Where Are South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa’s Heathliest Cities?

Does it really matter where you live when it comes to being healthy? According to Wallet Hub, location has an impact on just about everything, including your health.

Their latest study compared 180 of the largest cities in the U.S. across a number of categories to determine the healthiest and unhealthiest cities to live in, in the country.

The main categories included: Health Care, Food, Fitness, and Green Space. Within these categories, they looked at numerous things.

Under health care, they considered things like mental and physical health, family doctors and dentists per capita, cost of medical visits, quality of hospital systems, cost of medicine, and health insurance costs.

In the food category, they looked at inadequate fruit and vegetable consumption, the number of healthy restaurants and farmer's markets per capita, as well as the share of obese residents and the share of people who say they eat healthy.

Under the fitness category, they investigated the share of adults who engage in physical activities, the cost of fitness club memberships, intramural leagues, and more.

Finally, in the green space area, they looked at parkland acres, quality of parks, hiking trails, recreation access, a city's "greenness" (air quality and green transportation, etc.), physical activity access, and more.

After all the metrics came together, two large Minnesota cities did pretty well. Minneapolis ranked 8th, and St. Paul showed up at 33rd. Sioux Falls showed up at 59, and Rapid City came in 129th. Over in Iowa, Cedar Rapids and Des Moines were 123 and 126, respectively.

The Top 5 Healthiest Large Cities Are:

1. San Francisco, CA
2. Honolulu, HI
3. Seattle, WA
4. Salt Lake City, UT
5. San Diego, CA

The 5 Unhealthiest Large Cities Are:

1. Brownsville, TX
2. Gulfport, MS
3. Shreveport, LA
4. Columbus, GA
5. Laredo, TX

To see this complete study, just visit Wallet Hub.

Source: Wallet Hub