Southern states are the least healthy in America, according to a new report.
NiceRx and the online pharmacy platform collected data on obesity, smoking rates, exercise levels, and diet from 49 of the 50 states, and used data to generate a “health score” for each that rates each state’s overall health from zero to ten.
The bottom of the list consists entirely of states in the South of the US. Louisiana is the least healthiest state, with a score of 1.32. Nearby Mississippi (1.46 health score), Alabama (2.08), Kentucky (2.15), West Virginia (2.18), Arkansas (2.22), and Oklahoma (2.24) are also at the bottom the list.
At the other end of the spectrum, western states like Washington (8.4), Utah (7.94), Colorado (7.68), California (7.31), Oregon (7.29) join northeastern states such as Massachusetts (8.36), Vermont (7.94), Connecticut (7.82), New York (7.57) and New Hampshire (7.5) as the healthiest in America.
The report Nine factors were taken into account when generating health scores for each state: obesity, cigarette use, life expectancy, fitness class searches, number of adults who exercise regularly, rates of binge drinking, how often residents ate fruits and vegetables, and the number of respondents who said they did. they were in excellent health.
Data from New Jersey is not included because NiceRx reports its inability to collect data from Garden state across multiple metrics.
While Washington was the healthiest state overall, it didn’t rank first for any individual category. However, the state of Evergreen ranks in the top ten in almost every category.
Colorado, which was named the sixth healthiest state by the report, was found to have the lowest obesity rate in the country at 24.2 percent. Massachusetts, second overall, had the second lowest obesity rate — a hair behind at 24.4 percent.
Mississippi has the dubious honor of being America’s most obese state, with 39.7 percent of its residents dangerously overweight.
Magnolia state is followed by nearby West Virginia (39.1 percent of the population is obese), Alabama (39 percent), and Louisiana (38.1 percent).
The same states are also among the states with the highest cigarette use – with West Virginia (23.8 percent of adult residents using cigarettes), Kentucky (23.6 percent), Louisiana (21.9 percent), Mississippi (20.4 percent ), Arkansas (20.2 percent), Alabama (20.2 percent) and Tennessee (19.9 percent) all of which are among the leaders.
The most astonishing differences between states come from the life expectancy of residents.
Californians and Hawaiians live the longest-lived — residents of each state reach an average age of 80.9 years.
In comparison, a Mississippi resident lives a life that is six and a half years shorter, which is 74.4 years. Like other statistics, many southern states such as West Virginia (74.5 average life years), Alabama (75.2), Kentucky (75.5), Tennessee (75.6), Louisiana (75.7), and Arkansas ( 75.7) is at the bottom.
People in the south of the US who live shorter and less healthy lives are not an unknown phenomenon.
a 2018 report from Texas A&M points to several factors. Southern states tend to have fewer restrictions on the use of tobacco and nicotine in public, which can cause the rates to be higher.
Southern states are also generally considered less “walkable” – because public transportation is limited and residents are car dependent.
As a result, all the exercise and calorie burn that a person living in a place like New York City gets throughout the day is replaced by sitting idly in a car.
The region also faces a massive shortage of primary care physicians, along with higher uninsured rates.
Poverty is also another important factor. Southern states generally have much higher poverty rates than their peers in the Northeast and along the West Coast.
Experts have long linked poverty with poorer cardiovascular health. A poorer person is more likely to eat a poor diet and less likely to see a doctor regularly.
They are also unable to afford medications needed to manage their health problems.
A National Institutes of Health report from 2019 also says that many poorer people lead more stressful lives than their wealthier peers, which can have a huge impact on their health in the long run.