ranking our city
The results are in: Austin is one healthy city for women
Can a city be healthy for women? According to Women's Health's fourth annual Healthiest Cities for Women ranking, the answer is a definite "yes," — and our own Austin ranks in the top ten.
Women's Health magazine compiled data on 38 measures of health and well being, including access to medical care, cancer rates, obesity rates and longevity. The team also looked at lifestyle factors, including everything from nutrition to unemployment to happiness and fitness, by using survey data from places like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States Census and the American Cancer Society.
Once they established an overall health score, each city was ranked. While many of the cities that made the top ten have been healthy for years, there were three newcomers: Madison, Burlington and Portland.
Women's Health editors noted that a stronger emphasis was placed upon mental health than in previous years, and the connection between mental health, fitness, jobs and physical health combined weighed in to give Austin a great score, with an A+. Austin also leads the class in nutrition. The following report card is an excerpt from the findings:
City: Austin, Texas
County: Travis
Population: 786,382
State Obesity Rate: 31 percent
State Life Expectancy: 75.14
Best in: Nutrition
It's no wonder that the birthplace of Whole Foods has the healthiest eaters. About 35 percent of the women from this Texas town prove that the state's cuisine isn't all about BBQ by chowing down on 5 servings of fruits and veggies per day. Sadly, that's well above the national average. In fact, according to Women's Health editor Sascha de Gersdorff, who oversaw the report, Austin was the only city to get a "perfect 100" for eating habits.
See the full top 10 below, and check out the list at Women's Health for the full ranking, as well as the 10 least healthy cities for women:
1. Raleigh, North Carolina
2. San Jose, California
3. Madison, Wisconsin
4. Boise, Idaho
5. Burlington, Vermont
6. Plano, Texas
7. Virginia Beach, Virginia
8. Portland, Maine
9. Austin, Texas
10. Minneapolis, Minnesota
