Edmonton ranked as one of the least fit cities in Canada
Despite our reputation for staying active no matter the season, Edmonton sits near the bottom of the rankings when it comes to Canada’s fittest cities.
A recent study from MedExpress analyzed eight health metrics across the biggest cities in Canada to create a ranking of what it deems as the fittest cities in the country. Each metric is measured per 100,000 residents.
The researchers turned to Yelp to look at the number of gyms, yoga studios, and Pilates studios to determine the amount of “exercise access.”
It also measured “healthy eating access” by looking at the number of health markets and juice and smoothie bars.
And it determined “fitness engagement” by looking at the total Yelp reviews across those categories, as well as “gym near me” and “healthy restaurants near me” search volume in Google Trends.
With all of this taken into account, they found Edmonton scored in the bottom ten when it came to Canada’s fittest cities.
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At 38th on the list of 46 Canadian cities, Edmonton ranked 38th in terms of exercise access, 37th when it came to healthy eating, and 31st for fitness engagement and interest.
The only other Alberta city ranked was Calgary, which placed 33rd overall on the list of fit cities. Calgary scored lower than Edmonton when it came to exercise access (39th) and healthy eating (38th), but had better fitness engagement and interest (21st).
Canada’s fittest city is Burnaby, B.C. MedExpress found the city has Canada’s best gym access, with 121.2 gyms per 100,000 people. It also has the best yoga studio access, with 101.2 per 100,000 residents. That was followed by Richmond in second place, Richmond Hill, Ont., in third, Coquitlam in fourth, and Vancouver in fifth.
MedExpress
The least fit cities were found in Quebec, with Saguenay and Quebec City in the bottom two. Greater Sudbury was ranked 44th, followed by Levis, Que., and Saskatoon in 42nd place.
MedExpress
You can find the full ranking and methodology on the MedExpress website.
With files from Hanna Hett.