Let’s pretend that you’re someone with the ability to take out mortgages, and you want to move your family (let’s pretend that you have a family, too) to a new neighborhood. Given your awkward obsession with food (it’s cool, we’re with you on that) you will definitely survey and area’s tasty resources before pulling your Budget truck into a driveway. Good news, weirdo, the fast majority of respondents to this study from The Atlantic and GlaxoSmithKline have the same exact priorities. For once.
Outranking things like “access to hospitals,” “kind and supportive neighbors,” even “safe and affordable housing,” access to “healthy food choices” was very important to a stunning 81% of survey respondents. This makes sense, insofar as no one will ever say “Putting toxic garbage in my body is vital to my health and that health of my community!”
Sensibly, access to healthy food choices only comes in third on the list to things like “doctors/dentists I can see regularly” (81%) and “clean air and water” (87%). But the backseat placement of hospital proximity is a bit of a shock. Are all these family-having, mortgage-affording Americans explaining to realtors, “Sure, I’ll sign up for a 30-minute ambulance ride to the nearest hospital as long as I don’t have to walk more than a block for local garlic scapes in the summer.” Probably. Or they’re just resigned to never having adequate health care wherever they move.
With A Place At The Table out in theaters, it’s clear that fighting hunger is at the forefront of our national consciousness. And these latest findings may have dropped the solution right into our laps: Hunger Games. The people have spoken and friendliness towards neighbors is less important than a personal stockpile of delicious produce, so we should probably just let those anti-social suckers battle it out at the farm market every weekend.
…And may the odds be ever in your favor.
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