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Burlington, Vt., is healthiest city, CDC says from PhysOrg.com

(AP) -- What's the healthiest city in America? It appears to be Burlington, Vt. Vermont's largest city is tops among U.S. metropolitan areas by having the largest proportion of people - 92 percent - who say they are in good or great health.

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W. Virginia town shrugs at poorest health ranking from PhysOrg.com

(AP) -- As a portly woman plodded ahead of him on the sidewalk, the obese mayor of America's fattest and unhealthiest city explained why health is not a big local issue.

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It isn't surprising that the city with the worst health is in West Virginia. What has happened to West Virginia in the last 80 or so years is really sad. As the only state to be explicitly formed because the inhabitants did not want to join the Confederacy, West Virginia has a proud history. However, it has since then fallen to be a state with many social and economic problems.

There is a reason why West Virginia is becoming more socially insular. We are tired of being singled out for ridicule by a nation that has never made an effort to understand us.

Abstruse, so what don't we understand? We understand that there was a serious economic collapse due to the dwindling of the coal supplies and that has had large scale impact on the entire state. But other areas have had similar problems and they don't suffer as much as West Virginia. So what do you think makes West Virgina different?