St. Louis Squeezes (Barely) Into List of Fittest Cities

St. Louis, it seems, never finishes well in those Internet-age lists that rank cities based on the perceived health, happiness, etc. of their residents.

Shocking, then, that the list maker of all list makers, Daily Beast, recently ranked St. Louis among the fittest cities in the nation. Of course, we did finish nearly dead last in its compiling of America's 30 Fittest Cities.

St. Louis came in at No. 29, right behind our friends in Kansas City and in front of fellow Midwesterners in Chicago. Daily Beast ranked its cities based on The American College of Sports Medicine's American Fitness Index and Gallup Healthways Well-Being Index.

Those studies concluded that 75.7 percent of St. Louis area residents performed some sort of physical activity in the past 30 days and that 59 percent of us are in very good health. Still, there's this disturbing factoid: 28.3 percent of St. Louisans are obese.

Denver finished No. 1 in the Daily Beast poll. Just 18 percent of its residents are clinically obese and 83 percent of the population does some kind of physical activity each month.