By Men's Fitness Magazine

http://www.mensfitness.com/rankings/358

To me, this a a real hoot!

That was interesting.

Simply an observation, but I've travelled to many of the cities on both lists, and I've seen a pattern... The cities on the fattest list generally have more urban and suburban sprawl with little regard to quality of life. Many of the cities on the fittest list are the cities where there are alternatives to getting around other than hopping in your car.

Anyone else see this?

Az

Woohoo, I'm in Baltimore.

It certainly is a subjective survey and I would not have picked Baltimore as a "fittest" city, but we do get some things right. We have a lot of parks and the city is relatively compact and easy to get around in and residents don't _have_to_ drive to get their daily errands done. However, like most NorthEastern cities, we have serious obseity.

I am suprised that NYC was not even on the list. People seem to take exercise very seriously there and getting around is better _without_ a car.

Also notice the pattern that the worst cities are in the south and particularly in states that have the overall lowest standards of living (the gulf coast). These contain many people that live on welfare and food stamps and can't afford a membership to the local fitness club (if one even exists).

The one thing that you should remember is that you are an individual and your own personal habits are what determine how fit you are (not the habits of the other million people that live around you).

Hah! It's true that you are the one who makes or breaks your own fitness, but there's something to be said for a culture that supports your choices. It can be lame being in Cleveland where few people are really active as a lifestyle; and finding a seat on the bus when many people require two of the available seats to accommodate their bulk is difficult! Fascinating that among the 4 cities I consider most likely for me to be living in next year, three are on the "fittest" list and one is on the "fattest". :)

There have been questions raised about this particular ranking. Especially as some state (Baltimore?) was one of the Fattest last year and that it is very unlikely that a whole city could truely turn around in one year.

It makes sense that residents in a community that requires more walking would be more fit than suburban dwellers.

I'm not sure I understand your comment about "quality of life." I moved out of the city to the suburbs for a better quality of life.

+1

Disposable income is a huge determinant of heath and wellness. Like all these guys on carbon/ Ti frames are broke. :)

The same goes for medicine and law; IQ is far less correlated to these professions than is their parents’ net income.

Most people think doctors and lawyers are smart; but really being born rich had more to do with it.

They are the ones that can go to general studies, pre-med, and medical school for 8 years and never have to worry about where the money is going to come from to pay for all of that. :D

You dont need a local fitness club to get fit. You need to burn more calories than you take in. Welfare or lack of a fitness club dont prevent one from burning more than taking in. You can walk, run, and do push-up and sit ups regardless of your standard of living.

MY GOD!

How long has Joe Weider been dead now?

:-)

Not being lazy and ignorant is a huge determinant health and wellness. You can give a carbon/Ti frame to all these people and maybe five percent would have the dedication and will to ride it. The lawyer/doctor comment is just as ridiculous as the carbon/ti frame comment. You have to make certain grades and attain certain test scores to get admitted in med/law schools. My wife and are in professional school and there is no one in the class that made less than a 25 on the MCAT. That is the bottom of the class. Let the rich or poor take that test and you wont get many people that are capable of scoring a 25. You will get many less that have the dedication to go through 4 yrs of college making mostly A's and then are willing to go to school seven or more years after that. The rich/poor thing is not nearly as big a factor as intelligence and dedication.

We're #2 on the list!! Go Honolulu!!

I'm not sure I understand your "quality of life" comment either, although I've heard lots of people make such statements. In all sincerity, could you explain whether you think suburban quality of life really is better than urban, and if so -- why/how/in what way(s)?

When I lived in the city I had no yard for my children to play in. If they wanted to play outside, one of us had to take them to a park. In the suburbs they had room to run, play in the woods behind the house, build a playhouse, ride their bikes in the street.... The house at the end of our street has a basketball goal in the driveway. The neighborhood boys are there nearly every afternoon playing where their parents don't have to be watching over them.

There were no supermarkets in the city. If I needed something on short notice I would have to go to a mom and pop store and pay a premium for a limited selection.

In the city I had no place for my woodworking shop. In the city I had no place to grow roses, tomatoes, or the milkweed plants that I grow for the Monarch butterflys. In the city, the only birds we saw were starlings, grackels, pigeons, and little brown ones I never did learn to identify. I can sit on my back porch and watch cardinals, tufted titmice, Carolina chickadees, goldfinches and house finches, and three different types of woodpeckers come to the feeders.

The city was blazing hot in the summer with all that asphalt and concrete. I have a yard full of trees to keep me cool and a rain garden to catch the water that falls on my yard.

I know and am close to my neighbors here in the burbs. In the city it was difficult to get the other folks in our building to talk to us. Everyone acted afraid of each other.

I live 15 miles from my office and get there in about 30 minutes in my car. When I lived closer and had to rely on public transportation, it took me an hour. Today, on my way home, I made a stop at the drug store in my neighborhood. If I still lived in the city, I could have gotten off the bus at a drug store, but then I would have to wait for another bus to take me home. I would rather spend my time with my wife or on my bike or in my shop or at church than waiting for public transportation.

