Top 20 Fittest US Cities of 2013 Statistics Released

Our jaw dropped when we saw that the fittest cities in the U. S. of A. were the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis in Minnesota. We are clearly untraveled folk in our tiny Manhattan Island who think that our endless amounts of walking should make us number 1. But to our surprise, we didn’t even make the list! New York City ranked number 24.

The Fitness Index is measured by personal healthy habits, community resources and access to health care that the American College of Sports Medicine, Indiana University School of Family Medicine and a panel of experts carefully consider before sharing their rankings for the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the US.

The residents in the cities with the highest rankings had higher levels of physical activity and also had advanced state requirements for physical education classes. And parks. Lots of parks. Apparently Central Park is not enough. The crew also looked into which cities had changed the most—for better or for worse. With the new Citi Bike program in place, perhaps our city will move up the list next year.

Here’s the complete top 20 list:

1. Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.
2. Washington, D.C.
3. Portland, Ore.
4. San Francisco, Calif.
5. Denver, Colo.
6. Boston, Mass.
7. Sacramento, Calif.
8. Seattle, Wash.
9. Hartford, Conn.
10. San Jose, Calif.
11. Austin, Texas
12. Salt Lake City, Utah
13. Cincinnati, Ohio
14. San Diego, Calif.
15. Raleigh, N.C.
16. Pittsburgh, Pa.
17. Baltimore, Md.
18. Virginia Beach, Va.
19. Cleveland, Ohio
20. Richmond, Va.

Is your hometown one of the fittest US cities on the list? What do you think makes you city fit?

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