Augusta ranked one of the ‘most obese cities’ by WalletHub

With the 2025 Masters just around the corner, all eyes will be on the Garden City this April. But the world might find Augusta larger than life in more ways than just its golf game.

According to WalletHub, a personal finance company and prolific city ranker, Georgia’s golfing hot spot is one of the most obese cities in the nation this year.

WalletHub’s most overweight and obese cities

For the United States, obesity is a plus-sized problem. According to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 2 in 5 adults are obese, causing billions in annual medical expenses and raising serious health risks.

In 2023, the World Obesity Federation even predicted more than half the global population could be overweight or obese by 2035, creating an annual economic impact of $4.32 trillion. And among the world, Americans are some of the most overweight.

“Obesity is becoming more and more prevalent in the U.S., and it’s costing us big time,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo said. “In the most overweight and obese cities, residents often lack easy access to healthy food and recreation opportunities, so investing in those areas should help improve people’s diets and exercise regimens, and reduce the financial burden overall.”

To determine the most overweight and obese cities, WalletHub put 100 of the nation’s most populated cities to the test. Across 19 metrics, including projected obesity rates and share of diabetic adults, the personal finance company scored every city for the quality of their food/fitness resources, health and weight. Those three weighted scores were then summed up to determine the final rankings.

The main findings? The South has a weight issue.

Augusta is not just overweight, it’s a top-ranking town for obesity

McAllen, Texas; Little Rock, Arkansas; Jackson, Mississippi; Mobile, Alabama; and Knoxville, Tennessee, are the five most overweight and obese cities in the U.S. for 2025, according to the rankings. Just below Shreveport, Louisiana, Augusta came in seventh place overall. One of the reasons it ranked so highly on the list was because it came in third — just below McAllen, Texas, and Memphis, Tennessee — for having the most obese adults in the country.

Credit: TNS

Credit: TNS

Atlanta did not come out of the rankings unscathed either, but listed much lower on the list than Augusta. Georgia’s capital ranked 63rd overall, just above Raleigh, North Carolina, and below Orlando, Florida.

Augusta ranked 16th in the weight category and ninth in both food/fitness resources and health. Atlanta, on the other hand, ranked 41st, 47th and 85th in those categories. That puts Augusta exceptionally below average among the 100 cities in every category, while Atlanta at least earned the best 15 percentile for available food/fitness resources. Still, neither city did much to tip the scales in their favor this year.

How to lose weight

According to Fairfield University assistant professor Kim Doughty, people trying to shed pounds should first shrug off any expectations that they need to live an extreme lifestyle to get healthier.

“I think the biggest mistake is trying to do too much too fast,” she told WalletHub. “Many people jump into extreme, restrictive diets and/or high-intensity exercise programs to see quick results, but then they can’t maintain those drastic changes. I always suggest making small, sustainable changes a little at a time.”

The CDC advises that there are four major factors to creating a healthy lifestyle: good nutrition, regular physical activity, stress management and enough sleep. The health authority said people who lose weight gradually — no more than a couple pounds a week — are also more likely to keep their weight off.

For more weight management information, visit cdc.gov/healthy-weight-growth/losing-weight.