The American College Of Sports Medicine has just named the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area as the nation’s fittest city – for the third year in a row. The ratings are created through the use of a fitness index which measures everything from baseball fields to how many servings of fruit and vegetables the residents eat in a day. On a more quantitative basis, the incidence of diabetes is also a factor. The DC-area has a 6.7% diabetes rate compared to 8.3% nationally and 10.5% in America’s least healthy city – Oklahoma City. You can read the full article here.
I found the most interesting part of the article to be a short description of people biking or walking to work. The article says, “Washington has the second highest rate of people walking or biking to work aided by 60 miles of bike lanes.”. Isn’t that interesting? I have read countless comments from people on this site about the low level of pedestrian friendliness in Northern Virginia and the Washington D.C. area. However, when it comes to the DC area, many of the commenters on this blog do not let facts cloud their arguments.
I have also read a lot of comments about people paying their location variable costs. I wonder if superior fitness would be a location variable cost. Given the statistical difference between DC and cities on the wrong end of the list you’d have to say that fitness varies by location. Given the recent debate on health care it seems that illness certainly has a cost. So, when do I start getting rebates on my health insurance from the people living in RoVa?