According to studies released by the Center for Disease Control, fifty-eight million Americans are overweight and forty million Americans are obese; eight out of 10 Americans over the age of twenty-five are overweight.

Currently, every state exceeds the government's national goal to reduce obesity rates to 15 percent by the year 2010. Florida has an adult obesity rate of 21.8 percent, ranking it the 35th heaviest in the nation. The state is one of 31 states where obesity rates have escalated recently. In 1991, only four of 50 states had obesity prevalence rates of five to 19 percent and none had obesity prevalence rates greater than 20 percent. Fifteen years later, in 2006, only four states had a prevalence of obesity less than 20 percent.

A person is considered overweight if he has a BMI of 25 to 29.9, while obese is a BMI of 30 or greater. BMI is calculated by taking the person's weight in pounds times 703 and dividing it by the person's height in inches.