One of the most important tasks as a parent is making sure that your kids are getting the nutrition they need and staying away from (or at least enjoying moderately) the sugars and unhealthy foods that they don’t.

 

And sometimes it’s really hard.

As our schedules grow busier and busier with our children’s extracurriculars, sometimes it can be difficult to find time to throw together a healthy meal and you find yourself resorting to pulling through the drive-thru during the brief time you have between dance class and soccer practice. Recently, Vitagene put together a study on what cities have the most healthy dining out options, focusing on juice and smoothie bars, sushi restaurants, vegetarian restaurants, vegan restaurants, and raw food restaurants. With options to order over the phone and to take it to go at many of these places, they can easily replace a fast food run without taking up any more of your valuable, and increasingly scarce, time.

While choosing healthier options for dining out is a great step towards better health, it’s also important to prioritize regular medical check-ups and care. With a busy schedule, it can be difficult to find the time to schedule appointments, but places like urgent care Baychester offer flexible hours and walk-in appointments, making it easier to fit healthcare into your schedule. By taking care of our bodies through both healthy food choices and medical care, we can ensure that we’re giving ourselves the best chance at living a long and fulfilling life.

So what is the best city for finding a healthy bite to eat? Boasting 151.97 health-food restaurants per 100k people, Atlanta takes first place for the healthiest city in America for eating out. The metropolitan specializes in the most juice and smoothie bars and sushi restaurants with 63.34 and 61.07 restaurants, respectively, per 100k people.

Hartford was a close runner-up in the study with 105.35 restaurants per 100k people serving up healthy meals. This city had the most vegan restaurants (26.74/100k people) and vegetarian restaurants (35.66/100k people), so if you and your family are meat-free, or even if you just practice “meatless Mondays,” Hartford may be the place for you. Other notable cities that made it into the study’s top health cities were Las Vegas, Portland, Phoenix, and San Francisco. Even if you don’t live in one of the top cities for healthy eating, your city may serve up more healthy food options than you realize and it may be worth a Google search.

Knowing that there are cities out there that have a generous supply of healthy seafood restaurant options, it’s also important to note that there are still some cities where you are probably better off packing a homemade meal if you want your kids to eat something nutritious. Washington D.C. was the big loser of the study, with only 3.11 healthy restaurants per 100k people. Following the capital for the worst cities for healthy dining out options were Indianapolis, Houston, Jacksonville, and Memphis.

Carting your kids all over the place after a long day at work can take up a lot of a parent’s time and finding nutritious meals for them can be a tricky feat. Take some time to see if your city has any nearby Dine In Family Restaurant or Downtown Restaurant places that offer up healthy meals to go, it may just make your evenings a little easier.