PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 6, 2026--
Second verse, same as the first. The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan area once again takes top honors as the No. 1 U-Haul growth metro, replicating its 2024 honor with the greatest net gain of one-way customers during 2025.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260106117347/en/
Likewise, the city proper of Ocala, Fla., retains the title of No. 1 U-Haul growth city, a distinction it also held for 2024 and 2022.
Metros: Texas stronghold
Texas metros litter the latest U-Haul Growth Index, claiming the top three spots (Dallas, Houston, Austin) and six of the top 25 growth metros.
Top 10 metros for netting do-it-yourself movers in 2025 also include Charlotte, Phoenix, Nashville, Charleston, Raleigh, Atlanta and the Brownsville-McAllen corridor along the southern border of Texas.
Some major metros to make the top 25 did so by reversing recent migration trends: San Francisco, Denver and Philadelphia saw more orange-clad moving equipment leaving than arriving in 2024, only to post strong net-gain numbers in 2025.
Cities: Florida dominates
When it comes to cities luring U-Haul customers, Florida again rules the roost. The Sunshine State has eight of the top 10 growth cities and 12 of the top 25 for the past year.
North Port, Kissimmee and Clermont join Ocala as Florida growth cities in the top five, along with Myrtle Beach, S.C. Texas has four city propers make the list, while Idaho has two.
Several smaller cities are making their U-Haul Growth Index debuts such as St. Augustine, Fla.; Seguin, Texas; Leesburg, Fla.; Garner, N.C.; and Lacey, Wash.
Growth formula
U-Haul ranks metropolitan areas and city propers by their net gain (or loss) of customers who rented a one-way truck, trailer or U-Box ® moving containers in one metro or city proper and dropped off their equipment in another metro or city proper. Interstate and intrastate transactions are included.
The U-Haul Growth Index is compiled from well over 2.5 million annual one-way transactions across the U.S. and Canada.
While rankings may not correlate directly to population or economic growth, the U-Haul Growth Index is an effective gauge of how well states, metros and cities are attracting and maintaining residents. Find migration trends press releases and past reports at uhaul.com/about/migration.
Industry leader
U-Haul is the authority on migration trends thanks to its expansive network that blankets all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces. The geographical coverage from more than 24,000 rental locations provides a comprehensive overview of where people are moving like no one else in the industry.
Celebrating 80 years of moving families to a better life, U-Haul is a veteran-founded and family-run organization that benefits the environment through its shared-use business model.
U-Haul strives to ease the stress of a residential move by providing customers with one month of free self-storage services at a U-Haul-owned facility near their destination when they make a qualifying one-way equipment rental. Take advantage of the free month offer on the U-Haul app, uhaul.com, in store or by calling 1-800-GO-UHAUL.
About U-HAUL
Founded in 1945, U-Haul is the No. 1 choice of do-it-yourself movers with more than 24,000 rental locations across all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces. The U-Haul app makes it easy for customers to use U-Haul Truck Share 24/7 to access trucks anytime through the self-dispatch and -return options on their smartphones with our patented Live Verify technology. Our customers' patronage has enabled the U-Haul fleet to grow to approximately 203,000 trucks, 137,400 trailers and 41,700 towing devices. U-Haul is the third largest self-storage operator in North America and offers 1,111,000 rentable storage units and 96.5 million square feet of self-storage space at owned and managed facilities. U-Haul is the top retailer of propane in the U.S. and the largest installer of permanent trailer hitches in the automotive aftermarket industry. Get the U-Haul app from theApp StoreorGoogle Play.
Dallas is the leading U.S. growth metropolitan area for the second year in a row based on one-way U-Haul customer transactions throughout 2025. Texas boasts the top three metros and six of the top 25. Ocala tops the U-Haul Growth Index as the No. 1 U.S. growth city proper for the third time in four years. Florida dominates the growth cities list with eight of the top 10 markets, and 12 of the top 25.
Americans should eat more whole foods and protein, fewer highly processed foods and less added sugar, according to the latest edition of federal nutrition advice released Wednesday by the Trump administration.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins issued the 2025-2030 U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which offer updated recommendations for a healthy diet and provide the foundation for federal nutrition programs and policies. They come as Kennedy has for months stressed overhauling the U.S. food supply as part of his Make America Healthy Again agenda.
“Our message is clear: Eat real food,” Kennedy told reporters at a White House briefing.
The guidelines emphasize consumption of fresh vegetables, whole grains and dairy products, long advised as part of a healthy eating plan. Officials released a new graphic depicting an inverted version of the long-abandoned food pyramid, with protein, dairy, healthy fats and fruits and vegetables at the top and whole grains at the bottom.
But they also take a new stance on “highly processed” foods, and refined carbohydrates, urging consumers to avoid “packaged, prepared, ready-to-eat or other foods that are salty or sweet, such as chips, cookies and candy." That's a different term for ultraprocessed foods, the super-tasty, energy-dense products that make up more than half of the calories in the U.S. diet and have been linked to chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity.
The new guidance backs away from revoking long-standing advice to limit saturated fats, despite signals from Kennedy and Food and Drug Commissioner Marty Makary that the administration would push for more consumption of animal fats to end the “war” on saturated fats.
