A lot of these lists come out but this one is highly regarded with credible sources and hard data.

This is one area where Oklahoma City and the entire state continues to lag, and it's a significant quality of life issue.

The last graphic is for Denver, which is in the same general area of the country and similar in terrain. Yes, Denver has the mountains nearby but as we've discussed before it's probably the best model for OKC in lots of attainable ways.

In my opinion, MAPS 4 should be all about public transportation, sidewalks and recreation. Time to get serious about improving the health of the community.

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http://americanfitnessindex.org/

Executive Summary
With support and funding from the WellPoint Foundation in 2007, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) launched the ACSM American Fitness IndexTM (AFI) program in 2008 to help communities identify opportunities to improve the health of their residents and expand community assets to better support active, healthy lifestyles. The AFI reflects a composite of personal health measures, preventive health behaviors, levels of chronic disease conditions, as well as environmental and community resources and policies that support physical activity. In addition, demographic and economic diversity are included for each metropolitan area to illustrate the unique attributes of each city. Communities with the highest AFI scores are considered to have strong community fitness, a concept analogous to individuals having strong personal fitness.

The 50 largest metropolitan areas in the United States, as defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget using data from the U.S. Census Annual Estimates of Population, were included in this 2014 data report for the AFI program. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) were chosen as the unit of measurement because they represent the group of counties comprising the larger urban areas where residents live, work and access community resources.

The AFI program is unique for several reasons:
• Cities are defined by MSAs;
• Personal health indicators, as well as community and environmental indicators, are included
in the data report;
• Data come from reputable sources, and scientific methodologies are used to ensure validity and reliability;
• Unique areas of strength and opportunities for improvement are included for each MSA to help
guide community action;
• Materials, resources and connections to health promotion partners are provided by the AFI program to
help cities improve their indicators; and
• Local, state and national health promotion partners form a network to support collaborative program efforts.

The first step in creating the report for the AFI program involved developing a strategy to identify, gather, analyze and present MSA-level data on the population, health and built environment of the communities. Measures were identified, assessed and scored by a national expert panel for inclusion into an index to compare each MSA’s attributes with the overall U.S. values and with the other large metropolitan areas. Based on the comparisons to benchmarks, suggested areas of excellence and improvement priority areas for each MSA were noted.

There was considerable diversity in community fitness levels among the 50 MSAs. Cities that ranked near the top of the index have more strengths that support healthy living and fewer challenges that hinder it. The opposite is true for cities near the bottom of the index. All cities are commended for their areas of excellence and encouraged to focus future efforts on their improvement priority areas to achieve a healthy and active population.














DENVER (for comparison):