Living near parks, bike trails and green space is as important as being motivated when it comes to achieving your fitness goals, experts say.
Not all communities provide such amenities.
Those that hit all the marks showed up in the annual American Fitness Index released Tuesday by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the Elevance Health Foundation. The index ranks the nation’s 100 largest cities on 33 personal and community health indicators. The index measures whether people in a city walk and bike to work and how much a city spends on public parks. It also assesses a city’s food security, smoking rates, overall mental health and the quality of sleep residents get.
This year Arlington, Virginia, Washington, D.C. and Seattle ranked the nation’s three fittest cities, according to the index.
Shantanu Agrawal, chief health officer of Elevance Health, said a community’s environment and the social support it provides greatly influence the overall health of individuals.
“If people don’t have the right environment around them, whether it’s the built environment or access to mental health services, food services, whatever the case may be, that’s going to affect your health and health outcomes,” Agrawal said.
In a study last month, the World Health Organization warned that since 2010 a growing number of adults aren’t getting enough exercise. A lack of physical activity puts people at risk of heart attacks and strokes, Type 2 diabetes, dementia and certain cancers.
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