Detroit 'Wins' Award For Most Unhealthy City In The U.S.; Here's Where Your City Ranks

A couple of years ago, in the midst of its bankruptcy proceedings, we posted a series of stunning pictures illustrating the “Death And Decay Of Detroit.”  Once a beacon of America’s manufacturing prowess, a series of time lapsed pictures revealed how, in just a few years following the ‘great recession’ of 2008, the once vibrant metropolis became the poster child for urban decay.

Unfortunately, at least according to a new study from WalletHub, Detroit’s crumbling commercial and residential infrastructure isn’t the only thing deteriorating rapidly in “America’s Comeback City.”  The study, which ranks America’s 150 largest cities based on overall health, pegged Detroit ‘dead’ last.

Of course, in many ways, the map of America’s most healthy cities mimics an electoral college map with the Northeast and West Coast ranking generally more healthy while residents of the Southeast and Texas suffered the consequences of their love for fried foods.

Meanwhile, the map of “least healthy” cities is pretty much the inverse of the following map of the “fattest” cities.

Among other things, the health of America’s metropolitan areas was ranked by the prevalence of obese residents and access and health and wellness facilities at reasonable costs.

To reach their findings, WalletHub graded each city using 34 categories as metrics along with a specific weight for each category. The categories were split among four groups that accounted for 25 points each: health care, food, fitness, and green space. The higher the score, the healthier the city.

Categories considered in the study included mental health counselors per capita, cost of medical visit, and quality of public hospitals for health care; healthy restaurants per capita, share of obese residents, and produce consumption for categories under food; fitness clubs per capita, weight loss centers per capital, and share of residents who engage in any physical activity for categories in fitness; and quality of parks, bike score, and walking trails per capita among the categories for green space.

And here are your top and bottom 10 most/least healthy cities.  Unsurprisingly, the health conscious, liberal bastions of California dominate the most healthy cities while Texas and the Southeast dominated the least healthy cities.

Apparently people in CA, OR and WA love to eat their fruits and vegetables while the folks of LA, AL, MS and AR are still looking for a viable way to deep fry their strawberries before partaking.

But, keep you head up Detroit…we’re sure things will turn around for you at some point.