Connection: Who’S Healthier

Washington residents are more likely than Idaho residents to smoke.

Idaho residents are more likely than Washington residents to ride in a car without wearing a seat belt.

Those are some of the state-by-state findings of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studies that looked at the nation’s health.

Neither state tops the list in the various types of unhealthy activity the centers studied. And in some categories, the two states were about equal.

About one in five residents of each state said they had had no leisure physical activity in the last month. In Idaho, 16.1 percent said they fit the definition of obese; in Washington, it was 15.1 percent. Asked if they’d ever been told by a doctor they had high blood pressure, 24 percent of Idahoans said they had, while 23.1 percent of Washingtonians said yes.

Asked if they smoked cigarettes, 23.7 percent of Washington residents admitted to it. In Idaho, the number was 19.8 percent.

The biggest disparity was in seat belt use. Forty percent of Idaho residents said they regularly ride in a car without wearing a seat belt. In Washington, only 24 percent admitted doing that.

But Idaho lagged behind the nation’s leader for lack of seat belts. Nearly 60 percent of North Dakotans admitted they don’t always buckle up.