The Nordics and Singapore are ranked amongst the 20 healthiest countries to live in the world, according to a new report from Money.co.uk, a UK-based price comparison website.
The report looks at countries based on a wide range of factors that contribute to a healthy lifestyle including life expectancy, obesity levels, pollution levels, safety score, sunlight hours, and cost to be healthy.
Iceland ranks 5th out of the 20 healthiest countries in the world, followed by Sweden, Norway, and Singapore which ranks 7th, 8th, and 9th respectively. Above top 10, Finland ranks 12th healthiest country in the world and Denmark ranks 16th on the list. Spain is officially the healthiest country in the world ranking number 1 and the UK is at the end of the list ranking 20th.
Money.co.uk’s experts also rank the top 40 healthiest cities in the world based on the same criteria and here Helsinki ranks 17th on the list. According to the report, Helsinki has the cleanest air in the world and is much ahead of other cities when it comes to environmental protection and reducing air pollution. The number of harmful practices to the environment is limited due to the city’s strong environmental regulations and Helsinki has taken a big step towards creating a green carbon footprint by pledging to be carbon neutral by 2035. With a crime rate nearly non-existent, Helsinki is also considered one of the safest cities to live in.
Other Nordic cities on the list include Reykjavik, Iceland, Copenhagen, Denmark, and Oslo, Norway which ranks 14th, 20th, and 33rd respectively.
The city of Singapore also places within the top 40 and ranks 25th followed by Chiang Mai, Thailand which ranks 26th. Both cities have some of the lowest obesity levels in the world and rank 2nd and 3rd lowest on the obesity index. The report also indicated that the life span in the Asian cities is high and residents live on average till 83.1 and 76.9 years old.
The choice of using the price of 1kg of apples seems a very Western-centric metric, as apples are just about the most common, most affordable and widely available fruit in Northern / European countries, but are imported in much of Asia and therefore cost a lot more than local fruits. It would be fairer to make this ‘the cost of 1 kg of local, in-season fruit’