Our suburb has become a small town of its own. Within a few miles of my home are banks, supermarkets, a post office, two drug stores, numerous churches, a library, a bunch of restaurants, and several schools. Along with those amenities, are several small lakes within 5 miles of my door where I can go catch big bass in the little jon boat that I couldn't have when I lived in the city. I don't even have to take the trolling motor off of it when I leave it out in the back yard.

When I lived in the city I had to take the trunk rack off my car every time I used it to keep it from getting stolen. I don't need to do that in the burbs. I can get on my bike and, in less than three miles, be on a rural road.

I do not care, and no one else should ethier. It's senseless to care about the health of the people, if they don't want to be healthy then that's their fualt and we should let them die of an ultzer when they're 35 and laugh when we're in our late 80's. Oh, but I forgot, this veiw is somehow wrong, because you're "suppose" to care for the well-being of the american people, but not other countries, right? eat it.

Correlation does not imply causation. Increased money could mean a better (or any) breakfast for the child; which has been clearly linked to increased attention in school. Just because many intermediate variables come into play doesn’t make the FACT any less real.

Thanks! That's very well thought-out and written. You paint a lovely picture of suburban life, and give a lot of compelling reasons for someone to want that lifestyle.

I have most of that in my small city. I don't have a boat, though some of my neighbors (all of whom I know pretty well) have them; or a woodworking shop, though I suppose I could if I wanted one. Our nearest lake is about 15 miles. My yard's not big enough for lots of kid play (though most of the neighbors' yards are)... but overall the lifestyle sounds very similar.

If I'm lucky enough to get a job here, I plan to stay. Part of what's always been attractive to me about this town is its compactness and self-containment. Everything I need is within easy walking or biking distance. (No real public transport). I'm able to do 90% of my travel by foot or bike now, and I'm working to make that closer to 95%. If I don't find a job here, it sounds as if I may want to give serious consideration to suburban living. From what you describe, it sounds as if a motivated individual or family could live (at least mostly) carfree where you are. Would you agree?

New York gets nailed because it's HUGE - a lot of the outlying suburban-lifestyle areas that would be outside city limits in most cities are in city limits here, and the suburbs are often heavier - and because we have large numbers of working poor who are forced to eat badly due to income restraints and lack of availability of fresh foods in their neighborhoods. I bet Manhattan would rank pretty high if it were counted separately ;)

I could live carfree without suffering. My wife, however, could not due to some health considerations. We have friends who drive their car maybe once a week. The rest of their trips are done by bike. I'm thinking of putting slicks on my old mountain bike and turning it into an errand runner.

There are some tradeoffs with suburban living. More and more of my neighbors, as they get older and their kids are grown, have chosen to rid themselves of the bother of maintaining a house and yard and have moved into condominiums closer to town.

Northern cities tend to be 'healthier' than southern cities. Always have it seems to me. And it has nothing to do with standard of living. Nor is it restricted to the united states.

Check the world over. Northern climates tend to have a healthier more in shape population. Not a hard fast rule, just generalization.

My guess is historically if you didnt work your butt off all summer long and build a roof that would last the winter, and farm/hunt for enough food to last the winter, you froze and died. So northern climate people tended to work sun up to sun down.

In more temperate southern climates. People can live outdoors, eat food thats more abundant year round, and generally not die of exposure or starvation in short periods of time. And the heat means that siesta time is the norm.

Then again, thats just my guess :)

Most "studies" that compare one city with another are seriously flawed. One of the basic problems is defining what is meant by "city". Millions of people will tell you that they are "from Detroit". But, it turns out they are not. They are from one of the hundreds of smaller cities in a three county area around Detroit. Actually, rather few people "live" in Detroit. So, a "study" that looked at how many health clubs are in Detroit would find rather few. However, in three county "Greater Detroit", there are many thousands of health clubs.

The only accurate way to compare cities is by going there, and looking at the people. I've been to about thirty states, and hundreds of cities. "Fattest City in America"? Flint, Michigan wins by a mile. Folks in Flint rate restaurants by portion sizes. One bar brags about a "burrito" that consists of a pound of hamburger and a pound of melted velveta cheese. People drive a loong way to get them.

The longest walk anyone ever takes in Flint Michigan is from their front door to their car door. Folks in Flint will drive to visit a neighbor who lives at the end of the block.

Houston? If you come to Memorial Park at 5 a.m., you will get trampled by the hundreds of people out running before dawn...the people who write fitness "studies" don't know about that...too busy counting health clubs.

That list is total BS. Are they saying all the Triathletes moved from San Diego to Baltimore in the last year to train in crappy weather ? Baltimore went from the 2005 Fattest list to #1 on the 2006 Fittest list and San Diego went from the 2005 Fittest to the 2006 Fattest list. Men's Fitness editors must be on drugs.

Anyone depending on Men's Fitness to give out decent fitness information would have to be extremely naive anyway.

Now, if they released a study by McArdle, Katch & Katch that discussed the fittest and fattest cities, then I'd totally sit up and take notice. ;)

Koffee

Sure seems like a list of cities with the POTENTIAL to be the fattest. Anyone could eat fast food, but that doesn't take into account portion of meals eaten or even skipped meals versus calories burned. Also, for the last few years the nation's largest MS150 is in Houston. 13,000 fatties, er, I mean cyclists riding 180 miles in 2 days. Go figure.