Hey, have you been losing weight? You're looking good. Yes, I'm talking to you, entire city of Miami. What have you been doing? Atkins? Weight Watchers? Oh, wait, of course, the South Beach diet. Whatever it is, it's working.
Remember last year when Men's Fitness named Miami the fattest big city in America? Well, this year we fell to seventh. Las Vegas and five Texas cities waddled past us in the fat rankings. Most of the factors that keep us on the fat list can't even be controlled by individual citizens (such as lack of parks, a glut of fast-food restaurants, and a long commute), and we suffer a bit from the survey taking only the City of Miami into account and not the entire county (where there are more parks and an overall lower concentration of things like bars).
But wait. Rival mag Men's Health says Miami isn't anywhere near the fattest city in America.
That's right, out of 100 cities surveyed, Men's Health says Miami is only the 69th fattest city. The results don't seem to be online yet but were published in the mag's May 2010 issue. Unlike Men's Fitness, Men's Health takes into account things individuals can control, such as the percentage that are overweight and have type 2 diabetes, money spent on junk food, and other behaviors.
The results were wildly different (Corpus Christi was Health's fattest, while San Francisco was the thinnest). In fact, the only thing they had in common was that Texas towns dominated the fattest top ten. I guess no matter which way you cut it, everything is bigger in the Lone Star State.
