doctors:
The clinical definition of obesity is having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or greater. Among male physicians, the obesity rate is only 11 percent. That's pretty impressive, especially when more than a third of all Americans are considered obese. Meanwhile, 41 percent of doctors have a "normal" BMI of less than 25, outpacing comparable middle-aged Americans by 18 percentage points.
But just because doctors aren't obese doesn't mean they're all slim. Another 47 percent of male physicians suffer from excessive weight, according to the baseline survey -- about three and a half percentage points higher than the average male American in middle age.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/08/is-your-doctor-healthier-than-you/260706/
here's some other data points that are relevant:
Nowhere in the United States are Americans more overweight than in Mississippi and West Virginia, where more than 35 percent of the adult population is now obese, according to a new report from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The two Southern states, however, are hardly alone in their alarmingly high obesity rates — another 18 U.S. states, including just about all of the U.S. South, have obesity rates at or above 30 percent.
The exceptions are few and far in between. Only seven U.S. states and one district — Vermont, Montana, Utah, California, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Colorado and the District of Columbia — registered obesity rates below 25 percent. And only Colorado, the least obese state in the country, and Hawaii, the second least, registered obesity rates below 22 percent.
It isn't just the South that is having pronounced weight problems — certain demographics are especially prone to larger waistlines, too.
There is, for instance, a stark racial divide: Obesity rates rates for blacks exceed 40 percent in 11 states and 30 percent in 41 states; for Latinos, they are greater than 30 percent in 23 states; but for whites, they are higher than 30 percent in only 10 states.
There is also a wealth divide: More than a third of U.S. adults earning less than $15,000 a year are obese, while only a quarter of those earning more than $50,000 annually carry that distinction.
And there's even a generational divide: Baby boomers (adults aged 45 to 64 years old) are more likely to be obese than any other age group.