Did you eat healthy yesterday, Santa Rosa? Most of your neighbors think they did.

A new survey out this month ranks Santa Rosa sixth in the nation for “healthy eating,” a fact that drew little surprise from experts, based on Sonoma County’s obsession with food and international reputation for farm-to-table dining.

But the survey also raised questions about what defines healthy eating and how widely that definition can vary.

Over the course of 2015 and 2016, the Gallup Organization partnered with Sharecare, a health and wellness management platform, to call 354,473 people across the United States and ask, “Did you eat healthy all day yesterday?”

In Santa Rosa, 72.3 percent of people polled answered yes. In the Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island, Florida, area, which ranked highest of the list of 189 communities, 75.3 percent of respondents said they did. Meanwhile, in Lubbock, Texas, the lowest ranked community, just 53.8 percent of respondents said the same.

“It’s a really vague question, and it can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people” said Nora Bulloch, lead dietitian for Santa Rosa’s Center for Well-Being. “I think that’s really unclear. ... Maybe for someone eating healthy is, ‘I didn’t go to fast food,’ or, ‘I didn’t drink three sodas; I only had one.’ We haven’t defined the question.”

According to the survey, 2016 marked a low point for healthy eating in the United States, with 63.2 percent of adults reporting eating healthy throughout the previous day. That was down from a high of 67.7 percent in 2010, the survey said, a decline of more than 10 million Americans.

The report also explored the connection between healthy eating and several chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression and stress. It found, not surprisingly, that people who ate healthy all day the day before had “lower disease burden across conditions” than those who didn’t.

For Bulloch, a healthy eating day means balance, starting with breakfast.

“It doesn’t have to be a big breakfast, but definitely having something to keep your blood sugar stable,” she said.

For lunch and dinner, people should be sure that half their meal is vegetables, with the other two quarters divided equally between lean proteins and carbohydrates.

As for Santa Rosa’s high ranking, she credited the community’s access to fruits and vegetables through the farmers markets that accept CalFresh plus the work of the Redwood Empire Food Bank.

In Santa Rosa’s “food insecure” 95407 ZIP code - south of Highway 12, west of Highway 101, east of Llano Road and north of Rohnert Park Expressway - the center has enlisted community volunteers called “promotores de salud,” or “health promoters,” to work with local grocery stores to increase the amount of fruits and vegetables market owners keep in stock, and the visibility of healthy options.

It’s more than access, though.

As healthy food and the farm-to-table movement have become popular, it has translated into the growth of a previously small demographic at Santa Rosa’s Community Market: young people.

“In the past, especially in the Santa Rosa store, a large part of our customer base were those over 50 that had been shopping at the market for years and years,” said Jess Williams, marketing manager and board president of the small, natural-foods-focused market near Santa Rosa Junior College. “It’s really nice to see younger folks who feel the way that we do about food.”

Also popular is the market’s new nutrition education series, “Food as Medicine,” held the third Monday of every month in Sebastopol.

The people who attend aren’t necessarily the market’s typical demographic either, Williams said. Instead, the wellness classes draw people who are new to learning about how different foods can affect their health.

“The whole natural food industry - organics, nonGMO, things like that - that has become really, really popular over the last five to seven years,” Williams said. “Places like Safeway bringing in lines of organic, nonGMO food, things that you used to only be able to get at your local health food store. ... I think natural foods are in your face at this point more than they have been in a long time, and that, I think, is definitely an important piece of it.”

You can reach Staff Writer Christi Warren at 707-521-5205 or christi.warren@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @SeaWarren.