Instead, the document suggests that Americans should choose whole-food sources of saturated fat — such as meat, whole-fat dairy or avocados — while continuing to limit saturated fat consumption to no more than 10% of daily calories. The guidance says “other options can include butter or beef tallow,” despite previous recommendations to avoid those fats.
The dietary guidelines, required by law to be updated every five years, provide a template for a healthy diet. But in a country where more than half of adults have a diet-related chronic disease, few Americans actually follow the guidance, research shows.
The new recommendations drew praise from some prominent nutrition and medical experts.
"There should be broad agreement that eating more whole foods and reducing highly processed carbohydrates is a major advance in how we approach diet and health,” said Dr. David Kessler, a former FDA commissioner who has written books about diet and nutrition and has sent a petition to the FDA to remove key ingredients in ultraprocessed foods.
“The guidelines affirm that food is medicine and offer clear direction patients and physicians can use to improve health,” said Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, president of the American Medical Association.
Other experts expressed relief after worrying that the guidelines would go against decades of nutrition evidence linking saturated fat to higher LDL or “bad” cholesterol and heart disease.
“I guess whoever is writing these had to admit that the science hasn't changed,” said Marion Nestle, a nutritionist and food policy expert who advised previous editions of the guidelines. “They haven't changed in any fundamental way except for the emphasis on eating whole foods.”
The new document is just 10 pages, upholding Kennedy's pledge to create a simple, understandable guideline. Previous editions of the dietary guidelines have grown over the years, from a 19-page pamphlet in 1980 to the 164-page document issued in 2020, which included a four-page executive summary.
The guidance will have the most profound effect on the federally funded National School Lunch Program, which is required to follow the guidelines to feed nearly 30 million U.S. children on a typical school day.
The Agriculture Department will have to translate the recommendations into specific requirements for school meals, a process that can take years, said Diane Pratt-Heavner, spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association. The latest school nutrition standards were proposed in 2023 but won't be fully implemented until 2027, she noted.
The new guidelines skip the advice of a 20-member panel of nutrition experts, who met for nearly two years to review the latest scientific evidence on diet and health.
That panel didn’t make recommendations about ultraprocessed food. Although a host of studies have showed links between ultraprocessed foods and poor health outcomes, the nutrition experts had concerns with the quality of the research reviewed and the certainty that those foods, and not other factors, were the cause of the problems.
The recommendations on highly processed foods drew cautiously positive reactions. The FDA and the Agriculture Department are already working on a definition of ultraprocessed foods, but it’s expected to take time.
Not all highly processed foods are unhealthy, said Dr. David Ludwig, an endocrinologist and researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital.
“I think the focus should be on highly processed carbohydrates,” he said, noting that processing of protein or fats can be benign or even helpful.
The guidelines made a few other notable changes, including a call to potentially double protein consumption.
The previous recommended dietary allowance called for 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight — about 54 grams daily for a 150-pound person. The new recommendation is 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. An average American man consumes about 100 grams of protein per day, or about twice the previously recommended limit.
Makary said the new advice supersedes protein guidance that was based on the “bare minimum” required for health.
Ludwig also noted that the earlier recommendation was the minimum amount needed to prevent protein deficiency and higher amounts of protein might be beneficial.
“I think a moderate increase in protein to help displace the processed carbohydrates makes sense,” he said.
Officials with the American Heart Association, however, called for more research on protein consumption and the best sources of protein for optimal health.
“Pending that research, we encourage consumers to prioritize plant-based proteins, seafood and lean meats and to limit high-fat animal products including red meat, butter, lard and tallow, which are linked to increased cardiovascular risk,” the group said in a statement.
The guidelines advise avoiding or sharply limiting added sugars or non-nutritive sweeteners, saying “no amount” is considered part of a healthy diet.
No one meal should contain more than 10 grams of added sugars, or about 2 teaspoons, the new guidelines say.
Previous federal guidelines recommended limiting added sugars to less than 10% of daily calories for people older than 2, but to aim for less. That's about 12 teaspoons a day in a 2,000-calorie daily diet. Children younger than 2 should have no added sugars at all, the older guidance said.
In general, most Americans consume about 17 teaspoons of added sugars per day, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The new guidelines roll back previous recommendations to limit alcohol to 1 drink or less per day for women and 2 drinks or less per day for men.
Instead, the guidance advises Americans to “consume less alcohol for better health." They also say that alcohol should be avoided by pregnant women, people recovering from alcohol use disorder and those who are unable to control the amount they drink.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE - Potato chips are displayed in pharmacy Duane Reade by Walgreens, Thursday, March 25, 2021, in New York. Walgreens reports earnings March 31, 2021. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, file)
FILE - A woman looks at products in the aisle of a store as her daughter naps in the shopping cart in Waco, Texas, on Dec. 14, 2010. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)
FILE - The label on a can of tomato soup is seen in Zelienople, Pa., June 14, 2018. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File)
FILE - Fruit are displayed at Iovine Brothers Produce in Philadelphia, May 29, 2007. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
