America's sadness belt: Alarming map shows residents in South and Midwest are far more likely to be depressed, obese and hate their jobs




West Virginia is the saddest state in America - but its neighbors aren't much chirpier.

A new well-being ranking shows the United States has an alarming 'sadness belt' in the South and Midwest where many residents are depressed, obese and disgruntled at work.



Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee scored almost as low as West Virginia in the annual Gallup poll , which looks at six categories including life evaluation, emotional health, work environment, physical health, healthy behaviors and basic access.



Sad: A new well-being ranking shows the United States has an alarming 'sadness belt' in the South and Midwest, shown in red, where many residents are depressed, obese and disgruntled at work

West Virginia has taken bottom place on the well-being ranking for the fourth time in the poll's five year history, and in 2008 it came second last.

Ohio and Indiana also performed poorly in 2012's list and have hovered on the sadder side since 2008.



In stark contrast, Americans living in Hawaii, Colorado and Minnesota rate themselves as being the most healthy and happy with their lives. Other states in the top well-being quintile include Utah, Vermont, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Iowa and Massachusetts.



Happy: In stark contrast, Americans living in Hawaii, Colorado and Minnesota, and other areas shown in green, rate themselves as being the most healthy and happy with their lives

AMERICA'S TOP 10 SADDEST STATES

1. West Virginia

2. Kentucky 3. Mississippi 4. Tennessee 5. Arkansas 6. Alabama 7. Ohio 8. Louisiana 9. Indiana 10. Oklahoma

'Residents of these states rate their lives much better, today and in the future and have better emotional health, including much lower clinically diagnosed depression and daily sadness,' the report states.

The 'happy' states also have much lower obesity than other areas.

In additional, these areas have fewer residents struck down with illnesses including lifetime high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol or have heart attacks and chronic physical pain.



But residents in the sadness belt are far more likely to hate their jobs, smoke significantly and exercise little or not at all.

New York State came in 30th place, according to the poll. It scored in the third quintile for life evaluation, physical health and basic access and in the second quintile for healthy behaviors. However, when it came to work environment, New York was amongst the worst.

Florida was placed 34th in the ranking, performing among the poorest for life evaluation, while California was number 18 on the well-being list, doing very well in the healthy behaviors category. Texas came 27th in total and scored in the top quintile for life evaluation.



Gallup quizzed between 910 and 32,189 people in each state from January 2 and December 30, 2012 to get the interesting results.

The report gives lawmakers and other stakeholders valuable insights needed to improve health, increase productivity and lower heathcare costs.



