Where We Eat | Place Matters Oregon

A collage of eating environments such as someone gardening outside, a healthy bowl of salad, a water bottle, whole grains, etc.

Where we Eat

People eat everywhere, all the time, in almost every kind of place—at home and work; in cars and restaurants; at schools and retirement communities; in hospitals and prisons. We may think that what we eat or drink, and how that affects our health, is entirely up to us. But our places play a powerful role.

Who gets the choice to eat healthy?

Whether or not you have access in your neighborhood to healthy, nutritious food.
Whether or not you can afford healthy food.
The food your kids are served at their schools.
How often your kids are targeted with ads and billboards for sugary drinks and
processed snacks.
How much salt is added to your meal before it gets to your plate.

These are some of the ways that our places in Oregon determine how healthy each of us can be.

Explore the issues

Prediabetes, driven by obesity, threatens the lives of more than 1 in 3 Oregon adults. In Tillamook County, the community is uniting to tackle this killer by making it easier to live a healthy life.

Reversing prediabetes together
At some point, each of us will depend on food prepared by a place that’s responsible for feeding thousands. Think schools and hospitals. Or Oregon prisons, whose leaders have a tight budget to improve inmates’ health and futures.

Steering food systems toward health