The state has actually been in the top 10 multiple times since the first annual well-being rankings in 2008—Hawaii and Colorado are the only states to have made the top 10 every year—though Alaska has never before been number one. Other rural, colder states seem to score highly in well-being, too: South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, and Utah all made the top ten.

2014 Well-Being Rankings

Gallup/Healthways

These rankings have made little news in past years, in part because they are based entirely on self-reported surveys, which scientists are quick to dismiss. (Maybe Alaskans don't actually exercise more; they're just part of a statewide culture of lying about exercising. Maybe they don't have diagnoses of depression because doctors aren't recognizing symptoms, or people don't feel comfortable talking about it in a telesurvey. Et cetera.) But seven years and 2.1 million surveys in, the longitudinal trends seem too substantial to dismiss outright. And if people are lying, Witters concedes, at least they are most likely lying in the same ways regularly.

Gallup's methodology has been consistent for years, which lends some credence to trends. In the case of obesity, for example, national rates have been on the rise, from 25.5 percent of the population in 2008 to 27.7 percent in 2014. So that number may not be exact, but it is likely that the rate is indeed increasing.

"There's no clinical in-home measurement," said Witters—obesity questions are part of a phone interview, in which a researcher asks people their height and weight. "We accept the response at face value." From those numbers, an algorithm calculates body mass index (which is far from perfect as a measure of obesity, but still widely used). Comparing Gallup's findings to measurements from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the obesity rates are probably actually worse than what Gallup reports today. CDC tracks and maps diseases and conditions, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation keeps county health rankings, but the Gallup index is unique as a progressive measure of the quality-of-life factors that influence health. Since Gallup partnered with the well-being-improvement company Healthways in 2006 to create a more comprehensive definition of well-being and track it, the index has begun to fill a niche in psychometrics that inform health in the most fundamental ways.

In the Gallup index, people are scored in five categories, of which physical health is only one. There is also purpose (liking what they do each day, being motivated to achieve goals), social status (having supportive relationships and love in one's life), financial status (having minimal economic stress), community (feeling safe, and having pride in one's community).

And in community involvement, Alaska leads the nation, too. There, for example, the survey asks people whether they've received recognition in the last year for helping to improve their community. "That's a tough nut to crack nationally," Witters said. But among Alaskans, 28 percent say they have—which is actually the best rate in the country. They are also, despite (because of?) the bear population, fifth in the country in terms of feeling safe and secure.