, senior vice president and director of the health group at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, "this is the fifth annual report, and with each and every year we see more evidence the obesity epidemic is gaining speed and destructive force."

Among other findings of the report, 20 percent of adults are obese in every single state apart from Colorado.

All things considered, the study's results point to the alarming fact that Americans are further from accomplishing the health purposes set forth by Healthy People 2010, a national health promotion and disease prevention initiative that set sights on decelerating the rate of overweight and obesity adults to less than 15 percent and among children to less than 5 percent until 2010.