“You have to watch everything that’s in it,” she said. “Read the label and make sure it’s good for you.”

Sue McMurray, a circuit coach at Curves for Women in Tahlequah, has seen many women begin weight programs. She said they can succeed if they combine exercise with a healthy diet.

The Curves for Women program recommends a low-carb diet.

“I think portion control is a major thing on a diet,” McMurray said “Most people I know just eat too much.”

She advises reading the labels carefully while shopping to see what you’re getting. And pay attention to size. A package that looks like something you’d eat in one setting may contain two portions, so you’re getting twice as many calories as you may think.

And, of course, McMurray believes in exercise.

“Getting strength exercise while you’re dieting is a major thing,” she said. “If you just diet and you’re not working out, you’re really missing the boat.”

The study concerning the Atkins diet coincides with the release of new statistics on adult obesity by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It finds that Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee lead the nation when it comes to obesity, but Oklahoma ranks high at No. 9 on the list, according to study results reported by the Associated Press. More than 30 percent of adults in each of those states were obese.

Colorado was the thinnest state, with about 19 percent fitting the obese category in the phone survey conducted by the Centers.

The 2007 results mirror those from the same survey the previous years, with Mississippi ranking the highest each year since 2004. The CDC attributes the high rate of obesity in the south to the traditional Southern diet, high in fat and fried foods. Rural residents and black women, two groups tending to have higher obesity rates, also are concentrated in the South.

Obesity is based on body mass index, a calculation involving height and weight. A 5-foot 9-inch adult weighing 203 pounds would have an index of 30, considered the borderline for obesity.

CDC officials said they believe the phone survey of 350,000 adults offers conservative estimates for obesity, because it was based on what the respondents said about their height and weight. Experts said men commonly say they’re taller, while women underestimate their weight.

About 26 percent of the respondents in this survey were obese. By contrast, a different study conducted by the CDC in 2005 and 2006, in which researchers actually weighed and measured participants, resulted in an adult obesity rate of 34 percent.

The study concerning the low-carb or Atkins diet, the high-fat diet and Mediterranean diet, found all achieved weight loss and improved cholesterol. It lasted for two years, and 84 percent of the participants stuck with their diets, prompting experts to label it highly creditable, according to an Associated Press report.

“This is a very good group of researchers,” said Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.