Maryland remains solidly in the middle of the national pack when it comes to obesity.
About 29 percent of the state's residents were obese last year, ranking it 31st among other states , according to a new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Trust for America's Health.
Louisiana was No. 1 at 36.2 percent obese and Colorado, the oft-cited health capital of the nation, was at the bottom with 20.2 percent obese. In general, the South had the highest rates of obesity, followed by the Midwest.
The report, The State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America, looked at data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and found Maryland's rate wasn't much changed from the year before. But like so many other states, the long-term trend hasn't been good: The percent obese was 19.6 in 2000 and 10.8 in 1990.
Only four states recorded a drop in obesity: Minnesota, Montana, New York and Ohio. Rates increased in two, Kansas and Kentucky. The rest, like Maryland, were stable between 2014 and 2015.
The authors of the report said it was good news some states saw a drop, something that hasn't happened in the past decade aside from a decline in Washington, D.C. in 2010.
But the excess fat is putting Americans at risk for maladies such as diabetes and heart disease, the nation's top killer. And the costs for treating these ailments exceeds $147 billion annually.
"Obesity remains one of the most significant epidemics our country has faced, contributing to millions of preventable illnesses and billions of dollars in avoidable healthcare costs," Richard Hamburg, interim president and CEO of the Trust for America's Health, said in a statement.
"These new data suggest that we are making some progress but there's more yet to do," he said. "Across the country, we need to fully adopt the high-impact strategies recommended by numerous experts. Improving nutrition and increasing activity in early childhood, making healthy choices easier in people's daily lives and targeting the startling inequities are all key approaches we need to ramp up."