Obesity rates in the USA have continued to rise in every state bar one, according to new data from the not-for-profit organization Trust for America’s Health, despite new policies designed to curb the condition and achieve the US Department of Health and Human Services goal of reducing obesity in adults to 15% or less of the population by the year 2010.

Over 25% of adults in 10 states are obese – and seven of these states are in the southeast of the USA. Approximately 119 million Americans, or 64.5%, of adult Americans are either overweight or obese, and estimates of the number of obese American adults rose from 23.7% in 2003 to 24.5% in 2004.

“We have reached a state of policy paralysis in regards to obesity,” said Shelley Hearne, Executive Director of TFAH. “We need more and better data so we can make decisions to get out of the debate limbo in which we are stuck. We have a crisis of poor nutrition and physical inactivity in the US and it’s time we dealt with it.”

The organisation has warned that 73% of US adults could be overweight or obese by 2008.