People California Cities American Percentage Health Washington San

Americans love "to rank" (to put in order) almost everything. Nearly every day the newspaper has a list of the best or worst of one thing or another. One interesting ranking from 2009 is from the American College of Sports Medicine, which has an American Fitness Index. "Fitness" refers to how physically healthy you are, usually related to how much you do "physical exercise," such as run, jog, and play sports. An "index" is a measurement of something. The American Fitness Index looks at several "factors" (things) to determine which U.S. city is the "healthiest." These include:

- Availability of parks, walking and bike "trails" (paths; places where you can walk and ride a bike), and "public transportation" (for example, busses, subways);

- Percentage of people who exercise regularly, "maintain a healthy weight" (are not too fat or too thin), and eat the recommended amounts of vegetables and fruits each day;

- Percentage of people who "have access to" (are able to use regularly) health care and have health insurance

- Percentage of people who do not smoke.

So which cities are healthiest? Number one is our nation's capital, Washington D.C. Washington D.C. has a lot of places to walk and ride bikes, has an excellent public transportation system, and has many people who work for the "federal" (national) government and therefore have health insurance. Here is a list of some of the other top cities:

- Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota

- Denver, Colorado

- Boston, Massachusetts

- San Francisco, California

- Seattle, Washington

- Portland, Oregon

- San Diego, California

- Austin, Texas

- Virginia Beach, Virginia

- Hartford, Connecticut

- Sacramento, California

- San Jose, California