From Forbes Magazine we find that the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. area is America's fittest (America's Fittest Cities, May 26, 3009, by Rebecca Ruiz). According to Forbes the America's FIttest Cities List is sponsored by the WellPoint Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the health benefits company WellPoint. The index ranks 45 MSAs that include the city and surrounding suburban area on 30 indicators including parkland, death rate from cardiovascular disease, the number of primary care physicians per capita, health insurance coverage, smoking and diabetes rates and the percent of residents who bike or walk to work.
According to the American Fitness Index website, the Washington, D.C. region scores great on 24 of the 30 indicators compared to other cities including a "higher percent using public transportation to work" and a "higher percent bicycling and walking to work." While I realize that Washington would do good on this kind of scale because of it's great economy it is interesting to note that the AFI index takes how people get to work into account in its index and that of course our region scores well on these. It's also interesting to compare the top cities, where there is good public transit, versus the bottom of the list where driving seems to predominate.
There's certainly been an emerging consensus in recent scientific literature that correlates health and fitness with the use of public transit, biking and walking as a transportation mode. And this should be another incentive for people who drive alone to try something different for some of their trips. Want to find out yourself how many additional calories you can burn by switching drive alone trips to bike, walk or transit? Try the Calculator at CarFreeDiet.com.
America's Fittest Cities List
1. Washington, D.C.
2. Minneapolis-St. Paul
3. Denver
4. Boston
5. San Francisco
6. Seattle
7. Portland, OR
8. San Diego
9. Austin
10. Virginia Beach
...
19. Baltimore
...
41. Houston
42. Las Vegas
43. Birmingham
44. Detroit
45. Oklahoma City
Chris Hamilton is the Commuter ServicesChief for Arlington County in the Transportation Division of the Department of Environmental Services, manager of CommuterPageBlog and a Metro/biking commuter from Rosemont in Alexandria.
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