The results are in for the 2008 Colorado Health Report Card. This year, the Report Card shows that overall, the state fared the same or slightly worse compared to last year. The exception was the grade for Adolescents, which went from a B- to B. Twenty-six of the thirty-nine indicators were updated with new ranking data in 2008. Each of these indicators can be viewed on this site under their respective life stages—Healthy Beginnings, Healthy Children, Healthy Adolescents, Healthy Adults and Healthy Aging.

  
Taking a closer look at the indicators related to obesity, it is clear that more Coloradans are overweight and obese than ever before. At the rate we are going, only 35 percent of Coloradans will be of a healthy weight by 2017. The problem is worse among the poor or less educated, who suffer from higher rates of obesity-related conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and asthma.

An extension of the 2008 Colorado Health Report Card, Income, Education and Obesity: A Closer Look at Inequities in Colorado’s Obesity Problem is a special report that examines the troubling disparities in obesity rates among less-educated and poorer Coloradans and delves into what can be done. [Read report]

• Experts say Colorado's due for an obesity epidemic
  The Gazette, November 16, 2008

• We all pay the costs of obesity
  Denver Post, November 14, 2008

• Colorado’s expanding obesity threat
  Denver Post, November 13, 2008

• Low-income kids three times more likely to be obese
  Rocky Mountain News, November 12, 2008

• Report: Obesity and poverty linked
  Greeley Tribune, November 12, 2008