What is in this file
One row per state, plus DC and Puerto Rico where available. The rank universe is 50 states; reference rows have an empty rank. The file is sorted by descending value with reference jurisdictions after the states.
- Period
- 2025 (2024 for three states)
- Release
- 2026-09-24
- Updated
- 2026-10-23
- Producer
- CDC Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
- Source
- BRFSS, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity data · BRFSS Q036, 2025 (2024 where 2025 is unavailable)
- Units
- Percent
- Cadence
- Annual
Quick validation snapshot
Mississippi has the highest estimate (40.4%); Colorado has the lowest (25.7%). The U.S. benchmark is 33.5%. CDC’s national figure for 2025 is based on the 2025 survey, which had no usable data from California, Mississippi or Nevada. These are useful checks when importing the CSV into a spreadsheet. Reference jurisdictions may lie outside the 50-state range, so exclude rows marked reference when reproducing the default state ranks.
Margins are approximate 90% intervals derived from CDC’s published 95% confidence limits (half-width × 1.645 / 1.96). Preserve them when reshaping the data; an empty cell and a numeric zero have different meanings.
Calculation and reproducibility
Published weighted, crude prevalence (data_value) for each state’s latest year: 2025, or 2024 where 2025 did not meet BRFSS minimums. 90% MOE = (high − low 95% confidence limit) / 2 × 1.645 / 1.96.
Immutable edition 2026-10-23 CSV · Full edition registry, including available histories
Column definitions
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| rank | 1 + the number of states with a higher source value; empty for reference rows. |
| jurisdiction | State name or labeled reference jurisdiction. |
| value | Numeric estimate, using the source’s available precision. |
| unit | Percent |
| moe_90 | Published 90% margin of error in the same units; empty when not published. |
| reference | True if excluded from the default 50-state ranking. |
| period | Reference period of the observation. |
| release | Date of the source release. |
| source | Producer and table/file identifier. |
| source_url | Producer file or source documentation; microdata rows link to the specific state input ZIP. |
Limits and reuse
Self-reported height and weight understate measured obesity. Figures are for 2025, except California, Mississippi and Nevada, where CDC did not have enough 2025 survey responses; their figures are from 2024. Obesity rates change slowly, so the one-year gap rarely matters for rank.
This is an independent arrangement of federal statistical data. Cite the named producer for the original observations and Rank the States for computed ranks. Downloading or embedding does not imply government endorsement. Source files are archived with a checksum for reproducibility.
SHA-256: 10d305005d0efa5a6f813777cdd2ed121e19b786978c5294e6d3c1d7555f778d
Citation
Rank the States. Adult obesity rate, 2025 (2024 for three states). Source: CDC Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, BRFSS, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity data, BRFSS Q036, 2025 (2024 where 2025 is unavailable); released 2026-09-24. Edition 2026-10-23. https://rankthestates.com/data/editions/2026-10-23/adult-obesity-rate.csv