Bengaluru Wins ‘Healthiest City’ Crown: 5 Things the Garden City Is Doing Right
It's easier to stay healthy in a city with healthy social habits – and Bengaluru is definitely leading the pack thanks to these factors. The third is our favourite!
Eat right, sleep early, exercise hard, repeat—a popular mantra for a healthy living. Simple enough to say but excruciatingly difficult follow. There are, however, varied parameters that go into deciding whether a person is living a healthy lifestyle. If one goes by a recent study, then Bengalureans seem to be doing it right.
GOQii, a preventive healthcare company, conducted a study which hails the IT-hub as India’s healthiest city. The study took into account the BMI, lifestyle diseases, stress, sleep, food habits and smoking and alcohol levels of the citizens to arrive at the conclusion that among the urban Indian areas, Bengaluru is the healthiest of cities, followed by Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai.
Just like other metros, Bengaluru too has to deal with heavy traffic, work stress and other urban issues. So what are Bengalureans doing differently to rise above the rest and maintain their fitness through it all?
Here, we have a list of five things that contribute to the health of the city:
1. Going the organic way:
A healthy diet begins from where you buy your groceries. As the awareness for chemical-free, organic food is rising, Bengalureans are hopping onboard the fitness wagon-not just for the sake of the trend but because they are aware of the importance of consuming organic and eating green.
With farmers’ markets blooming across the city and high-end stores encouraging the sale of organic fruits and vegetables, more and more citizens in the Silicon Valley of India are opting for a chemical-free diet.
2. All work and no play makes Bengaluru a stressed city . . .
. . . but not if the citizens can help it. You will find gyms in almost every nook of the city but Bengalureans are not relying solely on the heavy equipment for their daily dose of exercise. Rather, it is the bouldering gyms and dance classes that are helping shed the extra fat and maintaining flexibility of the city.
Gyms that are open 24*7 and badminton, tennis courts allowing players without membership are great motivators for professionals who work late or indefinite hours. But despite its busy routine, Bengaluru manages to get a healthy 6.56 hours of sleep!
3. The Garden City
An early morning walk in the serene parks of the city will greet you with a sight of young children, working professionals and retired senior citizens all exercising together. On one side of the park would be a group of Yoga practitioners, taking in lungfuls of deep breaths of fresh air while young and old joggers do their regular rounds on the pavements.
On weekends, you will also find slack-liners doing amazing acrobatics on their ropes. Try it out, the professionals will guide you till you get your balance right!
You may also like: Joining Zumba? 11 Things To Know Before You Step Into This Global Fitness Movement!
4. A millet paradise
Millet-idlis, millet dosas and even millet ice-creams, you will find several dishes to your liking made from the humble millet. Once the centre of Karnataka’s food culture, the millet had almost vanished into oblivion for the past few decades. However, Bengaluru is bringing the millennia old food back into vogue!
From stores that sell millet products to restaurants that make delicious dishes with it, millets are making a grand comeback on the plate and are boosting the health of its citizens. Take this zero-budget millet restaurant for example. It is furnished with upcycled material and serves everything from the traditional puliyogare, dosa, Bisi Bele bath to laddus made of millets. You can read about it in detail here.
5. Plogging
Combining fitness fad with the urgent need to clean our environment, plogging is an exercise that should be encouraged in more and more cities. Plogging finds its roots in the Swedish phrase ‘plocka upp,’ which means to pick up, so joggers who collect all the plastic trash that they encounter on their way turn regular jogging to plogging. What was started in 2016, emerged as a global trend soon after and Bengaluru wasn’t left behind in catching up with this green, fitness idea.
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The proactive citizens of Bengaluru went so far as to collect 33,355.6 kg plastic in a drive that lasted 12 hours to set a Guinness record. Keeping fit and keeping the surroundings fit too. If that is not the mark of a healthy city and we don’t know what is!
From individual ‘ploggers’ to organised runs, Bengalureans are taking to the streets and parks to ‘plog’ their city clean! You can read more about one such organised run here.
(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)
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