San Francisco Mocks Tubby, Frail Los Angeles Once Again
Ahh, that clean San Francisco air; those steep San Francisco hills . . .
We must admit -- as silly as they are, we love these non-scientific, arbitrary rankings lists put out by the likes of Men's Health and Men's Fitness, mostly because it's usually a good excuse to make fun of Los Angelinos. Men's Fitness' 2006 Fittest/Fattest rankings are out, and (thanks, guys), they didn't let us down.
Oh, um, let's not put too much stock in this "Bizarro World" ranking, as (to quote our good friend Bizarro): "Baltimore am fittest city number one." Seriously, have you ever been to Baltimore? We have. We thought there'd been an escape from the famous aquarium there, until we squinted and saw that them whales were wearing people clothes. But we digress. It matters not that MF thinks Baltimore so healthy, just so long as they give us an excuse to dump on L.A.
Last year, responding to MF, LAist fired the first shot, pointing to the oft-oversized creature known as "Raider Fan." We responded, and put those sun-soaked celebrity stalkers in their place. This year, they didn't bother trying to diss us; those guys are smart and know when they are beat. Still, SFist isn't totally opposed to good-naturedly kicking them when they are down. According to MH, San Francisco is the seventh-fittest city in the U.S.; Los Angeles is portrayed as the third-fattest city.
So, um, "ha ha." But we have to wonder why folks here are so much fitter.
It's not the stress-laden and time-consuming commute; we both suffer from that, admittedly.
It could be the food scene--while we have better food here (both places to shop for it and places that serve it), the prevalence of organic, local ingredients, Farmer's Markets, etc. would indicate to us that if we're equally gluttonous, at least the average SFist is ingesting something a little better for you.
But, most of all--to our thinking it's couch potato-ism. Yeah, Angelinos, according to MF, "One out of four Angelenos haven't engaged in even moderate exercise in the past month, according to a CDC survey." Counterbalance this with the magazine's claim that San Franciscans "watch less television than average--they rank in the top 10% for the least amount of television watched among the cities surveyed." It's a screen obsessed city; all the magic of Hollywood happens down there. We imagine much of the TV watching is so they can get to know their neighbors better ("Hey, didn't I see you on the Nick and Jessica Christmas special last year?"). Here, people are almost snotty about how they don't watch TV. Even those of us who do enjoy "our stories" have people like our very own SFist Rain to make sure we're only getting the cream of the crop (we in San Francisco make good use of our Internets and Tivos).
That's this SFist's Bizarro theory anyway.
Anywho, check out the list if you feel like it -- there's some amusing, if arbitrary, stuff in there.