WASHINGTON — While childhood obesity rates in the U.S. appear to be stabilizing, the rate among adults remains stubbornly high, reaching new peaks in several states over the past year.

That’s according to the latest annual report on obesity in America published Thursday by the Trust for America’s Health, a health advocacy and research group, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropy focused on public health issues.

Using federal health data, the report stressed that geography and social factors, such as income and race, continue to play a significant role in obesity. The result is that more Americans face a higher risk for health problems, including heart disease, diabetes, some forms of cancers and premature death.

“While we’ve seen some progress on the childhood obesity front, the progress is more mixed for adults,” said Jeffrey Levi, executive director of the trust.

He said that no state significantly improved over last year and showed a lower obesity rate, “when that’s the ultimate goal here.”

Mississippi and West Virginia topped the list as the heaviest states, with their adult obesity rates at 35.1 percent. That’s the first time any state has passed the 35 percent threshold, the report stated. Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee rounded out the top five.

Colorado had the lowest rate of adult obesity at 21.3 percent, with Hawaii and Massachusetts close behind. However, all 50 states have seen obesity grow as a public health concern over the decades.

In 1991, no state had hit the 20 percent mark that even the skinniest states have since passed, the report noted. Though Colorado can now boast of having the lowest level of overweight people in the nation, its rate has more than doubled from two decades ago, when it was just 10 percent, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.