This series of maps on obesity is absolutely devastating [1]. There's a flash version here [2], but for your viewing (dis)pleasure:

Let's skip to 2001 (the full series is worth looking at though).

The color scheme is different in this last picture, but yes, it's worse:

Now, normally, this is where I'd tell you why I think it's happening. But, for once, I'm mostly flabergasted.

Is it food? People are eating much worse? Is it exercise, that people are getting less of it? I guess it has to be, bottom line. And my guess is that if you were to turn that stuff into a graph, then chart it with the incidence of diabetes those two would track very well.

And I'm also guessing that if you were to do obesity charts by generation, you'd find each generation is fatter than the last. They learn eating and exercise habits as kids and don't change them much.

And probably you could also find a strong correlation between the number of people living in communities without sidewalks which also aren't rural, and obesity.

But still... why did it take off so much starting in the 80's? What changed then? Is it the change that we often talk about, that that's just a few years after the middle class started disappearing and people started having to work longer hours, send their spouses to work (and thus ate a lot worse) and started buying even more cheap but high carb, high caolorie foods? Is it because at that time the mantra that fat and meat were bad but simple carbs were ok came into play?

I don't know. Maybe it's a perfect storm of "all of the above" plus "some other stuff".

But, well, wow.