COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Two DMV college towns have taken the first and second place ranking as being the healthiest in America, according to a new study.
BrokeScholar, a search engine for scholarships for college students, has used multiple measures to determine the healthiest town. They started the process by looking at 148 college towns with the largest and highest ranked four-year public universities in all 50 states by looking at physical health, mental health, and environment and community health.
Maryland
As a result, College Park, Md., the home of the University of Maryland-College Park, came in at number one on the list. The location received an overall score of a 10. It also scored the best in the "Mental Health & Wellness" category, which is a numerical score of a 10.
"College Park has the highest density of fitness centers of all the nation’s college towns combined with the second-lowest binge drinking score," the study said. "It’s also #1 in yoga studios and #2 in meditation centers, helping catapult this Washington, D.C. suburb to the top spot overall for mental health."
Virginia
The second place town is the home of George Mason University -- Fairfax, Virginia. Fairfax partially received such a high rating because it is the host to a wealth of natural grocery stores, farm markets, yoga and meditation studios, and fitness centers.
"Have your picnic at Daniels Run Park, where you can hit the trails and wade in the creek," BrokeScholar said. "It all adds up to why Fairfax residents report the fewest days of mental health distress than anywhere else in our analysis."
One of the takeaways from the study is that northeastern-region universities dominate the healthiest ranking. The 25 on the list did not include a single college town from the south. Other colleges that made the top 25 include the University of Vermont, University of California-Berkeley, and Oregon State University.
Sign up for the Get Up DC newsletter: Your forecast. Your commute. Your news.
Sign up for the Capitol Breach email newsletter, delivering the latest breaking news and a roundup of the investigation into the Capitol Riots on January 6, 2021.