Our Diet in Maps

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so visit the Food Environment Atlas and see all kinds of fun stats about how we eat, what we eat, how much we pay for food, etc. It puts the data into national maps (or state/county) to see how each state or region compare. Fascinating stuff.

Now, to save you some time and keep this simple, the folks at Daily Yonder have posted some of the best maps that provide us with some of the most striking information from the Food Atlas. Please visit the article here and thanks to one of my favorite writers/columnists Ezra Klein with the Washington Post for mentioning this on his blog (a must read).

Here is my quick recap of PA/Philly vs US from the maps in the Daily Yonder link above:

Fast foods restaurants per 1000 people - upper levels of the US

Fast food spending per person: one of the lowest in the US

Percentage exercising enough: top half of US

Pounds of meat/poultry eaten person: we like out meat! one of top in US (Philly especially).

Gallons of soft drink person: PA high, while Philly is near bottom

Pounds fruits/vegetables per person: PA good. Philly one of the best.

Percent of adults obese: PA middle. Philly one of the lowest rates

What's amazing how poor the southeast US is in many of these maps. Your thoughts?