IT MAY be time to hide the cookie jar. Over 26% of Americans are obese, with a weight to height ratio (or body mass index) of over 30, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, a government body. Over the past ten years, waistlines have expanded in every state. In 1998 most states had a relatively trim population, with fewer than a fifth of adults obese. But since then the scales have tipped in the other direction. Now at least a quarter of adults in 32 states are obese. Mississippi is the fattest of all, with a third of its residents considered obese.

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