The San Diego-Carlsbad region tumbled to 10th among the 50 most populous metropolitan areas in the country in the ninth annual American Fitness Index, released Wednesday by the American College of Sports Medicine and the Anthem Blue Cross Foundation.
San Diego was third last year. Among other things, the 2016 report found that fewer people had exercised over the past month, and that more people were obese, reported having been sick or suffered from poor mental health, and more suffered from asthma.
In this year's report, 71.4 percent of San Diegans reported having exercised or being active in the past 30 days, 23 percent were obese, 37 percent reported their physical health hadn't been good in the last month, 37 percent said their mental health had not been good in the past 30 days, and 6.2 percent suffered from asthma.
Other scores used in the study were based on such criteria as park and recreation centers per capita, consuming two or more fruits and three or more vegetables per day, meeting aerobic activity guidelines, number of farmers' markets, and percentage of commuters who walk or ride bicycles.
The authors of the report used data from the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and city park facts from The Trust for the Public Land.
The most fit U.S. metro areas were Washington, D.C., Minneapolis-St. Paul and Denver. San Francisco was fifth, San Jose 11th and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim 29th.
