By comparing which cities have the most gym goers, monthly spending at cosmetic stores and spas, and low rates of obesity, The Daily Beast concludes San Francisco is America’s vainest city (with 20.4 percent of residents belonging to a gym, and spending an average $111 monthly on personal care), followed by Boston, New York, and Los Angeles. They said vain, not pompous.
jay_max
One could have reached that conclusion simply by interacting with any random Joe Casro.
Black Pegasus
Narcissistic Vapid Fags in San Fran?
Really? Like OMG!
bb
At least people look healthy in San Francisco. Unlike the pale, gaunt, underfed people in New York City.
Fitz
Well, the gyms here are a lot of fun, the weather usually sucks, and the roads are not safe for jogging or bike riding.
And if having a low rate of obesity is “vain”, fine.. call me vain until you turn purple from your first MI, (which should be at about age 50 if you are some fat smoker who scoffs at healthy food,hates exercise and laughs at people who love it. )
robco
Bear in mind the SF Bay Area was also ranked #3 by the same publication in their list of America’s smartest cities. I don’t really see how having low obesity rates and people actually going to the gym and exercising is a bad thing…
ggreen
I think a better more accurate marker of vanity would be spending on plastic surgery. Which I would imagine is very low here in SF. The gays aren’t buying the cosmetics and going to spas. When ever I have visitors from out of town they usually remark how unattractive the natives are. Pudgy & pasty with ridiculous haircuts, tattoos, piercings and other “body art”. But vain not so much. Years ago gays from LA called San Francisco the land of a thousand uglies.
Melhael
Not being obese is not vanity, and neither is going to the gym. It’s self-love; it’s healthy.
B
As typical, a superficial analysis of the data got it wrong. Aside from not controlling for cost-of-living differences (higher rents mean higher prices for everything), San Francisco had the lowest level of overweight individuals (50.3% with 20.4% being gym members) but Boston, NY, Chicago, Charlotte, and San Diego had higher levels of gym membership but with more overweight individuals. Nashville had $120 for “personal care” spending but had 34% not overweight and 16.8% going to a gym.
One difference is the terrain – San Francisco is hilly and people get additional exercise just walking around as a result.
dvlaries
Also in the news: the sky is above your head.
rusk
I highly doubt that. San francisco is home to the artsy types in my opinion. The most vain city goes to west hollywood.
TheRealAdam
@rusk: That’s simply not true.
@ggreen: “Years ago gays from LA called San Francisco the land of a thousand uglies.”
We still do. We’re just more polite about it since SF is known to have an inferiority complex to any and everything L.A.
ewe
I did not find that to be true at all and i lived there for years. As a matter of fact, San Francisco is a very provincial town with a charming ambience and all the problems and joys of any other place. People are vain, people are snobs, people are insecure, not cities.
ewe
@TheRealAdam: That was the most classic definition of passive aggession i have ever read.
John (CA)
It all depends on what kind of vanity you are referring to about I suppose.
Power, not beauty, is the currency of choice in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Every small time politician in San Francisco looks in the mirror and sees a senator, attorney general, or governor staring back at them. More so than any other place in California, the place is synonymous with old-school machine politics. Of the sort you would find in, say, Chicago or New Orleans. There is a reason why most of the major players in state government have some sort of relationship with the bay city.
ewe
@bb: Gaunt and underfed in NY? That’s news to me. It’s called “walking” lol.
mike
#8 hits it right on the nose- the survey is badly designed. I know- I used to do survey design for medical research for years. I’ve also lived in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and Los Angeles is much more vain on the whole.
Scrufff
I’ve lived in LA all my life. i remember a few years ago going into a leather shop to get some new chaps to wearto the upcoming Dore Alley Fair. However, i told the shop guy that i didn’t want to have the chaps fitted yet because i needed another month to get into tip top shape before getting them custom fitted. He just looked at me and laughed, “It’s San Fransisco, you are in tip top shape.” I still waited a month 😉 LA is way more vain.