These Are America ’s Happiest and Healthiest Cities

Do you like what you do? And do you get to use your strengths every day? People in Naples, Fla. and Barnstable, Mass. largely answered yes to those questions when surveyed by Gallup-Sharecare, boosting their communities to the top of a new ranking of U.S. metro areas based on well-being. Other top communities include Boulder, Colo., Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa, Calif., and Charlottesville and Lynchburg, Va. The researchers, who surveyed more than 337,000 people across America over the phone in 2016 and 2017, found that enjoying your work and learning new and interesting things every day are strong predictors of overall well-being, which includes physical, social, financial and community health. “If you you’re using your strengths every day, it lends a real buoyancy to everything else,” says lead researcher Dan Witters. For example, people who are engaged at work report less daily stress and physical pain, and they have lower rates of obesity and depression, Witters says. Highest Well-Being Communities Communities with the lowest well-being scores were mostly found in the Midwestern and Southern U.S., with Fort Smith, Ark. at the bottom of the list. While these areas are named for the largest nearby city, they often encompass rural towns, which tend to have less access to health care, parks and gyms. That hurts the area’s overall well-being, though residents of small towns are more likely to feel a sense of pride in their community and say they feel saf...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized cities health healthytime interactive studios Source Type: news