For the ninth year in a row, Arlington, Virginia, has been ranked America's fittest city by the American College of Sports Medicine. DC moved up one spot from last year to rank second.
The college ranks the nation's 100 largest cities using 35 evidence-based indicators spanning personal health, community infrastructure and environmental conditions. While weather isn't explicitly considered, air quality is one of the metrics. Arlington ranks among the nation's 10 cities with the cleanest air, with good air quality on 84 percent of days, according to the report, despite the recent spell of hazardous wildfire smoke.
The DC region has seen dramatic improvements in air quality over recent decades thanks to local, regional and national pollution controls. While not part of the rankings, the area's generally temperate climate also makes outdoor exercise feasible for much of the year, with only a handful of days in winter and summer typically too extreme for strenuous activity.
"The nation's fittest cities consistently combine lower obesity and chronic disease rates with higher physical activity, stronger active transportation, and broad access to parks and recreation infrastructure," the college said in a news release.
The top 10 cities were:
- Arlington, Va.
- DC
- Minneapolis
- Seattle
- Denver
- San Francisco
- Irvine, Calif.
- Atlanta
- Madison, Wis.
- Boston
The bottom five, in descending order, were Lubbock, Tex.; Indianapolis; Port St. Lucie, Fla.; Memphis; and Oklahoma City.
This is the 19th year the college has published the rankings.
