Tag: Well-Being Index

W.Va. Still Last in Well-Being Index

If you want to improve your sense of well-being, leave the Lower 48.

A new report ranking all 50 states based on residents’ sense of well-being puts Hawaii at No. 1, followed by Alaska, which held the top spot last year.

Hawaii has been No. 1 in the poll five times since 2008.

The survey from Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index had Montana, Colorado and Wyoming rounding out the rest of the top five.

The State of American Well-Being: 2015 State Rankings report was compiled from a non-scientific telephone survey of residents across the country.

The survey listed the bottom five as Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Kentucky and West Virginia.

That’s a familiar spot for West Virginia, which has been last in the rankings for the past seven years. Kentucky has been No. 49 during the same time.

West Virginia No Longer Fattest State in the Nation

From 2010 to 2012 West Virginia was ranked the most obese state in the country according to Gallup’s Well Being State of the States report.

This year Mississippi bumped West Virginia out of the bottom.

The report says Mississippi’s obesity rate is 35 point four percent, while West Virginia’s is 34.4.  The national rate is 27.1 percent, which is 1.6 percentage points higher than the year before.

Mississippi, West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Kentucky have been listed among the 10 states with the highest obesity rates in the nation since 2008.

The report is based on telephone interviews conducted Jan. 2 – Dec. 29, 2013 as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well -Being Index.

It says people living in the 10 most obese states have higher rates of chronic disease like high cholesterol, diabetes, heart conditions and cancer.

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