Louisiana residents are praised for their social well-being, but the state falls flat in diet, physical health and mental health.
These findings come from America’s 2011 Brain Health Index, a research project by brain health resource Beautiful Minds.
The rankings, which include evaluations on all 50 states and the District of Columbia, base their statistics on 21 factors including fruit and vegetable consumption, serious psychological distress and obesity rates, among others.
While Maryland and the District of Columbia ranked in the top two, Louisiana and Mississippi ranked 50th and 51st on the index.
Out of 51, Louisiana ranked 50th in diet, 46th in physical health, 47th in mental health and 4th in social well-being with an overall rating of 50th.
Human ecology professor Georgianna Tuuri said the rankings don’t surprise her.
“The rankings are consistently high,” she said. “We’re worried about the statistics, and we need to take charge of our health.”
Tuuri said she educates students in her nutrition and wellness class to common health problems.
“We’re doing what we can, but the younger generation must pick up the torch,” she said. “This is not only a monetary issue for the state, but also has serious emotional and physical impacts [on residents].”
In order to combat unhealthy lifestyles, Tuuri suggested modified recipes with reduced fat and increased fiber for those who love traditional Louisiana cuisine.
“In West Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge schools, they’ve substituted brown rice for white rice,” she said. “Schools could possibly even substitute wheat bread for white.”
Tuuri also said many traditional Louisiana dishes contain too much salt.
“Recipes can be modified with a decreased amount of salt,” she said.
Sandeep Bandi, computer science graduate student and international student from India, said he’s not surprised by the state’s rankings.
Bandi said he prefers to eat oats and milk for breakfast and Indian food with rice for dinner, and while he said he occasionally treats himself to traditional Louisiana cuisine, he doesn’t eat local food on a daily basis.
“The food here is good, but there is a lot of oil and fat in it,” he said.
Megan Sullivan, business administration freshman from Chicago, also said she wasn’t caught off-guard by the rankings.
“I’m new to the food, but it seems a lot heavier and less healthy,” she said.
Sullivan said she anticipated that Louisiana would rank high in social well-being.
“At home [in Chicago], people like to stay at home, but here, it seems like everyone is up for anything,” she said about social life in the state.
 
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Contact Kate Mabry at [email protected]