Teens Pass on Fruits, Veggies

By Vivian Richardson, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent

ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- When teens start high school, other than the desire to rebel from their parents and talk on a cell phone, they eat fewer fruits and veggies. A new study also reveals teens today are eating fewer healthy foods than teens were a few years ago.

"It's a lifetime of what you're eating that's really important," registered dietitian Nicole Larson, M.P.H., told Ivanhoe. To find out if teens are starting their lifetimes with diets meeting national recommendations, Larson and colleagues from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis surveyed more than 2,000 boys and girls in 1999 and again in 2004. The researchers asked the adolescents questions about how many servings of fruit and vegetables they ate.

As the teens moved from middle school to high school, they dropped almost one serving of fruits and vegetables from their daily diet, report researchers. Teens moving from high school to early adulthood dropped almost another serving of fruits and vegetables from their diet.

The researchers also report teens in 2004 ate almost one serving less of fruits and veggies than teens from the same age group who were surveyed in 1999. This indicates there are more than developmental reasons for the decreased intake of fruits and vegetables, Larson said.

Just teaching kids about the health benefits of fruits and veggies isn't good enough, Larson said. "Other studies have looked at school environments and found that, yes, when teenagers have greater access to other foods they tend to eat less fruits and vegetables," she said.

Some of her suggestions include:

• Increasing availability of fruits and vegetables in schools, homes and restaurants
• Making fruit and vegetable choices more appetizing to adolescents
• Decreasing availability of less healthy, yet tasty, foods
• Encouraging more frequent family meals

Larson explained if kids had less access to the junk food and more access to vegetables, this would "make eating healthier more of any easy choice to make."

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.

SOURCE: Ivanhoe interview with Nicole Larson, M.P.H.; American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2007;32:147-150