America's Healthiest Women

Self Magazine’s December issue has a list of America’s healthiest cities for women. The top 3 were:

1. Bethesda, MD
2. San Francisco, CA
3. Honolulu, HI
I would agree that I like all 3 of those cities and have lived in 2 of the 3, unfortunately, Honolulu not being one of them, but who wouldn’t mind living in Honolulu, unless you have something against the beach! The results of this survey is based on a number of things such as the availability of local fresh fruits and vegetables, healthy restaurants, walking trails, subway usage, smoking, obesity, cancer and depression rates. I am surprised that Bethesda is number 1 and not San Francisco but Bethesda is tiny in comparison to San Francisco, so I am sure that has something to do with it. Bethesda is also a very affluent city. San Francisco did rank number 1 for the city with the healthiest eaters and Oakland, CA was a runner up. That I would definitely agree with!
Surprisingly Miami, FL was ranked number 2 as lowest chance of lung cancer. I found that extremely surprising since when I was in Miami last year, it seemed that everyone smoked. I continuously held my breath walking while walking in Miami Beach because people where always smoking. What was most annoying was that people where smoking in restaurants. I actually told my husband that the smoking would definitely prevent me from living in Miami. I am huge anti-smoker and have always been, in college I almost got into physical fights about smoking (I didn’t start it, but I almost punched out a girl in my dorm who accosted me because my roommate and I insisted on enforcing the non-smoking rule in my dorm (it was a non-smoking dorm!).

The 3 unhealthiest cities included:
1. Detroit, MI
2. Gary, IN
3. St. Louis, MO
I have never been to Gary or St. Louis but I can say that I would not ever want to live in Detroit, MI. One of my friends in college got married and moved to Detroit and she insisted that Detroit made her fat! My first thought about that was that was an excuse, but can you not make healthy choices when living in an unhealthy environment?