I looked up the hottest spots for obesity in the USA according to the CDC. The latest info posted stopped the data gathering in 2000 so for what it's worth, the eight hottest spots are in the south and none are west of Texas. The states are West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. From what I know of economic distribution and culture in many of the southern states, it appears that poor quality high calorie eating has much to do with the availability of food money and with the lovely and interesting, although not necessarily healthy, cultures of these locations. I was surprised to see West Virginia on the list and I was equally surprised to find that Florida was not in the top eight. Obviously I don't know much about these states.

From recent memory, I know that Houston Texas won the prize from some organization for being the fattest city in America. I looked it up for dates and found the following undated post about Houston: "Well, none of us are happy about it, but for the second year running, our city has been dubbed the fattest in the land."