--- title: Fruits and Vegetables: 90% of Americans Don't Eat Enough description: The vast majority of Americans are not eating enough fruits and vegetables, according to a new report from the CDC. canonical: https://time.com/5029164/fruit-vegetable-diet/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-11-17T15:46:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:04:08.752Z article:section: Health og:title: About 90% of Americans Don't Eat Enough Fruits and Vegetables og:description: Veggie consumption is especially low og:url: https://time.com/5029164/fruit-vegetable-diet/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc1de819f431aedb7/6988e6464ee262577730fd3c/fruits-and-vegetables.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5616 og:image:height: 3159 og:image:alt: Fruit and veggies og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: About 90% of Americans Don't Eat Enough Fruits and Vegetables twitter:description: Veggie consumption is especially low twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc1de819f431aedb7/6988e6464ee262577730fd3c/fruits-and-vegetables.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # About 90% of Americans Don't Eat Enough Fruits and Vegetables > Sponsored content. 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Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=34415a0a-e721-4f3f-9f35-28e8f8a72e5a&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Parasocial Relationships: How Admiring a Celeb Might Be Healthy [Watch (HLS stream): Parasocial Relationships: How Admiring a Celeb Might Be Healthy](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/YQnKt3Qu.m3u8) (5:52)  _Published 2023-07-13. There’s a good chance that you—yes, even you—have had a parasocial experience. Ever yell at the football player on your TV who just fumbled the ball, even though you knew he couldn’t hear you? That’s an example of a parasocial interaction, which can progress into a parasocial relationship—typically defined as a one-sided social and emotional connection developed with fictional characters or celebrities._  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Nov 17, 2017 3:46 PM UTC  Fruit and vegetable stand. Fruit and vegetable stand. Christopher Kimmel—Getty Images  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Nov 17, 2017 3:46 PM UTC The vast majority of Americans are not eating enough fruits and vegetables, according to [a new report from the CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6645a1.htm?s%5Fcid=mm6645a1%5Fw&utm%5Fsource=STAT+Newsletters&utm%5Fcampaign=f26644060f-MR&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fterm=0%5F8cab1d7961-f26644060f-150444909). The most recent edition of the [Dietary Guidelines for Americans](https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/) recommends that adults consume 1.5 to two cups of fruit per day, and two to three cups of vegetables per day. According to the CDC’s data, however, just 12.2% of American adults are meeting the standard for fruit, and 9.3% are meeting the standard for vegetables. On average, the report adds, Americans are eating fruit once per day and vegetables 1.7 times per day. --- ### More from TIME --- The numbers vary slightly state by state, but even the leading regions fall far short of the guidelines. People in Washington, D.C. eat the most fruit, with 15.5% of adults meeting the guidelines, and Alaska leads vegetable consumption with 12% compliance. On the flip side, only 7.3% and 5.8% of people in West Virginia are eating enough fruits and vegetables, respectively. Across the board, the study found, women eat more produce than men, and young adults eat fewer fruits and vegetables than other age groups. [It’s important to get these numbers up](http://time.com/4616518/how-to-get-americans-to-eat-vegetables/), according to the CDC, because [plant-heavy diets](http://time.com/4346551/vegan-diet-vegetarian/) have been shown to reduce the risk for everything from type 2 diabetes and obesity to cardiovascular disease and some types of cancer. To increase consumption, the report says, the U.S. should aim to lower costs, expand access and improve education efforts. ## Transcript Really my whole career has been a series of case studies, the fans and some Bruce, Springsteen Madonna Prince Paul McCartney. After you've done your 15th case study you start to say well you know the case studies is a generalizable but well. Okay there's some commonalities here. Parasocial is defined as non reciprocated. I know you, you don't know me back, a pair of social, interaction is what happens while you're consuming media, think of yourself at home, watching a sporting event and the guy just dropped the ball, and you're sitting there yelling at him, for being an idiot for dropping the ball. That's a social interaction. That's watching Stephen Colbert, and he's talking to me and I'm talking back. I know he can't hear me, but I feel like, because he's talking to the audience somehow I should respond. Now, the pair of social interactions during media consumption, if I walk away from the media and I'm still thinking about the person I'm talking about what I would have done. If I'd been that character in that movie or maybe I'm thinking about what I would have said that person that would have been better than what they said. Her social attachment is when I derive Comfort from that person most often through their work. They interviewed once Josh Groban fan who had stage 4 cancer, and she said, I don't go to my chemotherapy without my iPod with my Josh Groban. Music, it makes me feel better being in the time were born or sort of metaphorically, hardwired to be attracted to the familiar faces and voices of other people. And if you look particularly what happens in digital media, and internet media, there's a Tennessee when you find someone whose work you like to sort of do this immersion in their work, so that you're looking at them, their face during their voice over and over and over and over. And when you think about that much exposure to the station voice of a person, This is what is the foundation for what we call attachment? Back in the 1980s, when they began to study this, the two main kinds of parasocial relationships and so poppers and intended to be a middle-aged to elderly population. Were forming those attachments. And what the research has shown, is that one of the things of her social relationship can do is to mitigate loneliness. So that person who's may be socially isolated because they're elderly and their family, never meet visits them have formed a social Shoes that are meaningful and it helps them feel less isolated. And then if they have access to the internet, then they can do all these other things we've already talked about, which is not only reach out to the celebrity, but more commonly, reach out to other fans. Besides the lack of reciprocity, I know them, they don't know any back, there's usually a difference in status. So they're at a higher status than you are. And you heard of the pair of social thing can be that you aspire to that their state is the convention. She was the first woman in space and she got on stage with Michelle Nichols from Star Trek. The Original Series and said, I saw the shell Nichols is Lieutenant Uhura on the bridge of the Enterprise. And I thought I could be there in space. There, I am. I represent it. I met so many young people during the Michael Jackson study, who told me that they realized, they could become an Entertainer. After they saw the Jackson 5 on Ed Sullivan, I had fans that interview. Where is the business who were in Hollywood working and entertainment? Who said this is where I realized I could do that. I had these models of these five young men who are doing it very well and it was meaningful to me because they look like me. Listen to development and lessons in general. 10 to number one become focused and intense about things and also did not always show the best judgment. The upside of that is that if they're developmentally not ready for a real relationship, there in a social relationships, have sex with them or whatever, there's no danger that if you're a teenager and you know that I have a crush on this person and it's not going to get complicated. I actually followed some Michael Jackson Bad Tour 1988 and I saw them again twenty years later and every one of these people have gone on to have a positive normal life and they were among the people that were Maybe they were following him around, maybe they were really, really into him but that it's for the temperature, warm feeling they had about, I haven't been a fan and what those experiences represented. So I do think that that, you know, there is the potential if kids get, you know, in over their heads. 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