If self assessment of your own body, fitness, energy, and overall well-being matters, then Burlington, Vermont is the healthiest city in the U.S.. This is according to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study, mentioned in news sources throughout the country, from CNN to the Associated Press. However, other sources claim Lincoln, Nebraska takes the top spot, though if you look at the map below, Burlington makes sense. Boulder, Colorado is also up there.

Burlington and

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The medical value of social interaction, social places

One way to understand the health benefits of community and human interaction is to look at the health risks of isolation. Isolation defined here is not the same as solitude where people live on their own and prefer seeing few friends contently, but rather when they feel they are cut off from people and don’t easily have someone to turn to.

A 1987 report in Science stated, ”Isolation is as significant to mortality rates as smoking, high

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How does the planning of neighborhoods and cities affect your health?  Thanks to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), that’s answered in the first report that comprehensively summarizes the impact of the built environment on public health, and how changes can be implemented.

The study, the LEED-ND Report on Public Health & the Built Environment, measure five areas of health:

- Respiratory and

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Personal healthy living in an urban retreat

Many of us wish we could live our yoga.  The founders of Sage Spa Living felt the same way, and invested in bringing it closer to reality with Stillwater, an urban residence in Helena, Montana.  From their press release, “The founders have the simple vision of changing the world, one guest at a time by inspiring personal health and promoting community stewardship.

While it does cater to the high-end, it provides a progressive model for

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Back to the future for our own health’s sake

From the late 1800s to early 1900s our public health was largely linked to our built environment.  People were dying from communicable and waterborne diseases tied to overcrowding, poor sanitation and polluted air.  As a result, cities began to feature more open spaces, advanced public works and cleaner transit options - a public health model.

In the mid to late 1900s, we shifted to what is known as the ‘medical model’ approach to public health,

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...it’s healthy for just about everyone else, and communities in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have been conducting such audits for 25 years.  The public health term for this is a health impact assessment (HIA), which measures the potential impacts of decisions on health (physical, emotional and mental), and identifies actions that can improve the results of those decisions”.

According to Neal Kaufman, MD, MPH*, an HIA on our schools would result in:

- “Siting it where the

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Walkable buildings

Americans have been gaining weight an average of one pound a year.  If they walked up stairs for just two minutes a day, they’d lose 1.6 pounds a year instead, according to James Sallis, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University in a Wall Street Journal article, New Buildings Help People Fight Flab.

An excerpt: “Buildings have long been designed so people can get from one place to another with minimum physical effort. Now, in a bid to fight a rising tide of

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City living healthier than in the suburbs?

Yes, according to a report on public health as it relates to development patterns by the Ontario College of Family Physicians.

As you can see on the graph from their report, the greater the density (sprawl index), the fewer the fatalities per 1000 people, as calculated over 83 U.S. regions that covered two-thirds of the total population.  Why are people dying?  The reports showed lower densities have higher incidence of cardiovascular and lung

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Finally! Health insurance for free agents!

It’s long been a frustration for individual entrepreneurs (aka free agents) who have to pay a lot more to get less health insurance than that of larger companies.

This is no longer the case for the independents and free agents in urban downtowns! Thanks to the National Main Street Center, a nonprofit that assisted well over 2000 main streets across the country.  They helped initiate the National Trust Insurance Services which provides health

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Cobblestone streets are good for you

We know cobblestone streets aren’t the best for driving on, but that probably means just the opposite for people.  Behavioral researchers from the Oregon Research Institute are proving it’s true.

Their studies show that people who walk on cobblestone streets enjoy significant improvement in balance, measures of mobility and blood pressure.  The stones seemed to serve as a vast community of massage therapists for the feet.  The surprising result was that

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Evidence shows walkable towns healthier

In a recent large-scale study* of 16 pairs of neighborhoods, one that has a typical main street and a mix of apartments and houses has a proportion of people with BMI (body mass index) over 25 (considered a healthy level) at 35% of the population, but in areas of single-family homes with ‘poorly connected streets and a shopping center on its edge with a big parking lot’, BMI over 25 matched the national average of 60%.�

Michigan governor Jennifer

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Alternative nightlife: Dodgeball

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City living holds back aging?

Yes, apparently by 4 to 12 years.

News articles are reporting results of a new study, Suburban sprawl and physical and mental health, from the journal, Public Health.  Here’s an abstract:

“Sprawl significantly predicts chronic medical conditions and health-related quality of life, but not mental health disorders. An increase in sprawl from one standard deviation less to one standard deviation more than average implies 96 more chronic medical problems per

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2000 steps to health?

