Foursquare lists top 10 healthiest cities

In fun-but-definitely-not-scientifically-reliable news, social networking service Foursquare this week celebrated National Nutrition Month by announcing the top 10 cities for healthy eating and fitness based on data from its 15 millions users.

Foursquare allows users to “check in” via their smartphone app when they’re at a restaurant, concert venue, store, etc., so that their friends can see where they are and what they’re doing.

In order to compile its healthiest cities lists, Foursquare categorized certain types of restaurants and food shops as “nutritious” and workout venues as fitness-focused; cities with the highest ratios received the highest rankings. For example, for the healthy eating list, a high percentage of check-ins in a city in the past year needed to come from locations like farmers markets, fish markets, salad shops and juice bars. For the fitness-focused city list, there had to be a high percentage of check-ins at gyms, fitness centers and tracks.

Obviously, scientific journals aren’t going to be picking up this “study” any time soon. As the Huffington Post pointed out, in order to “check in,” users had to have a smartphone, and Foursquare users tend to be young, so the sample isn’t exactly an accurate representation of each city’s general population.

Additionally, just because you’re not going to healthy restaurants and farmers markets doesn’t mean you’re not buying healthy food at the grocery store and cooking healthy meals at home. Same goes for fitness: You might not have the money for the gym — or you might just hate the gym — so you work out at home. There’s no way for the Foursquare data to include these other factors, so that could possibly explain why your seemingly health-conscious city didn’t make the list.

Here are the top 10 healthy-eating cities, top 10 least healthy-eating cities and top 10 fitness-focused cities according to Foursquare’s data:

 

Top 10 healthiest eaters:

1. Honolulu, Hawaii
2. Burlington, Vt.
3. San Jose, Calif.
4. San Diego, Calif.
5. Seattle, Wash.
6. Boulder, Colo.
7. Philadelphia, Pa.
8. Los Angeles, Calif.
9. Washington, D.C.
10. San Francisco, Calif.

 

 

Top 10 least healthy eaters:

1. Winston-Salem, N.C.
2. Little Rock, Ark.
3. Lexington, Ky.
4. Manchester, N.H.
5. Greenville, S.C.
6. Scranton, Pa.
7. Peoria, Ill.
8. Huntsville, Ala.
9. Springfield, Mo.
10. Myrtle Beach, S.C.

 

 

Top 10 fitness-focused cities:

1. San Jose, Calif.
2. Manchester, N.H.
3. Colorado Springs, Colo.
4. Sacramento, Calif.
5. Boulder, Colo.
6. El Paso, Texas
7. Columbus, Ohio
8. Boston, Mass.
9. Champaign, Ill.
10. Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn.

Tags: cities, fitness, Foursquare, healthiest cities, healthy eating, nutrition, social media, social networking

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