Today I Learned the Most Overweight City in America is in Texas

The struggle to lose weight and keep it off is real for many of us, but it’s particularly hard for one Texas city. 

Trust me, I get it. I’ve battled my weight since I was a teenager and know just how hard it is to lose it and keep it off. 

And thanks to the pandemic, I put on the dreaded “quarantine fifteen” pounds. And it sucks.

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So, I made the decision a few weeks ago to tweak my lifestyle with the goal of dropping about 20 pounds. I hate the word “diet” and try to stay away from it because, to me, a diet is a temporary thing. My experience is that if you want to keep the weight off, you need to permanently change your habits. 

We’ll see how it goes. 

Anyway, enough about me and my struggles. You came here to find out which Texas city was determined to be the most overweight city in the country and that would be McAllen. 

To reach their conclusions, researchers at WalletHub compared the 100 most populated metro areas using metrics like the share of physically inactive adults, the percentage of adults with high cholesterol, and the highest percentage of diabetic adults, to name a few.

10 Most Overweight and Obese Cities 

1. McAllen, TX 
2. Memphis, TN 
3. Knoxville, TN 
4. Mobile, AL 
5. Jackson, MS 
6. Birmingham, AL 
7. Little Rock, AR 
8. Shreveport, LA 
9. Augusta, GA 
10. Baton Rouge, LA 

One glaring thing that sticks out to me is that every one of the Top 10 cities is located in the South. 

Not that it’s shocking seeing as the South is home to some of the best food I’ve ever had. It’s just that my favorite foods tend to be fried and full of sodium, which brings me back to that whole lifestyle change I was talking about earlier. 

So yeah, it ain’t gonna be easy.