That’s the magic number according to Dr. James Hill, keynote speaker at the Obesity and the Built Environment conference, organized by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

He recommends taking an extra 2000 steps a day (measured with a simple $10 pedometer) as a necessary goal in maintaining one’s health.  Unfortunately, most of our communities are auto-oriented rather than pedestrian-oriented,

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Recreation in the city

One of the drawbacks to living in the city is the lack of access to outdoor recreation.  However, with a bit of creativity and ingenuity, some of that outdoor recreation can be had downtown.

Rock climbing companies like this one that set up the rock climbing wall built right into a building wall are adding yet another avenue for fitness and fun for urban dwellers, who are already among the most fit.

There are many of us that are tired of the same ol’ Friday night

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Why are CoolTowners so fit?

They’re ‘intrinsic exercisers’ - that is, they exercise because that want to, not because they have to.  The key?  Unstructured exercise, or as I refer to it, exercise you’re not even aware of.

In The Intrinsic Exerciser: Discovering the Joy of Exercise, author Jay Kimiecik cites several studies that three 10-minute ‘exercise sessions’ are the same as one 30-minute session.  What this means is, if you just motivate yourself to move a bit more during the day,

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Evidence piling up for health and CoolTowns

If anecdotal evidence isn’t enough for you (ever notice the weight difference in people as you walk in a Walmart in suburbia vs. a main street in the city?… or travel from the city to the suburbs on the subway and see the size of people getting on board increase rather noticeably?)

Well, here’s yet more scientific evidence, highlighted on the front page of Monday’s Washington Post, and adding to that already being collected in this part of the

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Why do CoolTowns have so many good-looking people?

Because they’re fit!

CoolTowns are designed for walking.  A new study says the more people drive, the more out of shape they get.  The findings:

For every extra 30 minutes commuters drove each day, they had a 3 percent greater chance of being obese.

People who lived less than a half mile from shops were 7 percent less likely to be obese.

About 91 percent of the people surveyed said they didn’t walk to destinations. This coincides

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Fast food = McMansions

McMansions refer to those cookie cutter neighborhoods of big homes that look alike, essentially 90% of new home construction.  There are more parallels to fast food than I thought…

Fast food is designed to be cheap and mass produced.  So are most new homes, with little variation in floor plan and style.

Fast food uses the cheapest ingredients.  Most new homes use the cheapest materials, which explains why they start falling apart after a few years.

Fast food is

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The 12 Most Walkable Cities

I must admit the foot people really put in some extensive criteria to come up with the .  Here’s my take on walking through their ‘winners’:

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Q&A: How do you build a CoolTown in an area considered rural?

Some people move to specific places because of a job they couldn’t get anywhere else within their desired area.  Others move because of recreation they couldn’t get anywhere else in the area.

People move to/visit coastal towns for the beach, mountain towns for the skiing and river towns for the fishing and boating.  Now, since affordability is such a fundamental element of fast-growth prosperity, think of how people with limited

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Investing in a recreation entertainment town

Recreation: “Refreshment of one’s mind or body after work through activity that amuses or stimulates; play”

Thus, a recreation town is a place for play - for adults that is.  One that extends this into the nightlife could be referred to as a recreation entertainment town.  Such a destination, oriented toward an active, entrepreneurial, creative audience would have:

A natural greenbelt for joggers, bikers and skaters to go from one town to the

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Recreation in the city (naturally)

Many joggers would love to run through a scene like this every morning.  In Washington DC, you’d have to live in the heart of the city to do so.

CoolTowns are not all about urbanity - it’s about balance, diversity and yes, entertainment and recreation.  The best towns have a greenbelt corridor, usually along a natural waterway, that allows the most urban dweller a job, skate or bike ride for 25 miles completely immersed in nature, just like Rock Creek

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Exploring the city on wheels

Wheels on your feet that is.

One of the most popular outdoor recreational activities is exploring, whether it’s by foot, kayak or cross country skis.  In the city, especially San Francisco and Paris, it’s by skate.  When you bring hundreds of them together on a Friday night, it turns into entertainment as well.

Let me describe the Friday night skate in San Francisco:  In the early evening an average of 300-400 skaters (beginners and advanced) get together

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Recreation in a CoolTown

The best kind of entertainment, in my opinion, is the kind that keeps you fit:  Dancing, rock climbing, roller-blading, sports and again, dancing.  Dancing deserves to be mentioned twice.

In the bestseller Tuesday’s With Morrie”, Morrie, who is terminally ill, describes his perfect day (evening) from the point of view of someone who cherishes his last few days: “In the evening, we’d all go together to a restaurant with some great pasta… and then we’d dance the

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