Many US Adults Fail to Consume Recommended Amount of Fruits, Vegetables

"Salud" is a Latin Post feature series that focuses on health and wellness topics and examines Latino health trends.

Aromatic and flavorful fruits and vegetables are attractive, delicious and healthy, but Hispanics/Latinos and many other U.S. adults consistently fail to meet the national recommendation for consumption of them.

Eating the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables a day can lower the risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and other conditions. Fruits and vegetables add nutrients to diets, help to manage body weight when consumed in place of more energy-dense foods, encourage improved memory and cognitive development, and provide detoxification.

The Centers for Disease Control Prevention issued published their Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), and addressed fruit and vegetable intake recommendations in the U.S. According to the report, 75 percent of Americans do not manage to eat the recommended amount of fruit, and 87 fail to consume enough vegetables.

"These results indicate that fewer than 18 percent of adults in each state con­sumed the recommended amount of fruit and fewer than 14 percent consumed the recommended amount of vegetables," the CDC's weekly report on disease and death stated.

Hispanics/Latinos unfortunately often live in "food deserts communities," and this has contributed to the current reality where U.S. Latinos consume even fewer fruits and vegetables than the national average. Most consume fewer than two servings of fruits or vegetables per day. For many Latinos, particularly outside of urban areas, grocery stores are few and far between, and when fresh fruits and vegetables are available, they're simply far too expensive. It's considerably less costly to purchase frozen or canned fruits and vegetables, although they're often saturated with salts, sugars and preservatives.

Although national estimates indicated low fruit and vegetable consumption, substantial variation by state were observed. Overall, just 13.1 percent of respondents met fruit intake recommendations, ranging from 7.5 percent in Tennessee to 17.7 percent in California; and 8.9 percent met vegetable recommendations, ranging from 5.5 percent in Mississippi to 13 percent in California.

The median frequency of reported fruit intake across all respondents was once per day, ranging from 0.9 in Arkansas to 1.3 times per day in California. Additionally, the median frequency of reported vegetable intake was 1.7 times per day, ranging from 1.4 in Louisiana, Mississippi, and North Dakota to 1.9 times per day in California and Oregon.

Because fruit and vegetable consumption affects multiple health outcomes and is currently low across all states, considerable new efforts are needed to create consumer demand for fruits and vegetables via placement, competitive pricing, and promotion in schools, grocery stores, child care, communities, and work sites. Essentially, improving fruit and vegetable consumption among adults likely begins with improving intake during younger years. Better dietary practices in early life will likely lead to better practices in later life; areas where children learn and play are nature teaching spaces. According to the report, putting this idea into practice could mean exceeding current federal nutrition standards for meals and snacks.

The report suggested that "work sites can make it easier for employees to make healthy food choices and create social norms that support healthy eating by creat­ing policies to ensure that fruits and vegetables are provided at work-site gatherings, including meetings, conferences and other events." Also, educators can work to make vegetables more appealing to children.