I love spring! As a warm weather person living in the Northeast, I can’t wait to get outside and be physically active. While many are like me, still 29% of the U.S. remains by and large physically inactive and it is very regionally concentrated. The County Health Rankings uses a measure of physical inactivity as one of the ranking measures using data from the CDC Diabetes Atlas. The map below shows the counties where 30% or more of the population is physically inactive.
There are 937 counties where 30% or more of the population self-identifies as being physically inactive, or approximately 29% of all counties in the U.S. Nearly half of these counties are in the states of Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Kentucky. This does not appear to be related to age, poverty, or access to exercise facilities. Michigan and Illinois for instance have only 2 counties that have greater than 30% inactive populations. These regional anomalies appear to be very complicated and deeply entrenched. Much has been studied about socio-demographics of physical inactivity with few conclusions.
