Walking can change your life

10 Cities, 3 Women: Infinite Get-Healthy Possibilities Walking can change your life. See how By Karen Asp, Amy Blumenfeld and Gina Bevinetto Feld , Karen Asp is the fitness columnist for Allure. Gina Bevinetto Feld is a health writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Amy Blumenfeld’s articles have appeared in various magazines, including Fitness and Self. Walking is a universal pleasure, yet the reasons we do it are as unique as our thumbprints. That’s why Prevention and the American Podiatric Medical Association (APMA) are constantly tinkering with the criteria we use for our annual ranking of the best walking cities in America. For our 4th year, we have again tackled a massive data-gathering project, combed through the news, and searched for fresh evidence of walking’s growing popularity, community by community–does the area have accessible trails? how many households have a dog?–to find the most walker-friendly cities and the reasons for their success. Just as key is how walkers are using their towns’ resources to power their way to better lives. So get inspired: See which 10 walker-friendly cities made the cut this year and read how walking transformed the lives of three women who live in these cities. If they can do it, you can, too. The Best Walking Cities To qualify as one of the top walker-friendly cities, a city must be among the country’s 100 most populous. It must also have a high percentage of people who regularly walk–for fitness and health, or to get to and from work. (This criterion counted most this year; in past rankings, the number of residents and their use of public transportation carried more heft, which gave bigger cities an advantage.) After the APMA and Prevention crunched those numbers, we then factored in mass transit; research from the University of British Columbia in Canada shows that every 30 minutes spent in a car increases your risk of obesity by 3%, and each 0.6 mile walked daily decreases that risk by 5%. Finally, walker-friendly city attributes, such as low crime rates, mild year-round temps, and the number of cultural attractions, were weighed, as well as participation in recreational sports and pet ownership. Why do we care about Fido? His needs can increase your physical activity, speed weight loss, and lower blood pressure, find researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia. And the winners are… # 1 Portland, Oregon #2 Colorado Springs, Colorado #3 Madison, Wisconsin #4 Boise City, Idaho #5 Las Vegas, Nevada #6 Austin, Texas #7 Virginia Beach, Virginia #8 Anchorage, Alaska #9 Fremont, California #10 Raleigh, North Carolina. https://videos.whiteblox.com/gnb/secure/player.aspx?sid=47233