Huntington, West Virginia Wins Title as the Worst

Metabolic syndrome, trans fats etc kill more people than anything else in this country. Readers do yoursaelf a favor, stay away from processed crap, as little fast food and snack garbage as possible and excercise at leat 30 minutes a day.

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) -- As a portly woman plodded ahead of him on the sidewalk, the obese mayor of America's fattest and unhealthiest city explained why health is not a big local issue.

"It doesn't come up," said David Felinton, 5-foot-9 and 233 pounds, as he walked toward City Hall one recent morning. "We've got a lot of economic challenges here in Huntington. That's usually the focus."

Nearly half the adults in Huntington's five-county metropolitan area are obese - an astounding percentage, far bigger than the national average in a country with a well-known weight problem.

Huntington leads in a half-dozen other illness measures, too, including heart disease and diabetes. It's even tops in the percentage of elderly people who have lost all their teeth (half of them have).