Happiness, Where Are You?

If you're bummed about missing International Day of Happiness (March 20), that sadness might be mitigated by where you live. The personal finance company WalletHub has issued its 2026 report on the "Happiest Cities in America."

The survey covered more than 180 of the largest U.S. cities, ranking them by 29 key indicators, from reported rates of depression to income to average daily leisure time.

The top 10 happiest cities were Fremont, California; Bismarck, North Dakota; Scottsdale, Arizona; South Burlington, Vermont; Fargo, North Dakota; Overland Park, Kansas; Charleston, South Carolina; Gilbert, Arizona; and San Jose, California.

A deeper dive revealed:

-- Jersey City, New Jersey, had the lowest depression rate, 2.6 times lower than in Huntington, West Virginia, the city with the highest

-- Newark, New Jersey, had the lowest number of suicides per 100,000 residents, 6.9 times lower than in Casper, Wyoming, the city with the highest

-- Fremont, California, had the lowest separation and divorce rate, 4.4 times lower than in Cleveland, the city with the highest

-- South Burlington, Vermont, had the lowest share of adults sleeping less than seven hours per night, two times lower than in Detroit, the city with the highest

-- Bismarck, North Dakota, had the lowest average commute time, 2.6 times lower than in New York City, the city with the highest.

Body of Knowledge

By age 60, 60% of men and 40% of women snore. The average snore hovers around 60 decibels -- about the level of normal speech -- but can exceed 80. That's roughly equivalent to heavy traffic or a vacuum cleaner. Noise levels above 85 decibels are considered hazardous to the human ear.

Mark Your Calendar

April is health awareness month for cervixes, birth defects, glaucoma, thyroids and substance use disorder.

Doc Talk

Agnostication: An alternative to prognostication, used to describe typically vain attempts to answer unknowable questions like "How long have I got, doc?"

Phobia of the Week

Ipovlopsychophobia: Fear of having one's photograph taken

Never Say 'Diet'

The Major League Eating speed-eating record for Peeps, those adorable, animal-shaped marshmallow candies, is 255 in five minutes, held by Matt Stonie. Though peak Peeps season is technically over, if you stashed some in plastic Easter eggs in the backyard, you'll probably come across new consumption opportunities over the next few months.

Best Medicine

Mental illness runs in my family, which is weird because neither of my parents was very athletic.

Observation

"I'm a psychic amnesiac. I know in advance what I'll forget." -- American actor and comedian Steven Wright

Medical History

This week in 1930, Hostess Twinkies snack cakes were invented by James A. Dewar (1897-1985), plant manager at Continental Baking Company in Chicago, as an inexpensive foodstuff during the Great Depression.

Dewar realized the factory had baking pans for sponge cakes used only during the summer strawberry season and that they could be made useful year-round for a new product: sponge cakes injected with a banana creme filling.

Twinkies originally sold at two for a nickel. Vanilla creme was substituted during the notorious banana shortage of World War II. The name is said to have come to Dewar based on a billboard he saw for "Twinkle Toe" shoes.

Since their invention, untold billions of Twinkies have been sold; Americans alone eat an estimated 500 million annually. Some of these are actually digested.

Perishable Publications

Many, if not most, published research papers have titles that defy comprehension. They use specialized jargon, complex words and opaque phrases like "nonlinear dynamics." Sometimes they don't, yet they're still hard to figure out. Here's the title of an actual published research study: "Friends with benefits: on the positive consequences of pet ownership."

Published in 2011 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the authors found that pets may benefit not only owners who are stressed but also "everyday people" who are not particularly stressed.

Specifically, pet owners enjoyed greater self-esteem, exercised more, and were more conscientious and less fearful of forming attachments.

In unpublished animal research, dogs said much the same thing; cats said they couldn't care less.

Medical Myths

Natural sugars like those in fruit are not "better" than those found in cakes and candy. In fact, the metabolic effect of high-fructose corn syrup is essentially the same as honey. The problem is the amount: a slice of cake or a candy bar contains a lot more sugar than an apple, with little to none of the other nutrients. Whole foods like apples also affect how sugar is absorbed.

Curtain Calls

In 1999, a male hippo in rut apparently mistook a passing tractor at a French zoo for a rival and smashed through his enclosure fencing. But the hippo raced past the tractor, instead trampling the zoo's director, who was cycling past as part of a regular morning exercise regime.

A zoo spokesman described the death as "a crime of passion," but others noted that the director had trained the hippo and that they were friends, suggesting the animal may have inadvertently crushed the director while seeking his comfort, hippo-thetically speaking.

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To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.