The Salt Lake-Ogden area of the Wasatch Front is No. 37 among 100 metropolitan areas on Self Magazine's healthiest places for women to live — bolstered by earning a No. 3 spot in both "least smoky" and "fewest sunburns" categories.

But before you decide that's pretty good, consider this: The same list places Salt Lake-Ogden at No. 4 for "unhappiest city in America" for women.

The rankings — from most dangerous roads to healthiest eaters and lots in between — are in the December issue, now on newsstands.

When she examined more than 6,000 bits of data in around 40 different categories to come up with the rankings, author Sara Austin said Utah's "happiness snapshot" was less than cheery. Suicide rates were higher than average, and so was depression. She also figured in "access to psychiatrists." There are fewer in Utah, on average. And she checked out "indicators of things that say we are stressed out, things that tend to make women unhappy," like crime rates and commuting time and divorce.

No. 1 on the happiness scale, the article says, is Fargo, N.D. Unhappiest is Las Vegas. The healthiest place is Honolulu; Detroit is the least healthy.

This is the seventh year for the Self Magazine rankings of 100 metropolitan communities and the fifth set that Austin has compiled. Until a couple of years ago, the magazine ranked 200 areas, which included Provo, but has scaled back.

Austin started working on the current listing about six months ago, compiling the information in cooperation with data analysis experts based in Portland, Ore. The hardest part, she said, was deciding how much weight to give each of the criteria.

Lest you think it was skewed against Utah, "smoking rates really affect women's health so significantly that we give it extra emphasis," said Austin. Score one for Utah, where smoking prevalence is well below average.

Data were taken from national sources, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency and the FBI.

Besides unveiling the smiley, the sad, the fit and the fretful, the magazine also offers tips taken from women in the cities that ranked highest.

"We love when women get motivated to make changes," Austin said.

You can log on to www.self.com and click on "healthiest places" to see more of the rankings or to learn how to improve women's health.

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E-mail: lois@desnews.com