“Every day, millions of Americans enjoy their free time – and meal time – from the comfort of their sofas or recliners,” the blog said. “Some play video games in homes littered with pizza crusts and empty Mountain Dew cans. Others watch daytime soap operas while digging around at the bottom of a cardboard bucket for the last, cold piece of fried chicken. All the while, thousands of unused Nordic tracks slowly rust in the garage.”
Estately looked at eight metrics for the couch-potato analysis, and as one might expect, percentages of people who don’t exercise for at least 30 minutes at least three times a week, high-obesity rates and states that watch the most TV were on the list. Then they had some fun, looking at the percentage of Facebook users in each state expressing an interest in daytime soap operas, states with the most Laz-E-Boy retailers and fast-food restaurants per capita, employed people working fewest hours each day and most video-game rental-related Google searches.
Hawaii managed to beat Colorado for lowest number of couch potatoes per capita.
The measurements that sunk the Centennial State were ranking 46th in working fewest hours per day – meaning we work more hours than most states – and the number of Laz-E-Boy retailers per capita. After a day spent on slopes or trails, we seem to like coming home to a comfortable chair, scoring 16th on the metric.
Hawaii residents, who’ve been hanging out at the beach, came in 41st on the Laz-E-Boy front. Five states don’t even have any Laz-E-Boy retailers, so if you’re moving to Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska or either of the Dakotas, you should buy one before you go.
The state with the most couch potatoes? You may be thinking it’s Mississippi, which has the highest obesity rates and ranked second in hours spent per day watching TV and third in interest in soap operas mentioned on Facebook. But Mississippi doesn’t even make the 10 highest in couch potatoes per capita, coming in at 13th.
Ohio actually wins “bragging” rights for the most couch potatoes per capita in the land.
We’re fit to fight zombies, too.
Having a low number of couch potatoes helped Colorado score high in our chance to fight off the walking dead so popular in entertainment these days.
Unlike “Zombieland” in the South, “Zombielandia” on the West Coast, “Nebrainska” and “Zombiesota,” Colorado’s rating as the third-most physically active state and least obese or second-to-least obese state, depending on which study you use, put us in a good position to run or fight as circumstances demand.
Our play time actually has been training us for fighting, with Coloradans coming in sixth for laser tag and ninth for paintball as noted in Facebook interests. Survival skills, the ability to survive when society collapses, is one of our biggest weaknesses, as Colorado only is ranked 24th on the metric.
Perhaps best of all, we come in 10th for knowledge of zombies as counted by the number of Facebook users who listed zombie films “Resident Evil,” “Zombieland” and “The Walking Dead” as interests.
“To know your enemy, you must know their ways,” the Estately blog said.
For your best chance at surviving when the zombies come for you, move to Alaska. And by all means, stay away from New Jersey when the panic begins, as it’s ranked 50th in martial arts, survival skills, knowledge of zombies and laser tag. The only criterion that might help New Jerseyites is their ranking as the ninth least-obese state, so at least they can run away, but since they’re only 38th on the physically active scale, they can’t run very far before they’re winded.
And those zombies are relentless.
abutler@durangoherald.com
