See Where Metro Denver Ranks In New Fittest Cities List

DENVER, CO — The 2021 American Fitness Index has been released, with the Denver metro area in the top five of the 100 largest metros the American College of Sports Medicine included in its annual study.

The index rankings consider 34 health behaviors, chronic diseases and community infrastructure indicators, including smoking rates, the percent of people who bike or walk to work, fruit and vegetable consumption and sleep hours.

The fitness rank for the Denver area is No. 4 overall. Our metro ranks No. 2 in personal health and No. 26 in community health, the index states.

The 34 factors considered in the ranking included 17 that went toward metro Denver’s personal health rank, and the other that went to our area's community health rank.

Among the personal health behaviors included in the ranking were the percent of people who smoke, walk or bike to work, and the percent with obesity and high blood pressure. Community health factors included air quality index, metro Denver’s walk and bike scores, and its number of recreational facilities.

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Arlington, Virginia, ranked No. 1 overall, earning the “America’s fittest city” distinction for the third year in a row, according to an American College of Sports Medicine news release.

In Arlington, only 3.5 percent of residents are smokers, 4.2 percent have diabetes and 24.1 percent are in poor physical health, the study found.

Arlington ranked in the top 10 for 19 of the 33 indicators in the index, including a No. 1 ranking in the lowest rate of adults with obesity and the highest rate of residents meeting aerobic and strength activity guidelines.

Authors crunched data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, the Environmental Protection Agency and other sources. Read more about the methodology on Page 20 of the report.

Seattle and Minneapolis followed Arlington in the top three in overall fitness.

At the other end of the list, Oklahoma City ranked the worst overall at No. 100, followed by, in ascending order, Bakersfield, California; North Las Vegas, Nevada; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Memphis, Tennessee.

The study looked at the 100 most-populated U.S. metros.