San Francisco 'America's Leanest City' According to Men's Health

By Ashley Harrell Thu., May 6 2010 at 3:30 PM

Categories: Health, Local News, SF Oddities

Men's Health says San Fran is toothpicky.

And it's not is not necessarily a compliment.

But let's start with the facts. Men's Health magazine looked at some stats in American cities, including the percentage of people overweight; the percentage of people with type 2 diabetes; and the percentage of people who don't leave their couches for a month -- which the Centers For Disease Control has, miraculously, managed to track.

The mag also looked at dollars spent on junk food, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the number of people who ate fast food nine or more times per month, as tracked by Mediamark Research.

Not from around here are you, boys?

Basically, they were looking to calculate what cities were the biggest sclubs -- and what they found was not really that surprising. Five out of the fattest cities are in Texas. And the leanest cities tend to be big, bustling ones in the West, Northwest, and Northeast. San Francisco managed to earn the rank of "Leanest city in America," but based on criteria -- namely, not having lots of fat people -- that's not necessarily a testament to our health or anything.

Sure, we've got some fit folks around these parts. But we've also got people who are aren't fat for all kinds of unhealthy reasons: They're homeless, strung-out hipsters, meth addicts, spin class anorexics, etc.

Incidentally, the most corpulent city in the nation: Corpus Christi, Texas. Somewhat hiilariously, this town's name is Latin for "body of Christ." Must be a wide body.

Toothpick Art | Steven Backman