The UK’s top 10 healthiest cities revealed: How are you?

How would you describe your health condition? Everything OK? While personal commitment to health and fitness is important, the answer may also depend on where you live.

For example, some cities are better equipped to make sure you have everything you need to stay healthy: easy access to gyms, parks, and healthy eating options.

And now Comparethemarket.com has compiled a list of the places in the UK that enjoy the most robust health.

To find out which city offers the best environment for healthy living and where residents are most motivated, the comparison site ranked the UK’s 44 most populous places to identify the healthiest places.

They looked at the quality of green spaces, the number of healthy restaurants and outdoor activities, and the number of online searches for gym memberships.

And the healthiest place to live? *drumroll* It’s Edinburgh, followed by London and Cambridge.

Here are the results in full:

1. Edinburgh

Edinburgh tops the list with 105 healthy restaurants. Residents also search for gym memberships the most online — 5,710 times a month in the last year alone, to be exact.

When it comes to spending time outdoors, Edinburgh’s green spaces and parks score 82.20 out of 100 for quality, giving them a ‘very high’ rating. There are also 60 outdoor activities you can do in the Scottish capital to keep fit, including walking tours and white water rafting.

2.London

London is a leader in healthy restaurants with the most (743) healthy restaurants to choose from. The capital also has the most outdoor activities (82), including abseiling, fishing and cycling.

3.Cambridge

As a city synonymous with cycling, it’s no surprise that Cambridge deserves a place in the top three. The city’s green spaces and parks are of a “very high” standard, with a near-perfect score of 90.52. And residents are eagerly seeking gym memberships, with 20 searches per 1,000 residents, the second highest of any city linked to Bristol.

4.Brighton & Hove

Brighton & Hove has the second best quality of green spaces and parks (85.23) of the five healthiest cities. But despite the high score, the city only offers 15 outdoor activities. However, it is home to one of Britain’s most famous beaches – perfect for coastal walks or outdoor runs.

There are only seven searches for gym memberships per 1,000 residents (2,000 in total), but Brighton & Hove has the third highest number of healthy restaurants – 67 – in the top ten locations.

5. Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne is fifth in terms of monthly searches for online gym memberships, with an average of 4,670 over the last 12 months. That equates to 17 searches per 1,000 city residents.

Parks and green spaces in the northeastern city score 79 out of 100 for quality, but there are only five outdoor activities for residents to choose from.

5.Bristol

Bristol share fifth place with Newcastle upon Tyne. The city’s green spaces and parks receive a respectable score of 73.39 for quality, and interest in gym memberships is the same as Cambridge at 20 per 1,000 residents.

6.Norwich

Sixth is Norwich, where there are 46 outdoor activities to choose from. But the city’s green spaces and parks score a modest 64.06 for quality – the lowest of any city in the top ten.

7. Swan Lake

Swansea is ranked seventh for the quality of its green parks and farmlands. With a score of 91.67, Wales’ second city has the best parks and green spaces of any city in the top ten and there are 40 outdoor activities to explore.

8.Liverpool

Liverpool’s parks and green spaces score 79.81. Last year, Liverpool residents made 7,040 online gym membership searches per month – that’s 15 searches per 1,000 residents.

However, Tripadvisor only lists five outdoor activities designed to help people stay fit while on the go, which is quite a bit compared to some other sites. When it comes to healthy eating, Liverpool has 58 healthy restaurants to support clean eating efforts.

9.Oxford

Oxford’s beautiful green spaces and parks score 88.24. But interest in gym memberships is relatively low, with just 1,660 monthly searches in the past year – the third lowest in the top ten after Swansea (1,120) and Exeter (940).

9.Exeter

Exeter and Oxford share ninth place with Exeter’s parks and green spaces, scoring 81.25. However, the city only has 15 healthy restaurants, and residents have completed just 940 monthly gym membership searches in the past 12 months.

10.Sheffield

Sheffield’s parks and green spaces share 10th place with Glasgow, scoring 86.84 for quality. The city also boasts 33 healthy restaurants and 37 outdoor activities, with residents searching for gym membership terms 4,700 times a month last year.

10.Glasgow

Glasgow’s green spaces and parks are considered to be of ‘very high’ quality, with a score of 81.63 out of 100. But there are only 50 healthy restaurants for Glasgowians to choose from, less than half as many as in Edinburgh ( 105), the only other Scottish city to make the top ten.

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