Health diversity: Healthiest cities in the US revealed

San Francisco Bay, which could face tsunami waves – Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP Loren Elliott

With U.S. employer-provided healthcare plan costs expected to rise between 8 and 9 percent in 2025, the personal-finance website WalletHub has produced a report on 2025’s Healthiest & Unhealthiest Cities in America. The report indicates the trend that healthcare is disproportionate across the states.

To identify the places where health is a priority, WalletHub compared more than 180 of the largest U.S. cities across 41 key metrics. The data set ranges from the cost of a medical visit to fruit and vegetable consumption to the share of physically active adults.

From this, the top ten healthiest cities were identified as:

1. San Francisco, CA
2. Honolulu, HI
3. Seattle, WA
4. Salt Lake City, UT
5. San Diego, CA
6. Portland, OR
7. Denver, CO
8. Minneapolis, MN
9. Washington, DC
10. Huntington Beach, CA

In contrast, the most unhealth cities were found to be:

173. Jackson, MS
174. Memphis, TN
175. Fort Smith, AR
176. Corpus Christi, TX
177. Huntington, WV
178. Laredo, TX
179. Columbus, GA
180. Shreveport, LA
181. Gulfport, MS
182. Brownsville, TX

Within the large data set there are some points of interest. For instance, Overland Park, Kansas, has the lowest share of physically unhealthy adults, which is 2.4 times lower than in Huntington, West Virginia, the city with the highest.

On another measure – the rate of visiting medics – Laredo, Texas, has the lowest cost per doctor’s visit, which is 3.1 times less expensive than in Juneau, Alaska, the city with the highest.

A different point of assessment, pertaining to health eating, the review found that Portland, Maine, has the lowest share of adults eating fruits less than once daily, which is 1.6 times lower than in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the city with the highest.

On the subject of fitness, Garland, Texas and Columbus, Georgia, have the lowest average monthly cost for a fitness-club membership, which is 14.8 times less expensive than in New York, the city with the highest.

Commenting on the pattern of results, Chip Lupo, WalletHub Analyst, said in a message sent to Digital Journal: “Staying healthy is a personal responsibility, and everyone should strive to eat nutritious food, exercise regularly and look after their mental health. However, where people live can have a big influence on how successful they are at staying in good health, so the best cities are the ones that provide the greatest access to high-quality healthcare, green spaces, recreation centers, and healthy food.”

In addition, Lupo discusses the benefits of the leading locale – San Francisco: “San Francisco is the healthiest city in America, in part because it has the second-lowest share of obese adults in the country, at just 18 percent of the population. San Franciscans eat well and have good opportunities for exercise, too. San Francisco has the second-lowest share of people who eat less than one serving of fruits or vegetables per day, and 100 percent of the population lives reasonably close to a location where they can do some sort of physical activity.”