WASHINGTON (AP) – Obesity rates rose last year in all but one of America’s 50 states, according to an advocacy group that called on the government and the private sector to get more involved in Americans’ battle with expanding waistlines.

The advocacy group, Trust for America’s Health, said data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the percentage of obese adults for 2002-04 stood at 22.7 per cent nationally. The percentage for the previous cycle, 2001-03, was 22 per cent.

The state exhibiting the largest increase in obesity was Alabama. There, the rate increased 1.5 percentage points to 27.7 per cent. In the only state that did not show an increase, Oregon, the rate held steady at 21 per cent.

The report said the states with the highest percentage of obese adults were mostly in the South: Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Louisiana and Tennessee.

The states with the lowest percentage of obese adults were in the northeast and the West: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, Colorado and Montana. Hawaii was not included in the report.

An official with the Trust for America’s Health said the United States is stuck in a “debate limbo” about how the government should confront obesity.

She used the report to call for more government action on several fronts, such as ensuring that land use plans promote physical activity; that school lunch programs serve healthier meals; and that recipients of government health benefits get access to subsidized fitness programs, such as aerobics classes.

“We have a crisis of poor nutrition and physical inactivity in the U.S., and it’s time we dealt with it,” said Shelley A. Hearne, executive director of the organization.

Radley Balko, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, said he is wary of the call for more government action on obesity. The institute is a think tank that prefers free-market approaches to problems.

“I think obesity is a very personal issue. What you eat and how often you exercise, if that comes within the government’s purview, it’s difficult to think of what’s left that isn’t,” Balko said.

Health policy analysts maintain that obesity increases the burden on taxpayers because it requires the government health programs to cover the treatment of diseases caused by obesity. The report issued yesterday said taxpayers spent $39 billion in 2003 for the treatment of conditions attributable to obesity.