Healthy cities.
When you are in one, you just know you are. The city is alive, vibrant, active, and clean.
There are healthy restaurant options and gyms around every corner. There are abundant bike paths and jogging routes.
People seem happy and content with their lives.
In 2008, Best Health Magazine ranked Canada’s Top 20 Healthiest metropolitan cities:
1. Vancouver
2. Victoria
3. Calgary
4. Edmonton
5. Ottawa
6. Quebec
7. Halifax
8. Saskatoon
9. Summerside
10. Toronto
11. Winnipeg
12. Montreal
13. Charlottetown
14. Brandon
15. Corner Brook
16. St. John’s
17. Regina
18. Moncton
19. Saint John
20. Lunenburg
The cities were scored on various criteria such as alcohol use, air quality, amount of fruits and vegetables eaten, life expectancy, stress, # overweight, etc. You can read all the stats here.
Canadians: Do you live in or near one of the healthiest cities? Do you agree with the study results? Why or why not? Should your city be on that list? Or do you think you live in an unhealthy city?
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The AARP Magazine, also selected the United State’s Top 10 healthiest cities in 2008:
1. Ann Arbor, Michigan
2. Honolulu, Hawaii
3. Madison, Wisconsin
4. Santa Fe, New Mexico
5. Fargo, North Dakota
6. Boulder, Colorado
7. Charlottesville, Virginia
8. Minneapolis, St. Paul, Bloomington, Minnesota
9. San Fran, California
10. Naples, Florida
They also listed 9 cities that were noteworthy…
11. Sioux Falls, South Dakota
12. Boston, Cambridge, Quincy, Massachusetts
13. St Cloud, Minnesota
14. Bridgeport, Stamford, Norwalk, Connecticut
15. Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, California
16. Burlington, Vermont
17. Provo-orem, Utah
18. Portland, Maine
19. Fort Collins, Loveland, Colorado
I thought this chart was interesting to read:
US Readers: Do you live in a healthy city? Is your city healthy but not listed? Or do you think you have an unhealthy city? What needs to change?
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For those of you outside of US and Canada, you can chime in on your city too!
I hope to do a post on the WORLD’s Healthiest cities too!
Yay! Ottawa is #5! Not too shabby :)
I wish I still lived in Boston b/c then I could say I lived in a healthy city! I do think NYC is pretty healthy, though I dont know if it has a very healthy body image. For one thing, NYers walk everywhere, so that has to count for something! I think it also has so many opportunities to encourage good health and I think that’s a very important aspect of the city.
ann arbor number one?! thats so awesome! i live about 20 minutes away from aa and i definitely love being around because it is just super natural to walk rather than drive, eat vegetarian/vegan rather than meat, and pretty much take healthy living very seriously rather than put it on the back burner. its very much the epitome of health!
great post!
I definitely don’t really live in a healthy city…people seem to think it’s weird when I’m running outside! I wish I lived in a more health mindful city, if only to meet more people like me!
oo, way to go minneapolis/st paul, mn! and i see my old stomping grounds st cloud MN is on the list too! it must be my stats that are making them rank well! ;)
Hi there…I’m new to reading your blog. I’ve really been enjoying it though! I do not live in a healthy city, unfortunately. I live in New Olreans, LA. Too much alcohol drinking, not enough nature and natural living. I try daily to encourage healthiness in my city!
Wow, I’m actually surprised to see Wisconsin on those lists a few times. I didn’t realize we were a healthier state, especially considering that it’s winter 9 months of the year! ;) I really don’t know how healthy my own city is though… I definitely plan on moving somewhere that I can truly feel healthy and supported in my health-consciousness when I get out of college! I’d love to go for walks and have lots of gyms around me. Can you believe that the nearest yoga class is an HOUR away!? tsk-tsk! hehe.
xxoo
Heather
Santa Fe got 4th?? Cool! I live about 30 minutes away from there!
I went to college in Ames, Iowa. I am surprised it is on that list so many times!
Good timing for our bakery research!!
Yay! My hometown (Ann Arbor) is number one! Makes me homesick…
I live in Oklahoma City, and I’m pretty sure we’re usually on the unhealthiest list. It’s not hard to see why – it’s hard to find healthy places to eat, and we drive everywhere. I hope we can make progress though and not always stay this way.
Thanks for all the lists!
I live in Santa Rosa, CA, which is about 40 minutes north of San Francisco, so it usually gets lumped into categories with it. My town is pretty healthy though – although it’s suburbia so there’s not a lot of walking like in the city, we have several state parks and a gazillion running groups, triathlete groups, and just a lot of very outdoorsy people. I love it here.
I’m pretty sure GA is in the top 10 UNhealthiest cities. It’s all the fried food, bbq, and Coca Cola. But I do love GA, so I don’t wanna bad-mouth it :)
Santa Barbara made it to the “noteworthy” list! I agree with Santa Fe, too. I’ve got friends there. It seems like a pretty healthy place. Great place to get healthy food, too, but maybe that’s just because my friends are vegetarian…
I’m shocked DC didn’t make the cut. Even more shocked that Johnstown, PA (my hometown) is on that chart. Wow!
I live near the Sarasota/Naples area. Not too shabby!
i live in santa barbara, ca one of the note-worthy cities and i definitely agree with it being healthy. everyone here is in amazing shape and bike, run, and walk everywhere. yay for good influences!!!
I always like looking at these studies that are released, it’s interesting for certain. I see that there is a fellow Wisconsinite who has commented – hi Heather! I am from Milwaukee, WI and am not surprised it’s not one of the healthier ones. Forbes Magazine once determined Milwaukee to be the hardest-drinking city in America. I feel like in the past few years things have improved to get people in my city out and more active… our parks system is among the nation’s finest with recent improvements. Maybe sometime soon we’ll get on the healthiest cities list!
I live in North Richland Hills, Texas. It’s near Dallas/Fort Worth. People in North Richland Hills are fairly active considering there’s a ton of bike trails and nature parks nearby.. not really an abundant amount of healthy resteraunts. But there’s an abundance of overweight people here, and it’s fairly rare to see people actually commute from once place to the other on a bike or walk.. unless they’re still a minor and cannot get a car yet. XP