Disparities in State-Specific Adult Fruit and Vegetable Consumption - United States, 2015.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Cross-sectional surveillance survey (BRFSS)
PubMed 29145355 · doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm6645a1
What was done
CDC analyzed data from the 2015 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) covering the 50 US states and the District of Columbia. They estimated the proportion of adults meeting the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommendations for fruit (1.5-2.0 cup equivalents per day) and vegetable (2.0-3.0 cups per day) intake across age, sex, race/ethnicity, and income-to-poverty ratio categories.
What was found
Nationwide, 12.2% of adults met fruit intake recommendations (state range: 7.3% in West Virginia to 15.5% in DC) and 9.3% met vegetable recommendations (state range: 5.8% in West Virginia to 12.0% in Alaska). Meeting fruit recommendations was highest among women (15.1%), adults aged 31-50 years (13.8%), and Hispanics (15.7%). Meeting vegetable recommendations was highest among women (10.9%), adults aged 51 years or older (10.9%), and persons in the highest income group (11.4%). Intake was low across all socioeconomic groups.
Why it matters
These findings show that adherence to national fruit and vegetable guidelines is critically low across all states and sociodemographic groups in the United States, pointing to a widespread public health vulnerability for diet-related chronic diseases.
Limits
The analysis relies on self-reported dietary intake from telephone surveys, which is subject to recall and reporting bias. The cross-sectional design cannot evaluate longitudinal dietary habits or direct health outcomes, and the abstract does not report the total participant sample size.
Cited by
- supports Only one out of ten Americans currently consumes the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables.