Cooking Light magazine recently named the healthiest - no, the fittest - no...okay, I'm actually a little confused as to the point of the rankings.

It named the cities that "best provide the resources people need to live healthful lives." Er...come again? The magazine claims that they ranked cities based on 15 criteria. Unfortunately, most of the criteria was either based upon implications (ie: one of the categories is how much "maintained green space" the cities offer, implying, perhaps, that more green space results in better air quality or a higher rate of exercise) even though we know that when it comes to healthy living, certain features do not necessarily correlate.

The actual data manipulation was as follows: "We ranked major metropolitan cities on the following 15 criteria, calculated on a per-capita basis, then grouped into categories--eat smart, be fit, live well--and factored on a four-point scale."

The other standards were pretty arbitrary, such as the amount of Whole Foods and Trader Joe's supermarkets and how many chefs work in the city. Basing a city's healthy standards on the number of organic food stores seems ineffective and a little naive - and going with the magazine's reasoning, a high rate of supermarkets could imply a greater number of cars, inactivity, pollution, and waste just as readily as it could imply healthy living.


An interesting side note: three out of the twenty cities named (New York, Atlanta, and Chicago) are also home to Cooking Light offices.

Another reason that the report seem a little odd? Some of the stats are simply incorrect (Philadelphia is the sixth-largest city, not the fifth) and several of the cities also appeared in polls that completely contradict CL's data (Baltimore and Atlanta also ranked as two of the most obese cities, and Pittsburgh and St. Louis are two of the most polluted as of 2007).

So, what does Cooking Light have to say for itself? Not sure - the editors are too busy judging the well-being of the cities' citizens by whether they have easy access to gourmet ingredients. Well, I guess if the goal is to live up to Cooking Light's "philosophy," that would be an important piece of data on which to base your conclusions.