Thank God We're Not Dallas

The annual Men's Fitness survey of America's Fittest and Fattest Cities just came out again, and lo and behold, Austin remains among the top 25 of the former. Austinist is hardly surprised by these findings: on our once-yearly morning traipse around Town Lake this morning we exchanged pleasantries with dozens of fellow runners, all no doubt preparing for February's orgiastic Freescale Marathon. And just last week our spiffy and intimidating-as-hell gym, 5th and Lamar's Pure Austin, announced that they were expanding their nearly 20,000 sq ft facilities by an additional 4,000 and adding an outdoor heated pool at their Quarry Lake center.

The rankings, from MSNBC (numbers in parenthesis indicate last year's ranking, * if was in opposite category):

Fittest
1. Baltimore (25*)
2. Honolulu (2)
3. Virginia Beach, Va. (12)
4. Tucson, Ariz. (8)
5. Milwaukee (15)
6. Colorado Springs, Colo. (3)
7. San Francisco (4)
8. Seattle (1)
9. Louisville-Jefferson, Ky. (not ranked)
10. Boston (11)
11. Sacramento, Calif. (7)
12. Nashville-Davidson, Tenn. (25)
13. Albuquerque (10)
14. Tulsa, Okla. (22*)
15. Phoenix (12*)
16. Atlanta (23*)
17. Portland, Ore. (6)
18. Washington (23)
19. Oakland, Calif. (20)
20. Denver (5)
21. Minneapolis (13)
22. Arlington, Texas (22)
23. Austin, Texas (19)
24. Jacksonville, Fla. (18)
25. Omaha, Neb. (16)

Fattest
1. Chicago (5)
2. Las Vegas (9)
3. Los Angeles (21*)
4. Dallas (6)
5. Houston (1)
6. Memphis, Tenn. (4)
7. Long Beach, Calif. (20)
8. El Paso, Texas (11)
9. Kansas City, Mo. (18)
10. Mesa, Ariz. (15)
11. Indianapolis (13)
12. San Antonio (10)
13. Fort Worth, Texas (14)
14. Miami (19)
15. Detroit (3)
16. Columbus, Ohio (16)
17. Oklahoma City (21)
18. Cleveland (24*)
19. Wichita, Kan. (17)
20. Charlotte, N.C. (24)
21. San Diego (9*)
22. Fresno, Calif. (14*)
23. Philadelphia (2)
24. San Jose, Calif. (17*)
25. New York (8)

The folks over at Seattlest were gloating earlier today about being ranked #1 ... until a reader pointed out that they had, in fact, fallen to eighth place. Still, their post ends with a hilarious, if downright mean, little bit on our Texas neighbors to the east:

Still, check out the losers in Houston. Ha, ha, ha - They're fat.

We're not sayin' shit.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@austinist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Allen Y Chen in Other on January 6, 2006 1:41 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

elissa

the method they use for these rankings is ridiculous. i think restaurants per capita is even in there, and houston has a shitload of restaurants per capita. it's stupid. i mean atlanta isnt even in the top 25 -- and anyone who has been to atlanta knows that there are a CRAPLOAD of fatties in that city.

jim

So I was sitting out here in the "sea of crap" thinking about this whole thing, and I noticed one of the factors Men's Fitness takes into account is the average commute length in cities, the idea being that the longer your commute, the less time you have free for exercise. And I was thinking, hey, if everyone drove Flintstones cars, commutes would become much healthier. All that thinking made me hungry.

julie anna

i can't believe they didn't give chicagoist crap. must be because chicagoans aren't really fat. we just wear so many layers to protect ourselves from the bitter cold that we appear to be a mass of walking walruses. still, i will take this opportunity to firmly reassociate myself with the svelter austinites. and while we are setting the midwestern misconceptions straight, milwaukee ranked fitter austin? excuse me? those are some fat cheese eaters up there.

julie anna

i can't believe they didn't give chicagoist crap. must be because chicagoans aren't really fat. we just wear so many layers to protect ourselves from the bitter cold that we appear to be a mass of walking walruses. still, i will take this opportunity to firmly reassociate myself with the svelter austinites. and while we are setting the midwestern misconceptions straight, milwaukee ranked fitter austin? excuse me? those are some fat cheese eaters up there.