OBJECTIVES: Within New Mexico (NM) half of adults are either overweight or obese. Obesity is associated with low socioeconomic status, sedentary life style and several diseases; all pose a threat on general health. In order to rule out potential confounding, we use propensity score matching to compare self-reported health of obese individuals with those of non-obese METHODS: We utilized data from the 2011 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) for New Mexico (NM) in which self-reported health status was measured on a 5-point scale of poor to excellent. For the purpose of this study we dichotomized self-reported health into 2 categories: good (good, very good, and excellent) and poor (fair and poor). Propensity score model of 13 variables accounting for socioeconomic factors, disease status, and exercise behavior was used to match obese (body mass index (BMI) ≥ 30 kg/m) individuals with non-obese (BMI < 30 kg/m).We used the STATA command psmatch2 to perform 1:1 nearest neighbor matching without replacement, and caliper width was set at 0.001. Adequacy of matching was assessed by estimating the standardized differences between obese and non-obese individuals for all variables. Self-reported health was compared between the 2 groups using the McNemar’s test for matched comparison. RESULTS: We identified 2310 obese individuals (26%) and 6671 non-obese individuals (74%) in the database. Obese individuals were significantly different from non-obese in nearly all baseline characteristics. After 1:1 propensity score matching (n = 3512), obese individuals were significantly more likely to report poor health compared to non-obese individuals (Odds ratio = 1.45, 95% confidence interval: 1.23-1.72, p<0.001).All standardized differences between groups were <10% suggesting and adequate matching. CONCLUSIONS: Among propensity-matched individuals, those with obesity are more likely to rate their health as poor compared to non-obese individuals. Continuing efforts are needed to fight obesity epidemic both locally and nationally to improve overall quality of life.