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When ranking the Fittest Colleges, we looked at students' responses to 17 questions grouped into one of two different sections. "Student" questions included questions regarding the amount of physical activity students participated in each week, how much time they spent doing sedentary activities (other than studying), how much fast food they ate, how many cigarettes they smoked, and how much alcohol they consumed. "School" questions covered such factors as how many fast-food chains were on campus, whether the school offered services such as extended gym hours and nutritionists; and how fit individuals considered their own respective campuses to be. We weighted the student responses, crunching the resulting numbers, and the 25 highest overall scores made our list.
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| America's Fittest Colleges 2006 |
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Letter grades were assigned to four categories on each schools' "report card." Indicators are below.
Intake
How many fast-food meals (including pizza) do you eat per week?
How many alcoholic drinks do you consume in a week?
How many cigarettes do you smoke per week?
Behavior
How many days per week do you perform vigorous physical activity?
How many days per week do you perform at least 20 minutes of less
structured, more spontaneous exercise, (e.g. walking, bike riding,
playing casual Frisbee, etc.)?
Outside of studying, how many hours per week do you spend doing
sedentary activities (watching TV, surfing the Internet for leisure,
chatting via instant message, playing video games, etc.)?
On average, how many hours per night do you sleep?
School Offerings
How available are the following: (fresh fruit, etc)
Does your school offer: (nutritionist, etc)
Campus Culture
Does your school have a physical fitness requirement for non-varsity
athlete undergraduates?
Do you feel as though the campus community in general promotes vigorous
physical activity?
How fit do you think your campus is?
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Reader Comments:
I'm glad to see the University of Richmond getting the recognition it deserves. Our students must complete a graduation requirement consisting of an alcohol awareness class and two other Fitness and Wellness classes of their choice. The classes are proving to be extremely beneficial as reflected in the outstanding lifestyle choices our students make! Congrats to all of our hard working Spiders!
-- Seth Hickerson
Though I agree, the military colleges should be listed, after all they are quite possibly the fittest schools we've produced; it seems to me that the rest of the people who attended schools who weren't on the list are just jealous about being overlooked. Might I suggest that since this survey was based on what students had to say about the environment of their college campus, instead of blaming those at Mens Fitness who simply conducted the survey, those who have an issue with their school not being on the list consult the students who attend their schools? After all, the survey was based on the results of what current students said about their school fitness environment. Don't shoot the messenger here folks. As an after thought, I understand why my peers at Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, MN) feel that our environment is "fit." On any given day you'll find students everywhere on the campus doing something that promotes physical fitness, even in the middle of winter!
-- Jen
Why were the military schools left off the list? The main military academies do not allow any drugs and next to no alcohol. They have a regimented diet, are required to play a sport, have physical classes all four years (including boxing, wrestling, martial arts, and swimming) and each semester they take physical tests that must be passed to remain in school. This does not make sense, their physical develpoment is one of their main goals and their average quality of fitness is better than any civilian college hands-down.
-- Brad
I always wondered why Colgate U. never seems to have obese students, now I know why....
-- jim swanson
Im happy to see UC Santa Cruz on the list. It seems pretty sad to me that the state with the terminator as a governor has only one state ran institution on the list. UC Santa Cruz is a great environment to stay fit in. Not only becuase the hippy culture produces people consern about health but also if you ever walked around the campus you will relize that ever building is spread apart by about half a mile of forest and up hill trails. You stay fit just walking to classes at that place.
-- Todd
At Univ of Texas, San Antonio, the cafe food, the dorm food starts out with a great selection at the beginning of the semester and as the end gets closer, the selection diminishes. By the end, it's pizza, hamburgers, and fried food. Kind of surprised by this. would love to see more green salads (not iceburg) and grilled meat.
-- Cindy
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