The surgeon general, José Andrés and other luminaries staged a dinner to start Project Gather, an effort to get Americans to eat together.
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Reporting from Washington, D.C.
I have never seen a guest show up to a potluck dinner in the service dress of a vice admiral. And until last month, Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy had never worn his uniform to one.
But there he was in a plush Washington neighborhood near Rock Creek Park, hosting a potluck in his official capacity as the nation’s chief medical officer, to start the next phase of his continuing public campaign against social isolation.
Last year, his office released a much-heralded study that identified loneliness as a growing public health epidemic that increases the risk of premature death almost as much as smoking and obesity. The study identified six “pillars of change” that the government could build to combat the problem, mostly involving outreach to the medical, public policy and tech sectors.
The last of these recommendations — “Build a culture of connection” — inspired a new private initiative called Project Gather, to be announced on Tuesday. Its goal is to reintroduce Americans to eating together, in whatever form that takes: a shared scone at Starbucks, a family visit to a taco truck, a neighborhood cookout, a Friendsgiving dinner.
Not only did Dr. Murthy show up at Project Gather’s first dinner, he also brought a Pyrex dish of ras malai, a cardamom-scented dessert of milk and sugar topped with pistachios.
Dr. Murthy said the loneliness study resonated with Americans, many of whom said they didn’t know how to change the habit of staying home alone that took hold during the pandemic. (The problem was first identified by the political scientist Robert Putnam in his 2000 best seller “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.”)
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