Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, is the fittest urban area in the United States, followed by Washington, D.C., and Boston. The ranking, done by the American College of Sports Medicine, considers a city’s smoking rate, the percentage of regular exercisers, chronic health concerns and even the amount of farmer’s markets that a city has. The cities that scored the lowest on the ranking were Oklahoma City, Louisville and Memphis.
More facts about fitness in America:
Fitter cities tend to be more affluent and better educated, but contrary to popular belief, there is no distinctive correlation between a warm average city temperature and its fitness. Sunny Los Angeles, although it stereotypically is full of fit people, actually ranks 41st out of the 50 metro areas ranked.
In terms of states, Colorado is the only state with an obesity rate of less than 20 percent. West Virginia is the state with the highest obesity rate — about 35 percent. In 38 of the 50 states, more than one-fourth of the people are considered obese.
People in Northeastern and Western states tend to have the lowest obesity rates.