IT MAY be time for some summer exercise in America. Roughly a quarter of all adults, split roughly evenly between men and women, are obese, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, a government body. In medical terms, a person is obese when his weight to height ratio (or body mass index) is over 30. Mississippi, home of the mud-pie, is the fattest state in the union, with nearly a third of its residents considered obese. Neighbouring Alabama and Tennessee are similarly porky. Adults in the north-east and the West are among the leanest, but trim Colorado is the only state with less than a fifth of adults reckoned to be obese, perhaps because of the hiking trails, high altitude and outdoors lifestyle.

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