Chicago Moves Up In Fittest City Rankings
By Chuck Sudo in News on May 29, 2014 1:45PM
More Chicagoans are exercising, watching what they eat and making positive healthy life changes, according to a new report from the American College of Sports Medicine measuring the health and fitness levels of the 50 largest cities in America.
Chicago ranks 15th in the report (which can be read here as a PDF file) which may not seem like a number worth crowing over but is a dramatic improvement over the 2013 report, where the Second City placed 27th.
The American College of Sports Medicine used a wide array of current federal data to come to their conclusions. Chicago’s scorecard shows the area does better than average in the number of baseball diamonds per 10,000 people, farmers markets per 1 million people, WalkScore, people bicycling and taking public transit to work and recreational centers per 20,000 people. The percentage of Chicagoans increasing their fruit and vegetable intake and increased their exercise regimens also improved, although those numbers are still slightly below the report’s target goals.
Despite these improvements the report shows Chicagoans still suffer from several health issues. Our rates for obesity, diabetes, asthma, heart disease and recent bouts of poor mental and physical health were above the report’s target rates, and we could improve on the amount of land allocated to parks, swimming pools and other recreational facilities. Most damning, the Chicago area has no level of state requirements for physical education, so all the foundational amenities available are for naught if they aren’t being used.
Washington, DC topped the list, followed by Minneapolis, Portland, Denver and San Francisco.