William Atkins
Thursday, 01 October 2009 19:46
Science -
Health
Page 1 of 3
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), people of the United States lack sufficient amounts of fruits and vegetables in their daily diet. And, children are worse than adults. Maybe we should change the saying of "Where's the beef?" to "Where's the fruit?"!
The CDC published its 2009 “State Indicator Report on Fruits and Vegetables,” on September 29, 2009. The first state-by-state report can be found at the website:
Fruits and Veggies Matter.
According to the CDC press release “
Majority of Americans not Meeting Recommendations for Fruit and Vegetable Consumption,
“No U.S. state is meeting national objectives for consumption of fruits and vegetables, according to the first report to provide state–by–state data about fruit and vegetable consumption and policies that may help Americans eat more fruits and vegetables.”
The CDC was hoping to find that
at least 75% of U.S. citizens eat two or more servings of fruit each day (the minimum recommended daily serving), and
at least 50% of Americans eat three or more daily servings of vegetables.
However, the American people did not achieve these percentages of fruits and vegetables in their diet—in fact, they did not even come close to them.
[Fruits and veggetables are an important part of any person's diet. Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.]
The CDC found that only
33% of adults (people 18 years or older) ate two or more servings of fruit each day and only
27% of adults ate three or more servings of vegetables each day.
The health organization also found that high school students did even worse: only
32% of high schoolers ate at least two servings of fruit daily and only
13% ate at least three servings of vegetables daily.
Page two continues with a comment from a CDC official, along with three important areas that the CDC indicates should be improved with respect to the consumption of fruits and veggies in the United States.
