Abstract
Background/Objectives:
To observe fruit and vegetable consumption as it relates to body mass index (BMI) and other variables, by analyzing the health surveys of two countries—the United States and France—with traditionally distinct diets, and identifying factors that may explain the differences.
Subjects/Methods:
Two nationally representative surveys that assess food intake via 24-h diet recalls. Respondents include 2126 women and 1911 men from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, and 1572 women and 1141 men from the French Nutrition Barometer Survey. Standard linear regression models and t-tests of both simple and predictive marginal means were run employing the software package SUDAAN.
Results:
Americans appear to consume fruits and vegetables less often than their French counterparts (1.04 vs 1.33 times per day fruits; 1.98 vs 2.29 times per day vegetables). American men consume fruits and vegetables least often (0.98 times per day fruits; 1.88 times per day vegetables) than do American women or French men (1.10 vs 1.25 times per day fruits; 2.07 vs 2.18 times per day vegetables). French women consume fruits and vegetables most often (1.41 times per day fruits; 2.41 times per day vegetables). The French have lower mean BMI than Americans (23.34 vs 28.22 women; 25.20 vs 28.02 men). Regression analyses showed that age, BMI and educational attainment are strongly associated with frequency of consumption.
Conclusions:
These results support our hypothesis that the French tend to eat fruits and vegetables more often than Americans. This study proves to be an important first step in determining some of the influential factors that may affect various populations' consumption of fruits and vegetables.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the invaluable assistance of l'Institut National de Prévention et d'Éducation pour la Santé (INPES). We also express gratitude to Andrea C. Dunlavy for critical review and scientific editing and to Josseline de Saint Just for translational aid. None of the authors had any personal, professional or financial links that compromised the scientific veracity of this study.
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Contributors: SLT was responsible for initiating the study, coordinating the analysis and writing the manuscript. TA-C was involved in the project design and assisted in the manuscript preparation. KWD was responsible for the statistical analyses, interpretation of results and manuscript editing. LN offered support and supervised the project. All authors provided input during the preparation of the manuscript and approved the final version submitted for publication.
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Tamers, S., Agurs-Collins, T., Dodd, K. et al. US and France adult fruit and vegetable consumption patterns: an international comparison. Eur J Clin Nutr 63, 11–17 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2008.2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2008.2
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