Other People's Fitness

I saw this morning that Forbes has rated Washington D.C. as the nation's fittest city. 

Um, seriously?

Did the figures that Forbes used come from the PR people in our nation's capital, ya think?  We have such faith in those guys.

Do you know what key factor figured in on this ranking?  How many gyms, parks and fitness trails the city has paid to have built. 

That's a good indicator, now, isn't it? Those people in Washington D.C. expend lots of calories spending our money on their parks.

But, they say, folks in D.C. eat large quantities of fruit and hardly anyone there smokes.

Yuhuh.  Riiiiight.

{pause} =sigh=

Well, alright.  This may be true.  Who knows?  It's not charitable, I guess, to doubt Washington D.C. and  Forbes' word on it.

But, if the citizens in our nation's capital really are so fit, I'm thinking that an abundance of fruit and parks have less to do with it than that city's long-standing ranking as the murder capital of the United States.

 If you live there, you've got to be a good runner. 

(To find some real fitness junkies, come to Colorado.  Denver has lots of parks and trails and gyms, but the statistic that Forbes doesn't count is how many people hang out in the natural terrain around a given city.  Doesn't matter what time of year it is here, you cannot hike a trail practically anywhere in the mountains of this state and find yourself alone. Some of us may be huffing and puffing, but we're out there!)