SAD States: Standard American Diet State-By-State Comparison

The Standard American Diet is in a sad state, but sadder in some states than others. The CDC recently released a survey to chart our progress on fruit and vegetable consumption, and, if you can even imagine, we’re eating even fewer fruits and vegetables than we were a decade ago. Not a single state met the goals they were hoping for, but one, and only one, state did make an improvement, at least. Can you guess which one?

Here’s all 50. Note the deepest darkest color represents 35%-44.9%. So, not a single state even hit 50% for eating two fruit a day, with Oklahoma doing the worst. And for vegetables? Not one state even had a third of their population eating three daily servings of vegetables. And less than one in five people in South Dakota.

The CDC goal was to get all states up to 75% eating servings of fruits, and 50% veggies, by 2010. And, not even close. And those eating both? Forget about it—though I am impressed with New Englanders and their fruit.

Caucasians ate the least fruit; Hispanics the least vegetables. And the one state, the only state to improve over the decade? Idaho, which just made it to blue.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Serena Mylchreest.

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• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. State Indicator Report on Fruits and Vegetables, 2009. 2010.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. State-specific trends in fruit and vegetable consumption among adults --- United States, 2000-2009. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2010 Sep 10;59(35):1125-30.

Image thanks to Deimos3024 via Wikimedia Commons, and Ali Karimian, and Roco Julie via flickr.

• CDC
• fruit
• standard American diet
• vegetables