Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Surveys say LV high in fat, low in IQ

You may think of Las Vegas as the city of beautifully thin, intelligent people.

Think again.

Two recent magazine reports have ranked Las Vegas near the very bottom of American cities in terms of overall intelligence and physical fitness.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said, "Maybe stupid's a good thing when you have low unemployment and everybody enjoys a high quality of life. ... But of course I would like everybody to have a college education."

Goodman also said that he is working to bring himself out of the overweight crowd.

"That's why I hired my personal trainer," he said.

But not enough Las Vegas residents are following their mayor's example, according to one magazine and according to another that shouldn't be surprising because Goodman's constituents are not as smart as people in most other cities.

The January / February issue of Men's Health, includes the results of an analysis of the overall intelligence of American cities. It is based on a few key criteria, such as the number of bachelor's degrees per capita, the number of universities and the SAT scores of the residents.

Men's Health published the report in its monthly feature "MetroGrades" with the headline, "Is Your City Stupid?"

At the same time, the February issue of Men's Fitness includes a ranking of the "fittest" and "fattest" cities in the United States. The report was the magazine's seventh annual fittest/ fattest report.

Las Vegas fares poorly in both magazines.

Men's Health gave Las Vegas an "F" grade in overall intelligence and ranked it as the fourth stupidest city out of 101 U.S. municipalities.

Men's Fitness, meanwhile, stated that Las Vegas was the ninth-fattest city in America and is growing fatter by the year. Last year, the magazine rated Las Vegas as the 16th fattest city.

"I don't think there were any real surprises," said Matt Marion, articles editor for Men's Health, who worked on the study with six full-time researchers at the magazine. "We think it's a really interesting statistical snap-shot."

He said the Men's Health study was not published to embarrass cities such as Las Vegas. Rather, it was inform citizens so they could make changes in their behaviors. In previous issues, the magazine published reports ranking cities in terms of water quality, environmental toxins and traffic.

"We've had some citizens (from low ranking cities) argue about the rankings, but when we tell them how we did it or showed them the data" their criticisms softened, Marion said.

Besides the number of bachelor's degrees and universities per capita, resident's SAT scores, the Men's Health report took into account such things as residents' SAT scores and the number of Nobel Prize winners for physics and medicine born in the city or town.

Men's Health ranked Minneapolis, Minn., as the city with the smartest citizens, with Boston coming in a close second. Denver, St. Paul, Minn., and Seattle rounded out the top five cities, according to the study.

Fort Wayne, Ind., at number 101, was ranked lowest across the nation. Las Vegas was 98th, followed by the Texas cities Laredo and Corpus Christi. Marion said he had nothing personal against Las Vegas, and when he visited the city for a convention several years ago he "had a great time while I was there. But I wasn't (in Las Vegas) long enough to assess the general intelligence" of the residents here.

One local resident, who generally agreed with Men's Health's findings, did take issue with parts of it.

"You're not going to find a lot of people with master's degrees dealing blackjack on the strip," said Kevin Carmen, a real estate investment advisor who has lived in Las Vegas for six months. He moved from Florida.

But in the same breath, he said he recently had lunch with a man with a ninth- grade education -- a man who was a millionaire.

"Just because someone doesn't have a degree doesn't mean they aren't smart," he said. He praised Las Vegas residents for their entrepreneurial spirit and questioned the report's methodology.

In the other magazine, the annual Men's Fitness report ranked the physical fitness of residents in 50 American cities, looking at factors such as commute time, weather patterns and number of "temptations" such as fast-food restaurants in the area.

Seattle again rated high in the report, with Men's Fitness calling it the "fittest" city in America, rising from its' sixth-place showing last year. Honolulu came in second, followed by Colorado Springs, Colo., San Francisco and Denver.

But there is bad news coming for residents of Houston, which Men's Fitness ranked as the "fattest" American city, followed by Philadelphia, Detroit, Memphis and Chicago.

Las Vegas ranked ninth out of the 25 fattest cities listed.

"Men's Fitness takes a lot of things into account for the list -- from how much TV is watched to the level of sports participation to commute time -- because these lifestyle factors are what determine a healthy city," said Neal Boulton, Men's Fitness editor in chief, by e-mail.

The report also listed some light-hearted rankings, such as the city that drinks the most alcohol -- Milwaukee -- to the city that watches the least television -- Minneapolis.

Dr. Chuck Regin, professor of health education at UNLV, generally agreed with the findings even though he hadn't seen the report or viewed its methodology.

"Is it possible that Las Vegas could be the ninth-fattest city in America? Absolutely," Regin said.

There is a long list of reasons why Las Vegans may not be getting the exercise they need, from the lack of required physical education in public elementary and high schools that could establish a good habit of physical activity to poor or confusing nutritional labeling on food products

But there are some specifically "Las Vegas" factors that also lead to a generally unfit society, he said.

For example, many people in Las Vegas work in the service industry and at least one-third of Las Vegas residents work an irregular "split shift," which often means that those workers will grab unhealthy fast food such as hamburgers that they could eat in their cars while driving to work.

"A huge percentage of adults have jobs here that sabotage their attempts to eat healthy," he said.

The weather, he said, also might play a major factor. The Las Vegas Valley experiences some very harsh weather conditions, from windstorms in spring to the oppressive heat of summer, that generally deters outdoor activity during certain times of the year, he said.

Plus, the general planning of the city leaves much to be desired, he said, saying that the lack of pedestrian-safe streets lead residents here to avoid walking outside.

The temptations in the casinos that lead to unhealthy choices, he said.

"If either food or drink is very cheap or free and is used as an enticement to get us into a casino, people will indulge because it's offered," he said.

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