Healthiest Airports in America

The Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine released their 14th annual report on America’s healthiest airports. They surveyed 23 of the 30 largest airports in the country, noting that making healthy food choices is easier now with 75% of the restaurants offering at least one healthy food option.

There were many changes to their list this year with a surprising Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI) taking first place. Voters gave BWI a score of 92%, meaning that 92% of the airport’s restaurants offered at least one healthy food option. This score is up 12 points over last year’s voting. At the other extreme is Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson (ATL) with a miserly score of only 52%, the fourth year in a row that ATL has ranked at the bottom. Nevertheless, they noted that it is possible to find healthy food in “almost every terminal.”

With personal sadness, my home airport at Orlando (MCO) dropped out of the Top 10. While the airport does offer many healthy food choices, it is not enough compared to more up-and-coming airports that have a greater focus on health. With a score of only 66%, MCO dropped all the way down to 17th place.

Here are the top ten airports this year…

• [1] Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI, 92%)
• [2] Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA, 90%)
• [3] Los Angeles International Airport (LAX, 88%)
• [4] Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA, 87%)
• [5] Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR, 86%)
• [6] (tie) LaGuardia Airport (LGA, 84%)
• [6] (tie) Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW, 84%)
• [7] Denver International Airport (DEN, 83%)
• [8] San Francisco International Airport (SFO, 82%)
• [9] Logan International Airport (BOS, 79%)

For the complete list of how airports ranked, click on the link above.