We need to turn Springfield, Ohio around!

Springfield has been ranked the third worst city in a national survey released last year that calculates the population’s health and wellbeing.

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which has been ongoing since 2008, has surveyed one million people in the United States about their behaviors, physical and mental health. Ohio is the seventh worst state in terms of health and wellbeing with a score of 65 as of 2010, according to the survey. Springfield is the third worst city with a score of 61.

“It is a score that comprises scores from six individual sub-indexes, which are: Life Evaluation, Emotional Health, Physical Health, Healthy Behaviors, Work Environment, and Basic Access,” said Elizabeth Mendes, deputy managing editor of Gallup.com in an email. “The overall Well-Being Index score is an average of those six scores.”

Within each score are a number of categories, 12 of which were featured on the Gallup website. Springfield was the worst performer in four of those categories: smoking, happiness, asthma and frequent exercising.

With this being said, it appears that we have a lot of work ahead of us. We MUST turn these statistics around for our community, our families, our children, and our grandchildren!

Let's start today by making some drastic changes in our lifestyles! Do ONE thing differently to live a better life! It might just SAVE your life!