According to the American College of Sports Medicine, Charlotte wheezes in at No. 36 in the recent fittest ranking of the nation’s 50 largest metro areas. (Raleigh trotted in far better at No. 15.)
The American Fitness Index, introduced in 2007, ranks cities in 30 categories ranging from acres of parkland and number of farmers markets, to number of smokers and people with heart disease, to the percentage of residents with health insurance.
On the newest ranking, released in May, Charlotte was cited as lacking in 19 of the 30 categories. Compared to the nation as a whole, it’s got an excessive number of smokers and obese residents, a higher number of residents with diabetes and heart disease and not enough primary health care providers.
It’s also lacking in playgrounds, dog parks, ball fields, rec centers, swimming pools and tennis courts, according to the index.
On the plus side, it has more farmers markets and acres of parkland per capita and fewer people who die from diabetes. The area evaluated was the Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The findings didn’t surprise Hall Rubin, who moved to the area three years ago. Rubin previously lived in the Triangle, where he founded and headed a 400-member Meetup group that hiked, biked and paddled three or four times a week.
“There are opportunities in Charlotte,” says the semi-retired Rubin, “but you really have to look for them.”
For instance, he says, “There are a few long, linear greenways in Charlotte, but they aren’t connected. You have to put your bike on the car and drive to them.”
Ken Tippette, the manager of the Bicycle Program for Charlotte’s Department of Transportation says it’s no surprise Charlotte took a hit in the ranking for having a low percentage of residents who bike or walk to work. Years of planning have conspired against residents making short commutes by bike or foot.
But Tippette says efforts are underway to change the situation.
The city is planning the Cross-Charlotte Trail, a nonmotorized passage that would run 26 miles, from Pineville on the south side of town to UNC Charlotte.
The $35 million project is expected to take 10 years to complete. He adds that the city has come a long way in a decade: In 2003, Charlotte had 1 mile of marked bike lane; today it has 75 miles and another 44 miles of greenways.
And the city’s new B-Cycle program that lets people rent and ride bicycles parked in uptown Charlotte and other sites just turned a year old. Nearly 500 annual memberships exceeded the program’s expectations by 40 percent, and the more than 11,000 one-day riders surpassed expectations by a whopping 1,600 percent, program officials said. The bikes have made 32,000 trips in a year.
And, there’s the Carolina Thread Trail, an effort to build a trail network in 15 counties linking 2.3 million people.
Charlotte’s presence in the heart of tobacco country also weighed against the region. Nearly 19 percent of residents smoke, about 6 percent above the national average.

N.C. Prevention Partners, a nonprofit that works to reduce early death from preventable illness, says the tobacco situation is gradually improving.
A growing number of tobacco-free facilities – public schools, acute care hospitals and restaurants among them – is helping to discourage smoking. The nonprofit continues to push for a $1 increase in the state cigarette tax, which it believes would keep more than 89,000 children a year from taking up smoking.
Charlotte also struck out for having an overweight population: 27.8 percent of residents qualify as obese, compared with the national average of 21.3 percent.
N.C. Prevention Partners isn’t quite as optimistic on the obesity front, noting that statewide, the figures are even higher: 2 of 3 Tar Heel adults are overweight or obese, while 28 percent of high school students are likewise.
“For the first time in 200 years, today’s generation might not live as long as their parents,” the nonprofit notes on its website.
Tippette, the Charlotte Bicycle Program manager, says the American Fitness Index also fails to take into account the new bike share program – Charlotte B-cycle – launched last year, or the fact that an increasing number of commuters are using their bikes and the city’s Lynx light rail system to get to work.
Says Tippette, “You can hardly ride the train and not see a person with a bike on it.”

The post Charlotte ranks 36th among 50 largest U.S. cities appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Despite boasting five Bicycle Friendly Communities and a greenway system fast becoming one of the best in the nation, the Triangle got below-average marks on cycling in the fourth annual American Fitness Index survey released by the American College of Sports Medicine in May.

But the knock didn’t hurt the region too much: Of the largest 50 metro areas in the country covered in the report, Raleigh ranked as the 15th healthiest. Minneapolis-St. Paul, lauded for its green space, ranked No. 1. Charlotte came in at No. 36, while Oklahoma City ranked as the nation’s least healthy city.

The American Fitness Index, introduced in 2007, ranks cities in 30 categories, ranging from acres of parkland and number of farmer’s markets, to number of smokers and people with heart disease, to the percentage of residents with health insurance.

The Triangle’s high ranking – it was the second-healthiest city in the South behind No. 11 Austin, Texas – doesn’t surprise Hal Rubin, who lived in Cary for 15 years before moving to the Charlotte area three years ago.

“I adored the Triangle,” says Rubin, who founded the Raleigh Weekday Activity Meetup group, which has nearly 400 members. “Cycling, hiking, kayaking, camping – I could ride a couple blocks to the greenway and ride to Umstead (State Park, in Raleigh) or head out to the American Tobacco Trail and go to downtown Durham.”

The area ranked high in the category of “parkland as a percent of city land area,” with 17.1 percent of municipal land devoted to parks compared with the national average of 10.6 percent. That shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s heard Raleigh described as “the city within a park.”

“I really think we’ve been very fortunate in this area that our elected officials and our city officials have supported and valued cultural resources and recreation,” says Diane Sauer, director of Raleigh Parks & Recreation.

Not to mention the strong support of residents: Since the early 1980s, Sauer says, Raleigh residents have approved more than $200 million in parks-related bonds, garnering as much as 68 percent to 73 percent of the vote.

“At times, they’ve had the highest approval except for candidates running unopposed,” says Sauer.

The Triangle ranked below the national average in percentage of residents who bike or walk to work. Nationwide, 2.8 percent of workers claim to use those forms of transportation; in the Triangle just 1.7 percent.

Eric Lamb with Raleigh’s Transportation Department says the city is working to make such commuting easier. For one, there are those five Triangle communities deemed bike-friendly by the League of American Bicyclists: Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh. Lamb points to the change in Raleigh since 2008, when the city adopted its first bike plan.

“In 2009, we had 4 miles of striped bike lane,” says Lamb. “By the end of this year we’ll have 23 miles, and in 2015 we’ll be up to 75 miles.” The current bike plan calls for 300 miles of bike lanes and an additional 75 miles marked with “sharrows,” a marking on wider streets indicating the presence of bikes.

“We’ve had to go through a culture change,” says Lamb. “Bike and pedestrian planning wasn’t routine, it was considered something special, not an inculcated part of what we do.

“I wouldn’t say it’s automatic yet,” he adds, “but it’s better.”

The Triangle’s deep-seated ties to tobacco also weighed against the region. Some 16.2 percent of local residents smoke, more than 3 percent above the national average.

N.C. Prevention Partners, a nonprofit that works to reduce early death from preventable illness, says the situation is improving. A growing number of tobacco-free facilities – public schools, acute care hospitals and restaurants among them – is helping to discourage smoking. The region also struck out for having an overweight population: Nearly 1 in 3 residents qualify as being obese compared to the national average of about 1in 5.

N.C. Prevention Partners isn’t quite as optimistic on this score, noting that statewide the figures are even higher: 2 of 3 Tar Heel adults is overweight or obese, while 28 percent of high school students are likewise.

“For the first time in 200 years, today’s generation might not live as long as their parents,” the nonprofit notes on its website.

Like us on Facebook and get health, fitness and outdoors news throughout the day.

GetGoingNC.com

Promote Your Page Too

The post Raleigh: 15th healthiest appeared first on GetGoing NC!.