The American College of Sports Medicine has named Arlington, Virginia the fittest city in America for the fourth year in a row.
Arlington scored 86.1 out of 100, with Minneapolis and Seattle taking second and third place, respectively, according to the 2021 Fitness Index released Tuesday. The index ranks America’s 100 largest cities based on 34 health indicators.
“We congratulate Arlington, Virginia on being America’s fittest city for the fourth year in a row,” said Shantanu Agrawal, chief health officer for health insurer Anthem Inc., which sponsored the fitness index. “Arlington’s longstanding commitment to being a fit city serves as a model for all communities in the US”
Arlington was in the top 10 cities on 18 of the 34 indicators. The city in Northern Virginia ranked # 1 on personal and community health, as well as eight other fitness indicators.
The city had the lowest percentage of residents out of 100 cities with angina or coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, food insecurity, poor physical health in the previous month and who smoke, says the Fitness Index.
Arlington also had the highest percentage of residents in excellent or very good health who had exercised in the previous month.
The district was ranked sixth on the fitness index, Richmond ranked 50th and Baltimore ranked 67th.
Baltimore, with New Orleans, was ranked second among the cities with the highest food security, while Richmond was ranked ninth in this category, according to the index.
Richmond ranked second and Arlington eighth for cities whose residents get seven or more hours of sleep. According to the fitness index, on average less than 65% of residents in the cities surveyed said they got enough sleep. Insufficient sleep can contribute to the development of conditions such as diabetes, stroke, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and depression.
Cities in Nevada and Oklahoma had the lowest fitness rankings. North Las Vegas was 98th, Tulsa 99th, and Oklahoma City 100th in the fitness poll.
“Regardless of their placement in the 2021 Fitness Index, officials in all 100 of the largest US cities have significant opportunities to drive economic growth and create jobs through improvements to the built environment that support physical activity and healthy lifestyles,” the researchers wrote of the report. “The first step in gaining new residents and jobs is ultimately a higher quality of life, in which the city and municipalities are heavily invested in the well-being of all their residents.”
The index included indicators such as the proportion of residents who walk or cycle to work, the number of leisure centers per 20,000 residents, the proportion of residents within a 10-minute walk of a park, and the proportion of residents who use the Meet guidelines for aerobic and weight training activities.
The indicators were added together to provide partial scores for personal health and community and environmental measurements. The researchers then calculated the weighted average of the two partial scores for a total score to rank the cities’ fitness levels.
The data for the 2021 Fitness Index was collected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the impact of the pandemic on health outcomes “will not be fully understood for a few years,” the report’s researchers note.
Before the pandemic, many of the largest cities were already unhealthy, with an average of nearly a third of residents being obese, 14% of residents smoking, and 25% of them not exercising in the previous month, the index researchers said.
Early studies suggest that physical activity and healthy food intake decreased while obesity and stress increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In all US states and territories, more than 15% of adults were physically inactive, meaning there was no recreational activity in the past month, with estimates ranging from 17% to nearly 48%, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in January 2020 .
An estimated 42% of US adults were obese between 2017 and 2018, according to the latest CDC data. Conditions associated with obesity include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer.
