Is Las Vegas the fattest U.S. city?
Las Vegas was ranked the number one “fattest city” in the U.S., according the March issue of Men's Fitness magazine. I, for one, find this difficult to believe given the number of 24-hour workout locations in Las Vegas. The magazine set forth its markers for making the grade:
“We spend months poring over statistics on the things that make real people fit or fat, from weather patterns to junk food, from availability of public recreational facilities to TV viewing habits. We dig through data on how much exercise people get, whether they use their gym memberships, how healthfully they eat, and how much time they spend sitting in traffic. We even quiz city park departments and mayors to learn about local exercise venues, civic leadership, and programs designed to get citizens off their couches and moving.”
So I picked up the phone and made the same calls as Men's Fitness magazine claims to have made to see what info I could gather.
To address the “weather” issue, any fitness expert will tell you that you should work out in a “warm” environment. Las Vegas fits the bill. At least outdoor recreation here doesn’t entail snowsuits, hats and gloves.
We live in a city with thousands of active exercise possibilities. Just type in “fitness Las Vegas” on your favorite search engine and you’ll get thousands of hits.
If you are looking for my favorite type of workout—free—there are three local state parks: 1) Spring Mountain Ranch, 2) Old Mormon Fort, and 3) Floyd Lamb State Park. Also, Las Vegas has dozens of city parks where you can take a walk to relieve stress, jog to shed those extra pounds or just hang-out to meet a few fellow locals doing the same thing. Many parks have sports leagues you can join for a nominal fee. I know many people who meet-up at local parks to play a game of pick-up basketball, football or Frisbee golf, the latter found at Sunset Park.
Online there are numerous Las Vegas recreation clubs you can join, no matter your skill level, ranging from aerobics to water rafting. Many of these groups are run by people who have experience and can teach newcomers the necessary skills and safety precautions.
On the eating issue, we have more than 500 health food stores in the Las Vegas Valley. Almost every supermarket has at least one aisle dedicated to healthy eating, so I wonder even more about the magazine’s “fattest city” claim.
Sitting in traffic—now there’s a point on which Men’s Fitness and I can agree. As we know from living here, traffic can be a nightmare. I live eight miles from work and it takes me 20-plus minutes to commute each way. I wonder how long Men's Fitness magazine figured we sit in our cars each day?
Since we have so many fitness facilities, amazing outdoor recreation and terrific health food stores, they must have figured we just sit on Southern Nevada’s freeways each day for hours at a time.
