Hey New York: You're Fat! (Actually, Less so This Year)

Well screw you, Men's Fitness (screw you a little less now)! Perhaps we've indulged in a few too many egg custards recently and we're contributing to the problem as New York City has landed on Men's Fitness' list of 25 fattest cities. ~~In fact, we're in the top 10~~! We've improved soooo much in the past year that we're actually the 25th fattest city now. Psh, if you're going to call us fat, you might as well put us at #1! All joking aside, the magazine lists several reasons why we've shed 17 spots:

- We've got more doctors per capita than a lot of other cities and lots of hospital beds too.
- We don't consume too much alcohol (could have fooled us)
- Only 1 in 5 of us is obese
- But we're still slothlike as 29% of us don't do any moderate physical activity for 30+ days. And that includes vacuuming.

All this is a huge change from just one year ago...which is a little odd.

- 54% of us are over our "ideal" body weight according to the CDC
- We have fewer gyms per capita than any city but Detroit (they were last)
- We have fewer bars and taverns per capita than any city in their survey (this is actually a positive thing)

Okay, there are some things you just have to shake your head at. We may have fewer bars per capita, but our fine city probably has more bars than several of the smaller cities on this list combined. Men's Fitness also lists our rush-hour commute as 40% longer than our off-peak commute (the national average is 33%) according to some study by Texas A&M. Gothamist thinks those Agricultural and Mechanical kids need to take a ride on the subway. Have they ever tried riding some of the trains during off-peak times? Besides, all our walking and biking during the transit strike have got to count for something. Furthermore, we seem to rank in the ten worst when it comes to number of parks and open spaces per capita. That seems to come with having a gigantic built-up city, doesn't it.

Now we're going to drown ourselves in our gluttonous sorrow at one of those bars.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By tien mao in News on January 6, 2006 3:55 PM

Comments [rss]

J.B.

New York might have fewer parks PER CAPITA, but in terms of percentage of land area devoted to parks it's ranked as one of the highest.

New York has over 28,000 acres of parks — 14% of the land area of a 310 square mile city.

Chicago, with fewer than 3 million residents over 240 square miles, has fewer than 10,000 acres of parkland. Despite having 75% of NYC's land area, the Second City's total park space amount for only one-third of New York's total.

Furthermore, if you count the nature preserves that are under state or federal jurisdiction as opposed to the Parks Department, New York's total is closer to 40,000 acres — so that's almost 20% of the city's land area devoted to parks or other nice green stuff.

Once again, the enormity of New York's population and density skews things beyond the comprehension of the fitness magazine yahoos.

Anonymous

Depends...if you go to certain parts of the Midwest, they will put New Yorkers to shame. Of course, these are people who shovel snow and ski every day in 0 degree weather in the winter, and swim and hike during the summer. I had been prepared to see lots of fatties on the beach, and was quite surprised to be treated to lots of physically fit folks.

Susie

Hart--you forgot the cigarette manufacturers.

Hart Oldenburg

Restaurants, the only business out to kill or maim its clients! If you go--- one rule--- never slean your plate. Learn to walk past food and leave it be. Go hartsmartliving, tough but the only way left. (Before stomach bypass!)

Listen to a slim 81 year old!

Toby

These lists have no bearing on reality. They are just designed to generate buzz for the publication that puts them out. You guys fed the beast.

Anonymous

Maybe if we stopped allowing Midwesterners to move to NY, we'd get off the list entirely!

pugsley

Men's Fitness is full of nonsense. This list looks like something an editor labored over at midnight before deadline day. New York is the only city on the list where everyone is walking all day long, going up and down stairs. I also note that men's fitness is from the same publishing house as the weekly world news, which also has a cover story about fatties this week, which probably uses the same credible physicians as men's fitness -

http://weeklyworldnews.com/features/chamber/61637

Some Girls' Mothers Are Bigger

It's all relative. When I took trips to Florida, I saw fatties all the time. Coming back to NYC, people looked thin. But when I visited Europe and came back to NYC, people here looked quite tubby.

Marilyn

I don't buy it. If they think NYC is fat, maybe they should go a few counties up to Dutchess. You'll see some pretty big folks there.

KevinM

I agree that the likes of Staten Island (more Midwest than you wish to admit) and some of the poorer outer borough areas are being ignored here.

That said, I think it would be hard to blame economy on obesity, even though they seem to be complimentary stats. With the exception of rare special cases, people who are obese either don't know how to eat correctly or choose not to eat correctly. You can eat a healthy diet on very, very little money.

Rachel

That's such BS. I visited Detroit (don't ask), St. Louis, and Chicago over the summer and was APPALLED by the amount of fat people. I didn't believe in America's "obesity epidemic" until

then.

Nine out of ten people were overweight(especially in St. Louis). No joke.

Meredith

I'm from Cleveland.. I hear ya. The moment I touched down for Christmas, I looked around me at the airport and saw fat, fat, fat. But what we have to remember, I think, is that New Yorkers - all five boroughs' worth - aren't just upper-middle-class white people who can afford to eat well and work out regularly, maybe belong to a nice gym for $75 a month. They are also Hispanic and black, and lower on the socioeconomic scale and can't afford or don't know how to eat well. It's very unfortunate, but very true. So, while on its face this proclamation seems a bit suspect, maybe there is some truth to it.

Frankybonz

I think that people just need to worry and stress a lot more! Learning that their food is actually poison may get things moving a little too!

kinda new to NY

Ummm... having moved here after years in purgatory (the midwest) just a few months ago I can't believe that NY is one of the fattest cities and Cleveland is on the fittest list. Is this bizarro world? Just the fact that people here actually walk instead of driving from work to drive-thru to megamart to suburban home and the fact that most people actually fit in those little pre-sized subway seats...