Iowa’s a place of contentment, according to a new study of happiness. Matt Marion is an editor for Men’s Health Magazine. The writers wanted to gauge just how happy or sad towns across the country were, so for an article titled “Is Your Town Down?” they looked at sales of anti-depressants, at suicide rate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and at how many days a year they reported feeling depressed, also a statistic from the CDC. Folks in Iowa and Nebraska scored as upbeat and cheerful in the study. Based on the outcome, Marion says you apparently can’t blame the midwestern winter for your troubles. He says two cities that got “F” grades were Tampa and St. Petersburg, scoring in the bottom ten. But in Lincoln people came in at a number-nine rating, scoring a B-plus in the study. In Des Moines they ranked fifteenth in the happiness index and Omaha came in at nineteenth, so he says it’s more than just the weather. Marion says the best hope for the study is that people might take action to improve their lives. He says seeing to their overall health would be a good way to do that, of course. You can find the article on the magazine’s website… www.menshealth.com
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